With an extensive solo career spanning dozens of albums, Peter Hammill is certainly more than just the front-man and leader of Van Der Graaf Generator (VdGG). His literate, soul-examining lyrics and his often-anguished vocal delivery make his music perhaps an acquired taste, but his uncompromising artistic vision has shone since his first release, Fool's Mate, back in 1971.
Stylistically, he has forged his own path, touching on progressive rock, punk (before it was even called that), electronic experimentation, intimate singer-songwriter settings, and even opera/musical theatre (with his adaptation of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher).
Hammill's solo career has coexisted with VdGG's activities. The band was offered a contract by Mercury Records in 1968, that only Hammill signed. When VdGG broke up in 1969 he wanted to record his first solo-album. In the summer of 1969 Hammill had a residency at The Lyceum and played weekly solo-concerts there. Eventually the intended solo-album was released under the VdGG-banner as their first album (The Aerosol Grey Machine). Hammill's first official solo-album was Fool's Mate (1971), containing songs from the early (1967/68) VdGG-days.
When VdGG broke up again in August 1972, Hammill resumed his solo-career. Songs that were intended for VdGG, now ended up on his solo-albums, notably "(In The) Black Room (Including 'The Tower')" (on Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night) and "A Louse Is Not A Home" (on The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage). This to some extent makes it difficult to separate Hammill's solo work during the 1970s from his work with the band (for the majority of both his solo-songs and the band's songs he is credited as the sole songwriter, and some of his solo albums feature all the members of Van der Graaf Generator). In general, however, solo Hammill is concerned with more personal matters, while the band's songs deal with broader themes.
Hammill's Nadir's Big Chance (1975} was a great change from the preceding album, In Camera. Whilst In Camera is characterized by extremely intense and complex songs and even has some musique concrete on it, Nadir's Big Chance is notable for its anticipation of punk rock. In a 1977 radio interview, John Lydon of the Sex Pistols played two tracks from the album and expressed his admiration for Hammill in glowing terms: "Peter Hammill's great. A true original. I've just liked him for years. If you listen to him, his solo albums, I'm damn sure David Bowie copied a lot out of that geezer. The credit he deserves, just has not been given to him. I love all his stuff"
Over (1977) contains very personal songs about the break-up of a long-term relationship.
Hammill's first solo-album after the 1978 break-up of Van der Graaf was The Future Now. With the next albums, pH7 and A Black Box, the sound got more compact, more new wave. On those albums, Hammill played the drums himself. What followed was 'the K-group'. In later years Hammill would sometimes refer to the band as a "beat group". The K-group consisted of Hammill himself on guitars and piano, with John Ellis on lead guitar, Nic Potter on bass, and Guy Evans on drums and percussion. They recorded the albums Enter K and Patience.
Hammill's early records, like the VdGG albums, were released on Charisma Records. He parted company with them after pH7 (1979), and then released albums on a number of small labels. A Black Box came out on S-Type, a label run by Hammill and his manager Gail Colson. Enter K and Patience appeared on Naive, Skin and Margin on Foundry and In A Foreign Town, Out of Water and Room Temperature: Live on Enigma Records. In 1992 he formed his own label, Fie!, on which all his albums since Fireships have been released. The label's logo is the Greek letter phi (Φ), a pun on PH-I. Ever since the 1970s he has also had his own home recording studio, appropriately called Sofa Sound (his website was later named after the studio).
Musically, Hammill's work ranges from short simple riff-based songs to highly complex lengthy pieces. Mainly because of his refusal to make anything resembling middle-of-the-road music, and the general absence of any smooth or glamorous sounds in his music, there is much debate amongst his admirers whether Hammill is to be considered a part of the so-called progressive rock scene. In many interviews however Hammill himself has stated that he does not want to be put in the progressive rock music label, or any music label at all.
His output is prolific. Many different styles of music appear in his work, among them artful complexity (for instance Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night), avant-garde electronic experiments (Loops & Reels), opera (The Fall of the House of Usher), solo keyboard accompaniment (And Close As This), solo guitar accompaniment (Clutch), improvisation (Spur of the Moment), film music (Sonix), band recordings (Enter K), and slow, melancholic balladry (None of the Above).
Hammill survived a heart attack in December 2003, less than 48 hours after having finished the recording of Incoherence. In 2005, Hammill announced the reformation of Van der Graaf Generator. In 2004 they had recorded a new album, Present, which was released in April 2005, and from May until November 2005 played a series of well received concerts.
Between 2005 and 2007 Hammill has overseen the remastering of almost all of his pre-Fie! releases, and has also started similar work on his more recent catalogue. The last of the Charisma remasters was released in September 2007.
Hammill's solo-career did not end because of the VdGG-reunion. He released his new album Singularity in December 2006. It was the first solo-album he completed after his heart attack, and for a large part it deals with matters of life and (sudden) death.
In 2007 several gigs by Van der Graaf Generator as a trio (minus David Jackson) have taken place in Britain and the rest of Europe, and their new album Trisector was released in March 2008. Hammill's new solo album, Thin Air came out 8th June 2009. Hammill and the band are touring extensively in USA, Japan and Europe these days.
Gog Magog
Peter Hammill Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
There can be no mercy,
No bitter flagellation for your sins;
No forgiveness and no sackcloth
Can cease the dance
Of ashes on the wind.
Too late now for a wish
Too late to change, to breathe, to grow.
Too late to smother out the tell-tale footprints
Which mark your passage through the greying snow.
The song "Gog Magog" by Peter Hammill deals with themes of regret and the futility of wishing for change after a certain point. The first two lines, "In Bromine Chambers / There can be no mercy," evoke a sense of confinement and perhaps a feeling of being trapped in a toxic environment. The mention of "no bitter flagellation for your sins" indicates that there is no catharsis to be found here - there is no opportunity for self-punishment or atonement, only a continuous dance of ashes on the wind.
The second stanza adds to this sense of futility, stating that it is "too late now for a wish / to change all wishing." The use of the phrase "all wishing" suggests that there may be a sense of overwhelming desire for change or for something different, but that it is impossible to satisfy. The mention of "the tell-tale footprints / which mark your passage through the greying snow" adds a sense of finality and irrevocability to the situation - there is no going back, and the past cannot be changed.
Overall, "Gog Magog" presents a bleak and haunting picture of a situation where change is impossible and regrets loom large. It is a powerful meditation on the limits of agency and the human experience.
Line by Line Meaning
In Bromine Chambers
Within this specific place, referred to as 'Bromine Chambers'
There can be no mercy,
There is no room for mercy here, no compassion.
No bitter flagellation for your sins;
There will be no punishment, no self-flagellation, for your past wrongful acts.
No forgiveness and no sackcloth
Neither forgiveness nor humility in the form of wearing rough cloth to show repentance will help you.
Can cease the dance
Nothing can prevent the swirling, chaotic motion
Of ashes on the wind.
Of ashes which flow aimlessly and uncontrollably within the air.
Too late now for a wish
At this point in time, it is much too late for merely wishing,
To change all wishing;
It is beyond the scope of mere wishing to bring about the necessary changes
Too late to change, to breathe, to grow.
It is too late to transform oneself internally, adapt with circumstance, or alter one's very existence.
Too late to smother out the tell-tale footprints
It is also too late to eliminate the signs of one's past actions.
Which mark your passage through the greying snow.
These footprints, which serve as evidence of one's actions and movement, now permanently stain the ground beneath the falling snow.
Writer(s): Peter Hammill
Contributed by Avery B. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Peter Laszlo Szasz
Some call me SATAN others have me GOD
Some name me NEMO...I am unborn
Some speak of me in anagrams
Some grieve upon my wrath...
The ones who give me service
I grant my scorn
My words are
'Too late', 'Never', 'Impossible', and 'Gone';
My home is in the sunset and the dawn
My Name is locked in silence
Sometimes it's whispered out of spite
All gates are locked
All doors are barred and bolted
There is no place for flight
Will you not come to me
And love me for one more night?
Some see me shining, others have me dull;
Gun-metal and cut diamond -I am ALL
Some swear they see me weeping
In the poppy-fields of France...
In the tumbling of the dice see them fall!
Some laugh and see me laughing
Down the corridors of power:
Some see my sign on Caesar and his pall
My face is robed in darkness
Sometimes you glimpse me in the shade
All friends have gone
All calls are weak and wasted
There is no more to say
Will you not crawl to me
And love me for one more day?
Some wish me empty, others will me full
Some crave of me infinity - I am NONE
Some look for me in symbols
Some trace my line in stars
Some count my ways in numbers:
I am No One
Some chronicle my movements
My colours and my clothes
Some trace the work in progress
- it is done
My soul is cast in crystal
Yet unrevealed beneath the knife
All wells are dry, all bread is masked in fungus
And now disease is rife
Will you not run from this
And love me for one more life?
dave Powell
All gates are locked,
all doors are barred and bolted,
there is no place for flight.
Will you not come to me
and love me for one more night?
All friends have gone,
all calls are weak and wasted,
there is no more to say.
Will you not crawl to me
and love me for one more day?
My soul is cast in crystal
yet unrevealed beneath the knife.
All wells are dry, all bread is masked in fungus
and now disease is rife.
Will you not run from this
and love me for one more life?
Surrealms
So unique.........shines a light on corners of the brain rarely visited.
Philippe Cirse
Perfect song to read the subjective forms of the clouds and follow with a devoted eye the grooves of the stems of the trees; to appreciate the intricate writing of nested branches, to appreciate the colors of the decomposition of light into droplets of water in a garden, to feel strongly the moist soil of ancestral forest and to perceive the traces of the animals of the deep past
Philippe Cirse
@AlbertoVO5 My pleasure dear ! ... :)
AlbertoVO5
Philippe Cirse many thanks. Got tomorrow's work laid out for me.
Cameren Lee
This reminds me of how angry I felt with myself when I was rejected by my biggest high school crush (an ongoing one...)
Peter Laszlo Szasz
Some call me SATAN others have me GOD
Some name me NEMO...I am unborn
Some speak of me in anagrams
Some grieve upon my wrath...
The ones who give me service
I grant my scorn
My words are
'Too late', 'Never', 'Impossible', and 'Gone';
My home is in the sunset and the dawn
My Name is locked in silence
Sometimes it's whispered out of spite
All gates are locked
All doors are barred and bolted
There is no place for flight
Will you not come to me
And love me for one more night?
Some see me shining, others have me dull;
Gun-metal and cut diamond -I am ALL
Some swear they see me weeping
In the poppy-fields of France...
In the tumbling of the dice see them fall!
Some laugh and see me laughing
Down the corridors of power:
Some see my sign on Caesar and his pall
My face is robed in darkness
Sometimes you glimpse me in the shade
All friends have gone
All calls are weak and wasted
There is no more to say
Will you not crawl to me
And love me for one more day?
Some wish me empty, others will me full
Some crave of me infinity - I am NONE
Some look for me in symbols
Some trace my line in stars
Some count my ways in numbers:
I am No One
Some chronicle my movements
My colours and my clothes
Some trace the work in progress
- it is done
My soul is cast in crystal
Yet unrevealed beneath the knife
All wells are dry, all bread is masked in fungus
And now disease is rife
Will you not run from this
And love me for one more life?
myearsloveit
the abomination of desolation
Juan Cruz
Bitch
El Pulpo Orsi
INCREIBLE, ESTUPENDO, GENIAL, TODOS LO BUENOS CALIFICATIVOS POSIBLES
Kosovo Blues
I would love this sang By Diamanda Galás,being done a vocal performance of "Litanies of Satan" she perfectly dare to do so