Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia
All Music Guide:
The Echoing Green is a solo project, though for live shows the frontman also employs drummer Jason Partch, a keyboard player (either Patrick McCallum or Jerome from MORTAL), guitar player Brandon Dickerson, and either David Gatt or Chris O'Brien as a DJ. Defend Your Joy was released in 1994, and a remix project called Aurora 7.2 appeared the following year. Both are on MYX Records.
Wikipedia:
The Echoing Green (or Ecchoing Green) is a poem by William Blake published in Songs of Innocence in 1789. The poem talks about merry sounds and images which accompany the children playing outdoors. Then, an old man happily remembers when he enjoyed playing with his friends during his own childhood. The last stanza depicts the little ones being weary when the sun has descended and going to their mothers’ laps. No more playing is expected, for it is time to take a break after a long day enjoying games.
Style
The poem follows the structure of a day— 'the sun does arise' in the beginning of the first verse, and 'the sun does descend' in the middle of the third verse. The poem is the contrast of innocence and experience, but also the contrast between perception of joys and sorrows. What is happening on the Green will happen again, shown by the 'old folk' who watch the children and reminisce about their own childhood on the Green. The whole poem is written in 6 sentences with much repetition. The poem could also be attributed to the life of a person— birth, life, death.
The Poem
The Echoing Green The Sun does arise, And make happy the skies. The merry bells ring, To welcome the Spring, The sky-lark and thrush, The birds of the bush, Sing louder around, To the bells cheerful sound, While our sports shall be seen On the Echoing Green. Old John with white hair Does laugh away care, Sitting under the oak, Among the old folk. They laugh at our play, And soon they all say, Such, such were the joys, When we all, girls & boys, In our youth time were seen, On the Echoing Green. Till the little ones weary No more can be merry The sun does descend, And our sports have an end: Round the laps of their mothers, Many sisters and brothers, Like birds in their nest, Are ready for rest: And sport no more seen, On the darkening Green.
