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Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

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Dee
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by Dee »

In Rob's post below about the "A Better Place" official video, he wrote:
We should all be lucky that our dreams take us to a bar with an all access pass and service, life up for review, fresh ice and cold water in a clean glass, before hitting the stage one more time. In our dreams. It's just a dream.
When I read your post and these two sentences in particular, Rob, I saw the light, I had a light bulb :idea: moment.

The official video: "It's just a dream."

It's Federico Fellini. (Paragraph one from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_ ... .931969.29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Now this video makes sense to me. Kinda. I will sleep on it. ;)

Thank you!


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Dee
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by Dee »

Thank you, Rob, for kick starting this discussion!
It's great fun and I am learning a lot of new information and perspectives.
And guess what? We have only just begun....14 more to discuss including the interludes!
But maybe we will focus on the songs first!
Hope to read more members' thoughts, too!


robduloc
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by robduloc »

Cowpoke and Jay and Dee, have submitted some of the best post that I have read on well, my favorite album of all time, I will go back and read them time and again, thank you.

I mean really, Dee your last post,awesome. Cowpoke you are really helping me with all your kind input and attention to detail.

And I believe that I have made a new friend, Jay, I know because he wrote me, sent or put me on a cloud last night with all his kind words, I should be so lucky in my life.

I just want to say how much Roger Joseph Manning Jr. has left an imprint upon me, between Campbell and his producers, Manning's arrangements are one of the main reasons I keep coming back to Ghost On The Canvas, and cause to listen to the album a couple times in a row each sitting.

That's why I am thankful this discussion has shown me where to go and look for other works by him.

I will seek to buy and own every thing by Roger Jospeh Manning Jr., and I have you to thank for the suggestion.

A big part of my upcoming summer.

Thank you, for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Love,
Rob


robduloc
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by robduloc »

Thank you, for all your posts and enrichment, I am so grateful.

A Better Place the official video.

The bar... aren't we all in a state of limbo somehow.

Where do you go in your dreams at night, a perfect place, really?

When you have unfinished business, what is your heart saying.

Yes, I want to fly but will my dreams take me where I need to go, will base desire take me there.

We should all be lucky that our dreams take us to a bar with an all access pass and service, life up for review, fresh ice and cold water in a clean glass, before hitting the stage one more time. In our dreams. It's just a dream.

Who are we playing to or performing in our dreams, us... me... heckler...

Our dreams don't define us, more like our maker, I can only hope and pray.

Deliver me from all my dreams and where I ought to have been.

Save my family lord, as you save me.

Awaiting on the sweet hour of deliverance, where time knows no bounds.

For every bar in every town there is a place for me, go to and return.

Traveling musician, partner in crime, husband, father and friend, I am no longer my worst enemy, the dream is over.

Take me away.

Show me the light of good works Let me go home.

Return to my maker and walk the streets of Jordan, in all her glory.

Waiting on the Comin' of My Lord

A Better Place

See You There~

Glen Campbell Ghost On The Canvas


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Dee
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by Dee »

Same here...not the best but perhaps the most creative in addition to the animated "Livin' In A House Full of Love".
For me, this video looks as hip now as when it first came out in 2011. Love the spin art and ink spots and especially the water colors that come together to represent the infamous group's press photo for the Goodtime Hour Country Special. The "gold burst" on the stage is again reminiscent of the Goodtime Hour.
Westerberg wrote "Ghost", but I think he is in the video to represent the painter (who is perhaps representing a fan as well) who creates the ghost on the canvas. I feel he also represents the Campbell fan because in the video's beginning he is seen watching Glen on TV, holds the signed Deluxe "Ghost On The Canvas" set, and plays the album (vinyl--just like the first GC album) on a turntable.
It's a bit distracting to show the painter struggling with the canvas before it is mounted on a wall unless this was done to represent the "weight" or importance of the four country music artists.
Really appreciate the live parts with Glen's band that reminds me of the Goodbye Tour.
Love the high morse code / telephone lineman sound in the intro and also at the end. How perfect to link this swan song to Wichita Lineman.
I appreciate how the vid opens with a young photo of Glen; ends with a then current one.
Musically, I feel this song isn't Glen's best on the album; I have always felt that he is straining a bit to reach those higher notes. Or is this just me?
The lyrics are beautiful. But I don't know what this song means; it's a mystery to me. Can anyone help me with this?

To back up....the three "A Better Place" videos:
Yes, the George Dougherty video is bare bones, and this simplicity is what I love about it. Just Glen and his guitar. His emotions right out there for all to feel with him.
Agree that the song is not a music video song, but George's video feels personal to me, just like the song.
Totally agree with Rob's description of the BBC video; I can't express it any better. Definitely focuses on memories, remembering, mortality.
The "Hollywood" version...appropriately starts with Glen opening a door and walking through the doorway into a passageway. His coming in from the light and moving into a dark passageway is significant....he is going through a change, he is beginning a journey, and moving toward a better place....Wait. A bar. No, I don't understand that choice of location either, Jay. Would love to know why a bar? Why a darkened bar?
Appreciate seeing Glen reflecting on his life in photos as he pages through a photo album. He is smiling. This reflection, however, may be a foreshadowing of what he will be losing: his memories, his awareness of loved ones in his life. (This is the point at which Ashley's song, "Remembering", takes us to her promise to her Dad, "Daddy don't you worry, I'll do the remembering." This promise is all the more poignant when connecting her music video for "Remembering" where she is paging through the family's photo album to Glen's video with him paging through a photo album.)
Glen performing to an empty venue at the end is puzzling to me. I don't understand this part of the video. Why is he shown alone?


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jay
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by jay »

Not sure I can go with "best" video.
I like...the choreographed parts where Glen is singing, by himself and with the kids. I like the psychedelic backgrounds and I think Glen did an awesome job with the camera.

Don't like the ink drops, nor the ink drop pictures of other artists.
Don't really get Paul Westerberg pasting himself, non stop, throughout the whole video.

Good Video...in many aspects.

Oh, another good thing...where else can you see a Micky Dolenz signed Monkeys Gretsch...rare guitar.


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Cowpoke
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by Cowpoke »

Well I just want to say I love reading all the comments so far in this topic. And we are only just beginning! The second song on the album of course is the title cut.

I would say the best official music video for a Glen Campbell record, ever... do you guys (and girls) agree?



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robduloc
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by robduloc »

Thank you, Jay,

I can tell that you are a very big fan of good music, I love reading your post, it is very rich in life cycle experiences, the discerning way that you go about exploring the matter.

That is what the problem is with history, you know.

You can buy and read all the essays and books you like, but it all comes down to the same thing, generation after generation looking at the same core material and trying to throw a new spin on matters or the same old artifacts.

That is what makes Glen Campbell's legacy very real and powerful, he is still alive and all our memories will sustain us, we need to embrace them.

My first reaction to Campbell performing A Better Place in a bar is that it is very Hollywood, a hill or town the young man overtook and conquered and quite deservedly so, owns or has in his pocket, the waiter or server and venue otherworldly even... as you most excitedly alluded to The Shining. I'm with you, the makers thinking outside the box.

And so, yes it is all about learning to shine and how to use that gift or propensity, no doubt, Campbell is a master, and so are his fans, far as I am concerned, you have it all, and got it nailed, a life uncommon.

Lip synching to a series of slides? Beautiful and painful, it isnt just his suffering or condition, we see it is our parents growing older, or our mortality even, I can't think of any music videos where the subject is reacting or responding to the arc of their life this way, very vulnerable, we are so lucky to have a record, all the lines etched in Campbell's face and some closure somehow, knowing what he has been diagnosed with, you have to admit, it must have been a comfort for him in some way, that he knew in his heart in the light of good works that he will be missed.

I am thankful for the three videos Dee and Cowpoke posted here. And your reaction.

The Surfdog Label video for A Better Place really has a way of punching a hole through the roof and letting the light in.

Thank you again, Jay, for your love of guitars and all things Glen~

Love,
Rob


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jay
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by jay »

The three videos...

The Dougherty video...poignant, but bare bones. Shot in one take? You have a dog walking through the last scene. I think they just took an opportunity and shot it at his home...or someones home.

The BBC video...Lets take some Christmas lights, wrap them around a pole, shoot wide aperture, in front of a slide projector. If you watch carefully, you can see Glen actually watching the slideshow, while lip syncing and grinning at one point. I have always wondered, when he was lip syncing, did that almost work like a teleprompter, to hear the lyrics. Had to be done in more than one take, I think, due to the ending scene...looks well produced at that time with Glen staring right at the camera and then the slow return to the front screen, through a slow blink transition...but Glen always had a knack with flirting with the camera.

Surfdog video...Now they try to add a visual story line to the song, as most modern videos are produced these days. But it appears to steal from the Shining [the dark bar setting (((and why, oh why, have Glen in a bar)))], the BBC video (reminiscing) and the Dougherty video (shots of Glen, by himself playing the guitar.) The most effort at attempting to make a video worthy of showing, but I was always curious...why so late to the game to do this one...after there had been two other attempts. Maybe it was contractual.

A Better Place is not a music video song. It is very personal. It is a stronger song than what a video can portray...but probably only to those of us that have followed Glen and were on top of what was going on with him at the time of its release.


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Cowpoke
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Re: Ghost on the Canvas - Share your thoughts!

Post by Cowpoke »

Here's another interview with Julian about the Ghost sessions. Some interesting quotes...
Raymond, 41, grew up in Portland, Ore., listening to his parents play Campbell's hits. "It wasn't anything at the time that I got or liked," he said. "But those songs became ingrained in my brain. As I got older, I started to appreciate all the Jimmy Webb songs: "Galveston," "Wichita Lineman," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." That stuff, with Al De Lory as the producer, and the string arrangements that Al did, were unbelievable. I'm a student of those records."
"I thought we made something so different that I feared people wouldn't get it conceptually," Raymond said. "Some people look at it as a dark record, but we look at it as something positive and spiritual. It's about what he's going through and where he's been."
The hardest part of making the record was determining the running order and choosing the instrumentals. "We went through 60 different instrumental pieces to get the six that we felt worked," Raymond said.
"It was never the kind of thing where we sat down and did it from scratch," Raymond said. "It was a partnership in writing after a song was somewhat together. I'd bring the song to him and he'd finesse it. He's such a song doctor."


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