It is a rare thing for me to experience insomnia - to have something entrain itself into my mind so powerfully that I cannot sleep. But last night, I definitely awoke singing the body electric. And it was kinda enjoyable for a bit. Imagine THIS on replay in the darkness of night!
I sing the body electric
I celebrate the me yet to come
I toast to my own reunion
When I become one with the sun
And I'll look back on Venus
I'll look back on Mars
And I'll burn with the fire
of ten million stars
And in time
And in time
We will all be stars
And that's just the first verse. Luckily my mind hadn't recalled the rest of the song. So I decided I needed to blog about it.
Like ta hear it?
Here it goes...
Oh! First I need to get you in the proper mood (cue You Tube):
I had a friend call me "the hippiest Mormon" he ever knew. And I don't even wear hemp jewelry. My wardrobe is pretty blasé, except for maybe the rainbow-colored chevron maxi dress I don on occasions (yes. EVEN to church.). But perhaps he was more making reference to my love of astrological metaphor ("As above, so below") and philosophical speculation in regards to the time, place and day/year one is born? Yes, I think so. And now that I watch that video again and think on the lyrics, I realize that my connection to planets MUST HAVE begun when Mrs. Sauerland handed us our very own copy of the choral arrangement of this song in choir class my senior year.
Mrs. Sauerland. The ever optimistic music lover who, despite sporting a very manicured and boring grey short helmet do and polyester shirt dress with nude hose, could've, now that I think about it, could've even been HERSELF a hippie- at one time.
I'm pretty sure we all thought she was nuts as we perused the purple title cover and unnerving lyrical suggestions inside. Pubescent teens talking about a "body electric"? Oh and we're singing this for senior graduation in front of the whole student body??? My choir class was not quite the artsy, fartsy crew you see in this totally awesome FAME circa 1980 video from the hit movie. This was 8 years later and many of us were just getting up the courage to let boys and girls know we "liked" them. Choir class was our "safe zone". Though we did try our hand at neon pinks, blues and yellows in clothing, singing with wild, confident abandon about our "bodies electric" was another thing entirely.
"Um, Mrs. Sauerland? What happened to that 'My Fair Lady' medley we all knew and loved?"
Yeah there were a few nervous giggles as we went through "I Sing the Body Electric" for the first time. But the cool thing was that by the time graduation rolled around most of us were on board with our bodies being electric. It was a special thing to witness the evolution, charged by a song of confidence and hope, (and hey, a full drum set!), of a choir of self-conscious kids as they blossomed on an outdoor stage.
Senior year was for me a year of near wonders. I was driven to overcome some of my fears that kept me more isolated and shy and try new things. I had talents and felt an urge to reach out to more of my peers, showing them who I was and hoping to get to know and care about more of those around me.
The phrase "body electric" is the mind child of Walt Whitman in his poem from Leaves of Grass and inspired Michael Gore who used it for the final song in the movie Fame as a way of celebrating and showcasing the students' talents. Whitman added this phrase to a later 1867 edition of the poem. I marvel that one could conjure up such a phrase in the 1800s. How I love poetic originality!
Whitman's use of the term "body electric" is both plural and singular. Looking at his first stanza you can see that he is directly referring to a body of loved ones.
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
For the rest of the poem he explores other marvels of the body, both male and female, and concludes, that yes, it is not needful or wise to separate the body from the soul. The body is soul.
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
I sing the body electric.
Do you?
(Comment below. Make me blush.)
PART 2 (coming soon): How the body electric is connected to Mars, Venus and stars according to moi.
