A 70s Rock-Highlite: Uriah Heep - The Park

Early 70s in North America. For young, sophisticated music-lovers (like me !) FM Radio was the thing. Vinyl records, Eighttrack tapes: sure, you could buy your music to feed the livingroom stereo. But what would you buy? Where did you get introduced to the abundance of new creations? Whereas AM radio had for the largest part fastened in a mold we still know all too well - the merciless repitition of the most recent "bubble gum"-like pop songs, a selected few FM stations catered to the "Heads", the "Freaks", progressive long-haired people in other words. Widely varying types of modern popular music were presented, including occasional excursions into jazz and Classical music. A laid-back coolness in the announcements and commentaries contrasted starkly with the frenetic pitched-up voices of the AM jockeys.

Early in 1971 I listened to an interesting, longish rock-piece on my favorite FM station, CKLG FM, Vancouver. A marvellous rock symphony of sorts, largely instrumental, but occasionally garnished by a remarkably high pitched voice. I caught the title ("Salisbury"), but the group's name seemed strange, to me it sounded like "You Are A Heap". Groups with strange names - there were many. Yet, this one seemed unlikely. Even when the issue was resolved, it became clear that the name was actually "Uriah Heep", it still made no sense to me. To my shame, I must confess. As a literature student I should have known that Uriah Heep is one of the major characters in Dickens' novel David Copperfield. But, at the time I had only Oliver Twist to my credit, read as a child in German translation.
Two other songs stood out for me on the album: The Park and Lady In Black. The latter very closely matched a bittersweet romantic experience I had, while The Park even back then struck me as a perfect piece for an accompanying image show.

This show became reality first in 2008. It was one of the first ones I put together with the newly acquired ProShow Producer Software.  The images where mostly from the Botanical Gardens in Gothenburg, which I knew inside out from jogging rounds. There I would often pass a parkbench that had a little metal plaque on it. This was in memory of a young Swede who died high up in the Twin Towers, New York, in the 2001 terror attack. This Gothenburg youngster was on a temporary training assignment in the US and I often gave him a thought while running or walking.

When working with the images I listened to the lyrics closely. For the first time I noticed that the song ended on a sad note, unredeemed:

So, why my heavy heart? You say
When tears would stain
The sights so gay
My brother's dreams once here did soar
Until he died at the hand
Of needless war

At first it seemed impossible to illustrate these lines with my nature pictures, which were supposed to convey positive feelings. But then it struck me that I could do justice to the lyrics by showing the bench and the memorial plaque as an expression of my feelings for this unfortunate young man whose life was so cruelly slackened. And so I dedicated my image show to him, David.

I put it on Youtube in 2008. Up to now it has had almost half a million views. I am not suggesting that this is due to my pictures, the image quality on YT is deplorable. Simply, The Park is a well-known song and for a long time other sources for it on YT were scarce. Ten years have passed since publication and I felt I should do a new version. My own efforts got more out of the original images now and luckily Youtube is able to display in much improved image and sound quality today.