Thursday, December 13, 2007

Which River?

Which river? Seriously, which river is Zakk Wylde talking about in the song In this River? It is a good song, written before one of his buddies was killed by some nut on stage, another guitarist, but now Zakk dedicates the song to him.

    I ask the question because the refrain is: In this river all shall fade to black.
So, is it the river of life? Or one of the rivers of Hell? Oh, you only know of the one? The river Styx? Oh, wait a minute, you don't even know about that one? C'mon dear reader, get with it, there is more to life than politics and Gorebul Warming, there is history, literature, and poems that would rock your world…if only the time was taken to discover them.

    Paradise lost, and regained. Or perhaps Greek mythology, or, perhaps, even futher back and further away. Now, there are more than the one river, there are five of them that wind around the underworld, or so it is told, and they separate us from them, the living from the dead, the good from the evil.

    If Zakk refers to the river of life, he is mistaken about it all fading to black, it only fades if you let it, if you give in, give up.

    Light is at the end, hope and love…

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think he's talking about the eternal river that floweth from the porcelain throne. The fading to black could refer to two instances. First, when the “flow” is watery and dark it creates a dense film on the surface of the “river” deflecting any light that had previously penetrated –fade to black…perhaps more of a splatter to black. Second, of course is that inevitable counterclockwise (or clockwise depending on your hemisphere) trip down the drain into eternal darkness and despair. Zakk Wylde was notorious for his bathroom humor. Flush away Zakk. Flush away.