Glass founded the Philip Glass Ensemble, with which he still performs on keyboards. He has written numerous operas and musical theatre works, twelve symphonies, eleven concertos, eight string quartets and various other chamber music, and film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards.
Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Ida (née Gouline) and Benjamin Charles Glass. His family were Jewish emigrants from Lithuania. His father owned a record store and his mother was a librarian. In his memoir, Glass recalls that at the end of World War II his mother aided Jewish Holocaust survivors, inviting recent arrivals to America to stay at their home until they could find a job and a place to live. She developed a plan to help them learn English and develop skills so they could find work. His sister, Sheppie, would later do similar work as an active member of the International Rescue Committee.
Glass developed his appreciation of music from his father, discovering later his father's side of the family had many musicians. His cousin Cevia was a classical pianist, while others had been in vaudeville.
Glass has composed many film scores, starting with the orchestral score for Koyaanisqatsi (1982), and continuing with two biopics, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985, resulting in the String Quartet No. 3) and Kundun (1997) about the Dalai Lama, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. In 1968 he composed and conducted the score for director Harrison Engle's minimalist comedy short, Railroaded, played by the Philip Glass Ensemble. This was one of his earliest film efforts.
The year after scoring Hamburger Hill (1987), Glass began a long collaboration with the filmmaker Errol Morris with his music for Morris's celebrated documentaries, including The Thin Blue Line (1988) and A Brief History of Time (1991). He continued composing for the Qatsi trilogy with the scores for Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002). In 1995 he composed the theme for Reggio's short independent film Evidence. He made a cameo appearance—briefly visible performing at the piano—in Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998), which uses music from Powaqqatsi, Anima Mundi and Mishima, as well as three original tracks by Glass. In the 1990s, he also composed scores for Bent (1997) and the thriller Candyman (1992) and its sequel, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), plus a film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1996).
In 1999, he finished a new soundtrack for the 1931 film Dracula. The Hours (2002) earned him a second Academy Award nomination, and was followed by another Morris documentary, The Fog of War (2003). In the mid-2000s Glass provided the scores to films such as Secret Window (2004), Neverwas (2005), The Illusionist and Notes on a Scandal, garnering his third Academy Award nomination for the latter. Glass's most recent film scores include No Reservations (Glass makes a brief cameo in the film sitting at an outdoor café), Cassandra's Dream (2007), Les Regrets (2009), Mr Nice (2010), the Brazilian film Nosso Lar (2010) and Fantastic Four (2015, in collaboration with Marco Beltrami). In 2009, Glass composed original theme music for Transcendent Man, about the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil by filmmaker Barry Ptolemy.
In the 2000s Glass's work from the 1980s again became known to wider public through various media. In 2005 his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1987) was featured in the surreal French thriller, La Moustache, providing a tone intentionally incongruous to the banality of the movie's plot. Metamorphosis: Metamorphosis One from Solo Piano (1989) was featured in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica in the episode "Valley of Darkness" and also in the final episode ("return 0") of Person of Interest. In 2008, Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto IV featuring Glass's "Pruit Igoe" (from Koyaanisqatsi). "Pruit Igoe" and "Prophecies" (also from Koyaanisqatsi) were used both in a trailer for Watchmen and in the film itself. Watchmen also included two other Glass pieces in the score: "Something She Has To Do" from The Hours and "Protest" from Satyagraha, act 2, scene 3. In 2013 Glass contributed a piano piece "Duet" to the Park Chan-wook film Stoker. In 2017 Glass scored the National Geographic Films documentary Jane (a documentary on the life of renowned British primatologist Jane Goodall).
Glass's music was featured in two award-winning films by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, Elena (2011) and Leviathan (2014).
For television, Glass composed the theme for Night Stalker (2005).
Knee 1
Philip Glass Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Get for it is.
It could get the railroad for these workers. And it
Could be were it is.
It could Franky it could be Franky it could be very
Fresh and clean
It could be a balloon.
All these are the days my friends and these are the
It could get some wind for the sailboat. And it could
Get for it is.
It could get the railroad for these workers. It could
Get for it is were.
It could be a balloon. It could be Franky. It could be
Very fresh and clean.
All these are the days my friends and these are the
Days my friends.
It could be those days.
Will it get some wind for the sailboat and it could get
For it is it.
It could get the railroad for these workers workers. It
Could get for it is.
All these are the days my friends and these are the
Days my friends.
But these days of 888 cents in 100 coins of change...
These are theiidays mmy friends and these are my days
My friends.
Make a tiota on thses these are theiidays loop
So if you say will it get some wind for the sailboat
And it could for
It could be Franky it could he very fresh and cleann.
So it could be those ones. So if
You cash the bank of world traveler from 10 months ago.
Doo you rememberf Honz the bus driver... , Well I put
The red ball
Blue ball two black and white balls. And Honz pushed on
His brakes and
The four balls went down to that. And Honz said. "get
Those four balls
Away from the gearshift" All these are the days my
Friends and these are the days my friends.
It could get the railroad for these workers. Itmmcould
Would will it get some wind for the sailboat. And it
Could get for it is.
Philip Glass's song Knee 1 features abstract and seemingly nonsensical lyrics that are open to interpretation. The first stanza repeats the phrase "it could" followed by various possibilities, including getting wind for a sailboat, a railroad for workers, being fresh and clean, or being a balloon. The repetition of "these are the days my friends" adds to the sense of ambiguity and leaves it up to the listener to assign meaning to the lyrics.
In the second stanza, the question "will it get some wind for the sailboat" is repeated, again followed by various possibilities. The final lines introduce a new element with the mention of 888 cents in 100 coins of change, which adds to the overall sense of confusion and uncertainty. The final lines mention Honz the bus driver and a story involving four balls and a gearshift, which seems to have little relevance to the rest of the lyrics.
Overall, the lyrics to Knee 1 are impressionistic and vague, allowing for a variety of interpretations. The repetition of certain phrases and the use of non sequiturs creates a sense of disorientation and ambiguity, leaving it up to the listener to make meaning out of the words.
Line by Line Meaning
Would it get some wind for the sailboat. And it could
Get for it is.
Is it possible for the sailboat to catch some wind, and if it does, will it be enough to move it forward?
It could get the railroad for these workers. And it
Could be were it is.
The railroad might be available for the workers to use, and it might be in the right location for their needs.
It could Franky it could be Franky it could be very
Fresh and clean
It could be a balloon.
It could refer to Franky or something new and clean, or it could refer to a balloon.
All these are the days my friends and these are the
Days my friends.
These are the days we're living in, my friends.
It could get some wind for the sailboat. And it could
Get for it is.
It's possible for the sailboat to get some wind and use it to move forward.
It could get the railroad for these workers. It could
Get for it is were.
The workers could potentially use the nearby railroad to help them in their work.
It could be a balloon. It could be Franky. It could be
Very fresh and clean.
It could mean a balloon, or something referring to Franky, or something new and clean.
All these are the days my friends and these are the
Days my friends.
These are the days we're living in, my friends.
It could be those days.
Will it get some wind for the sailboat and it could get
For it is it.
It could also refer to those earlier days when the sailboat would catch the wind and sail smoothly, and it's possible for that to happen again.
It could get the railroad for these workers workers. It
Could get for it is.
If needed, the railroad is available for the workers to use.
All these are the days my friends and these are the
Days my friends.
These current days are the ones we're living in, my friends.
But these days of 888 cents in 100 coins of change...
These are theiidays mmy friends and these are my days
My friends.
These days of exact change (88.8 cents in each coin when you have 100 coins) are unique and special.
Make a tiota on thses these are theiidays loop
Make a modification on this loop of these interesting days.
So if you say will it get some wind for the sailboat
And it could for
It could be Franky it could he very fresh and cleann.
So it could be those ones.
It's possible for the sailboat to catch wind and move forward, or it could refer to Franky or new, clean objects. This could be any of those possibilities.
So if
You cash the bank of world traveler from 10 months ago.
Doo you rememberf Honz the bus driver... , Well I put
The red ball
Blue ball two black and white balls. And Honz pushed on
His brakes and
The four balls went down to that. And Honz said. "get
Those four balls
Away from the gearshift" All these are the days my
Friends and these are the days my friends.
If you cash the traveler's check from ten months ago, do you remember Honz the bus driver? I put some colored balls in his bus, and he had to tell me to remove them. These are the days we're living in, my friends.
It could get the railroad for these workers. Itmmcould
Would will it get some wind for the sailboat. And it
Could get for it is.
If the sailboat catches wind, it could move forward, or the workers could use the nearby railroad if needed.
Contributed by Amelia M. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Alan Bleier
on Kuru Field of Justice
I couldn't find them anywhere on the internet, so I'm posting them here:
(they are simply passages of the bhagavad-gita)
GHANDI:
yotsyamanan avekse 'ham ya ete 'tra samagatah
dhartarastrasya durbuddher yuddhe priya-cikirsavah
evam ukto hrsikeso gudakesena bharata
senayor ubhayor madhye sthapayitva rathottamam
(kirpaya parayavisto visidann idam abravit)
ARJUNA:
karpanya-dosopahata-svabhavah
prcchami tvam dharma-sammudha-ceta
yac chreyah syan niscitam bruhi tan me
sisyas te 'ham sadhi mam tvam prapannam
(kirpaya parayavisto visidann idam abravit)
KRISHNA:
atha cet tvam imam dharmyam sangramam na karisyasi
tatah sva-dharmam kirtim ca hitva papam avapsyasi
hato va prapsyasi svargam jitva va bhosyase mahim
tasmad uttistha kaunteya yuddhaya krta-niscayah
sukha-duhkhe same krtva labhalabhau jayajayau
tato yuddhaya yujyasva naivam papam avapsyasi
CHORUS:
tam tatha krpayavistam asru-purnakuleksanam
visidantam idam vakyam uvaca madhusudanah
kutas tva kasmalam idam visame samupasthitam
anarya-justam asvargyam ¡akirti-karam arjuna!
GHANDI:
sukha-duhkhe same krtva labhalabhau jayajayau
tato yuddhaya yujyasva naivam papam avapsyasi