Echo and Narcissus
Words and Music by Chris Pendergraft
for EchoCosmic
So how does a song take place? My secret weapon is my visual mind. The name EchoCosmic is not a name I picked, rather it found me. I inverted it, CosmicECho from the microwave signature left over from the big bang. Then it name meaning of the phrase was given meaning to me by another kind soul. That lead me down the path of defining what I was focusing in on, Echo, a wood nymph, a lost soul, lost to another's vanity and her own want for connection to a creature of such beauty. I thought deeper still about Narcissus, lost deep in his own gaze. There is a lesson on both sides, about what we attach our selves to and why.
This song is a year in the making in some ways as thoughts grow and evolve, the idea of EchoCosmic evolved in me, take from everything, drink of the cosmos, of everything. Be honest in your values and have integrity in the course of your inspiration. A different story would emerge from Echo, had she taken a different course, or never tried to show the young hunter his beauty, or rather deeper still, his perceived beauty.
So the painting came first, I had looked at Waterhouse, and as many references as I could, I saw Echo fading away- I imagined her translucent but then I shied away from that visual. I saw her floating above Narcissus as lost as he.
In one of the stories he withers away and she is left to spend her days pinning away on his passing. Wasted love, wasted focus, still a valid parable so many years later.
Me painting it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c8CDwShaTg&feature=youtu.be
Detail of the painting on deviantart.comhttp://chrispendergraft.deviantart.com/art/Echo-and-Narcissus-Final-500302819
