59 replies to this topic

[lacy]

I think that the song sounds so much like Maggot Brain (particularly the intro drums and guitar), that it should have been credited or at least mentioned by John. I know John loves Maggot Brain, but has he ever mentioned anywhere that he meant this as a kind of updated Maggot Brain?

[nirvana]

Actually, I think he did..in one of the latest interviews..I'll try to find it for you.

edit: here it is - http://www.invisible-movement.net/v/magazi...page05.jpg.html

you have the 'funkadelic' part separated.

[lacy]

Thank you! I'm glad he did mention it!

[dagge]

lacy, on Mar 27 2009, 07:42 PM, said:

I think that the song sounds so much like Maggot Brain (particularly the intro drums and guitar), that it should have been credited or at least mentioned by John. I know John loves Maggot Brain, but has he ever mentioned anywhere that he meant this as a kind of updated Maggot Brain?

"Some friends of mine and me were hanging out on weekends, and we had a few late nights - like 5:00 in the morning - where we were laying there listening to [Funkadelic's] Maggot Brain. My friend had never heard it before, and he was making me put the CD on repeat, so he could lie there and listen to it over and over. So I woke up after a night like that, and we had just recorded After The Ending, which seemed like a real distinct type of ending for the record. I was thinking that I should do something that is just as distinc of a beginning..."

- John Frusciante (Guitarist - March:2009)

Oh, you probably knew already, I was a little bit too late.

[IceFireAlchemist]

In a way I wish that someone would dislike this song because we're all coming from a similar place emotionally.

But hey, I'm in a Frusciante forum, and it's an amazingly beautiful song, so that's unlikely!! Just a thought though. Anyone not like this song? For example the first time I heard it- the drums made me jump out of my skin! Like watching fireworks- beautiful but electrifying. And now, it's sunk into the song and I don't hear it as much, which means that I use it to sleep instead of wake up. Anybody else feel something like that?

[patches]

The new radiohead song called 'Codex' is highly reminiscent of this song in kind of a two-sides-of-the-same coin way, and the sound treatments of "Song to the siren"...

If i think of john's voice singing this song my eyes just well up with tears like crazy, i almost think it could be a song John sent to Thom Yorke to record as they know eachother fairly well i've heard. Or otherwise, just heavily inspired, an exciting listen for all fans of John's most emotional work. : )

Here is a youtube link. https://www.youtube....h?v=nJLqMK31m4Y

[Nimi]

patches, on 24 February 2011 - 04:33 PM, said:

The new radiohead song called 'Codex' is highly reminiscent of this song in kind of a two-sides-of-the-same coin way, and the sound treatments of "Song to the siren"...

If i think of john's voice singing this song my eyes just well up with tears like crazy, i almost think it could be a song John sent to Thom Yorke to record as they know eachother fairly well i've heard. Or otherwise, just heavily inspired, an exciting listen for all fans of John's most emotional work. : )

Here is a youtube link. https://www.youtube....h?v=nJLqMK31m4Y

I have always loved Radiohead. The new album is a great one and this song has truly touched my soul in many ways. Isn't it beautiful how there is a lot of space there - in the lyrics, in the echoing sounds and in those far away human voices at the end. The aspect I love also in John's work. Almost heard myself there and feel like jumping in to a clear lake - despite the over minus 20 celsius and the frozen cover. So maybe I just jump in to these sounds instead and slide my hand against them...

Looking behind me the water turns icy blue..

[talvitaja]

Codex sounds really good... and it does have some similarities to Before the Beginning.

[Fenix]

Haven't been listening to anything but Radiohead's new album since it came out... and I didn't feel any similarity to be honest.

But Codex is indeed an amazing song. Radiohead is my favourite band =)

[J_Rob]

Ah, I've always loved this song but I had never heard "Maggot Brain." Now I have another song to love. I love actually being able to hear where an artist gets his/her inspiration from. Fantastic.

I can understand saying that Codex is similar; the connection I find is mostly in the piano as well as the sort of laborious movement.

[Ryan5]

I've been loving the sample of maggot brain in this track, so I thought i would share it. Let me know what you think. -
Butch - LSD-25

[Maya____and the Cosmic Dance]

I have to admit, Before the Beginning is Frusciante's only song I didn't listen to more than 3 or 4 times. When I put the Empyrean on I always start with Song to the Siren. Somehow I can't stand the drums, above all the sound of the snare drum, which to my ears comes across in a non-sensitive way. The guitar is adorable. But compared to the orgasm-like Maggot Brain it's a weak counterfeit.

Nevertheless, I always found it interesting that it's 9:09 long. Not only because the album contains 10 songs, ending with After the Ending as the tenth, which closes the circle and might point out that the whole journey of the empyrean is about "nothing more but a spark in a fire".

What's more interesting, according to some occult writers number 9 is the actual number of the ego. That is, because whatever you multiply nine with, you inevitably end up with number 9. The ego, whatever you built upon it, is a self-referencial loop which ends up where it started - with itself. And just like the ego, 9 multiplied with whatever you like always comes down to 9 (if you add up the the numerics of the result). For instance:


7 x 9 = 54
5 + 4 = 9

13 x 9 = 117
1 + 1 + 7 = 9
(also: 11+7= 18 or 1+17 = 18, which comes down to 9 again)

4 x 9 = 36
3 + 6 = 9

In the case of Before the Beginning there are two options:

9 x 09 = 18
1 + 8 = 9

Or:

90 x 9 = 810
8+10 = 18
1+8= 9

Was this reference intended? I have no idea. But we know John Frusciante is influenced by occult writers. And isn't the Empyrean all about the dying of the ego?

[Nimi]

Maya____and the Cosmic Dance, I skip the first track very often too, albeit me otherwise generally liking instrumental tracks. "Maggot brain" is in a league of its own, but there's no need to compare. You wrote that you can't stand the drums. Do you think that the drumming is kind of too "lazy" in a way?

And did you guys know that if you divide numbers 1…10 (There are 10 tracks in The Empyrean!) with 11 (the number of letters in the title "The Empyrean" is 11!) you get a nice symmetric pattern… 0,0909090909--; 0,181818181818--; 0,2727272727--… from 0...9 to 9…0. There's always something that breaks symmetry in universe for anything to exist, but this just proves that John definitely had a master plan!

And that there’s Heaven ahead in No. 11!

[Maya____and the Cosmic Dance]

Dear Nimi! How did you come up with your "dividing with 11"? That`s brilliant. I would have never thought about counting the title`s letters.

If we take the 11 from the title as the representative for the spiritual task as a whole and 10 as the single steps it takes to fullfil the task: we arrive at the pattern "090909090909..." - which echoes exactly the length of Before the Beginning (09:09; and is also the result of 1/11). As you indicated, "0909090.." is quite a revealing pattern. If we accept the occult interpretation of 9 and the general meaning of 0 the pattern represents an ancient concept of classical buddhism:

0 = Nothingness
9 = Ego

The infinite iteration of 9 and 0 indicate a necessary relationsship between them, an ongoing movement. It also points out that the ego actually is not this dark, despicable thing it usually is reduced to, but the essential vis-a-vis to Nothingness.

Wow, I`m delighted! Thank you very much for your hint. Maybe, we slightly go over the top here. Maybe, we`re seeing meaningful patterns while there actually are only numbers. But to be honest, I don`t care. The empyrean is a concept album. I love that it works on so many layers for me (or us?). Even if J. A. Frusciante did not make it up consciously, he himself confessed:

"Throughout the making of this record, I felt that some force was expressing itself through me, and so I don’t claim that my understanding of it is at all definitive."

[Maya____and the Cosmic Dance]

There`s even more to your discovery:

10/11 = 0,90909090
9/11 = 0,81818181 (8+1=9)
8/11 = 0,72727272 (7+2=9)
7/11 = 0,63636363 (6+3=9)
6/11 = 0,54545454 (5+4=9)
5/11 = 0,45454545 (4+5=9)
4/11 = 0,36363636 (3+6=9)
3/11 = 0,27272727 (2+7=9)
2/11 = 0,18181818 (1+8=9)
1/11 = 0,09090909

What a beautiful pattern! In all cases it comes down to 0 and 9...

[Onlyafewdays]

"the eye sees what the mind wants to see"

however, i really enjoy reading all this stuff ;-)

[Nimi]

I am ashamed to admit, I was actually trying to make a joke and I tried to make it obvious, hence counting the letters of the title. I wasn’t trying to ridicule you, Maya____and the Cosmic Dance, though. I personally think your posts are very, very interesting stuff to read. And no need to care, like you said, if it is over the top or not according to others.

Plus there are numerical relationships that appear all over the nature and give rise to e.g. shapes and dynamics in the nature, but these very same relationships can be found also in the rules unconsciously used e.g. by artists in their art. John C. Lilly, a scientist, has once written: “The miracle is that the universe created a part of itself to study the rest of it, and that this part in studying itself finds the rest of the universe in its own natural inner realities”.

"the eye sees what the mind wants to see"

So keep your I’s open then! Our mind is a part of “reality”, part of what we see. When we see, no matter what we see, we see “reality”. With all those numbers, or not.

[Maya____and the Cosmic Dance]

I "half" realized you were making a joke. But then, "your discovery" was too great of a joke for me to pay attention if you were serious or not.

What you two say about the relationship between mind and reality, I would put it this way: The mind sees what it wants to see, and it doesn`t see what it does not want to see. We need to have a mind atuned to insights in order to find insights in the world. Just as you need loving eyes to see love in the people around you. That is not to say, the insights or the love you find don`t resemble the actual world. We just need to have activated our "receptors". If our minds don`t want to see love and insight we will hardly find it even if it`s right in front of our eyes. And for the "danger" of discovering too much: I`d rather see more than there is than less.

Just imagine how horrible, living in a gray and flat and meaningless world only because our minds didn`t want see the beauty, love and meaning there actually is. What a nightmare. As for me, I will never be able to believe in the "scientific sobriety" (though I love sciene). Being completely down-to-earth, as most of modern science wants you to be (apart from John Lilly and a few others), does not mean to see reality as it really is. It rather means to close your mind for those insights which you can only gain by becoming the insight, by transforming into it, by celebrating with your whole being a relationsship to the world. The hard-headed person who by all means trys to seperate himself from the world in order to see how it is in itself, will never be able to see any more but an extincted shadow. What`s missing in his picture is himself, his receptors.

To put it more easy: Thanks for the inspiring joke. I truely enjoyed it!

[Hayden]

Before the Beginning is definitely a tribute to Maggot Brain. I remember thinking they sounded so similar, and i checked their respective tabs when i learnt a bit of Before the beginning on the guitar.
The similarities on the tabs were:
- The backing guitar for MB has the chords picked up and down on each individual string (sorry best way i could word it)
BTB has alot of similar chords but they're strummed
- Also the notes played on the solo guitars are very similar
(Feel free to disagree or correct me, im not theortically skilled in music at all, its just something a newbie to guitar like me spotted)

Both songs are phenomenal, very relaxing to listen to, and especially good when you want to wash away some things on your mind