Two videos with Sufjan Stevens ethereal song "The Great God Bird" about the elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker - otherwise known as the Ghost Bird (see documentary "Ghost Bird"). I am writing about the interactions of Art, Culture, and Science in humanity's idea and relationship with what we have been calling "Nature." I certainly view these two videos quite differently. The official music video (the pretty girl and the flowers) made me want to discard it right away as somehow missing the point or as over-romanticizing the the song's message about the loss and sense of a need to recover a species of non-human life. The second one which was made by a Youtuber out of Discovery Channel footage of the behind-the-scenes video of the documentary about the woodpecker seems a great contrast to the mystical, even spiritual, aura of Steven's tribute to the "Great God Bird."
What do you guys think? Is there a metaphor in the official video that I'm missing out on? Do we think of our experience IN "nature" as a beautiful walk in a field of flowers while we photograph everything is sight? Or is it this observation-as-a-way-to-know experience that drives us out into the wilderness to be sure that we haven't indeed eliminated another non-human? Perhaps it is more like singing, and listening to, the song: both a in- and out-of-body experience, a subliminal and sublime event?
Here are the lyrics to the song:
In the delta sun, down in Arkansas
It's the great god bird with its altar call
And the sewing machine, the industrial god
On the great bayou were they saw it fall
It's the great god bird down in Arkansas
And the hunters beware, or the fishers fall
And paradise might close from its safe flight flawed
It's the great god bird through it all
And the watchers beware, lest they see it fall
And paradise might laugh when at last it falls
And the sewing machine, the industrial god
It's the great god bird with it's altar call
Yes, it's the great god bird with its altar call
Yes, it's the great god bird through it all
There's a lot more to say but...
