At the end of this month it is fifteen years since this creative centipede, also spider in its web, died. The English rock band The Waterboys released the album last month. Life, Death and Dennis Hopper in multiple glory of this once-capped phenomenon. A wonderful moment to try to pay some tribute to this illustrious company with some words, hopefully well-chosen.
Frankly the Scottish band The Waterboys are after their first beautiful single The Whole of the Moon, that in the days that I Engels studied, around my twenty-fifth birthday appeared, then almost completely disappeared from my sight. Up to a year or two ago when I discovered a song from their album on a streaming service An Appointment with Mr Yeats and soon after bought this CD secondhand. A perfectly fitting, handsome and beautiful CD inspired by the great love and admiration of singer Mike Scott for the Irish poet W.B Yeats. Life, Death and Dennis Hopper I listened to for about two weeks via the same streaming service, but this time I decided to buy the present kind of pricey vinyl. I don't regret that! This time no dents, taps and dust on the record, but a nice top quality vinyl with superior sound quality so that all attention to the content, the beautiful, humorous and convincing music and lyrics can go. You get the feeling that Dennis Hopper has personally interfered with this two-length album from The Waterboys.
Dennis Hopper, born in Dodge City, Kansas, the city where once the famous gunfighters Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday stayed, is best known for his work as an actor, director and visual artist. His documentation through beautiful photos of the hip 1960s and his paintings, both abstract and figurative have a very distinct signature, but have remained less known here in Europe than his presence in the American film world of the second half of the last century, which few people have escaped. I am thinking in particular of the legendary Easy Rider, with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson. Unfortunately, his blaze ended when it became known by the end of 2009 that Dennis Hooper was suffering from prostate cancer and soon proved to be un treatable. The rest is history.
Although... Somewhere out there beyond the limits there Hey,s still moving,hes still able to lay some old magic on te table according to the lyrics of Mike Scott in the song Ten Years Gone About Dennis' life as bacchant on borrowed time.
He was an artist of life, whether he drank, made art or films, he lived completely and with conviction. No half work, no fearful doubts, at least not visible, but Dennis Hopper went for what he thought, felt and wanted to show, a man on a mission. People, especially artists with a vision and a message, are blamed for the fact that it seems to be all about themselves in social life and love. I believe that this is inherently creating, at least with capital letters. High trees catch a lot of wind, we say here in our flat Netherlands with its many hectares of agricultural land, where sticking your head above the ground is a daring undertaking, as I think is the case all over the world. In the spotlight we need a strong ego and a strong armor with Teflon qualities. There is no self-declared person in this world who can do that differently than this way. Sometimes the only thing left is: Fuck you cowboy! ! !
