Edwin Putnam
Remembrance
As the counter culture that we grew up with was dying, Ed was the voice in the wilderness, giving vent to the trauma and the pain of the separation it had wrought. Separation from love, from belonging, from knowing. Something we were all experiencing but preferred to pretend wasn’t happening.
I literally met Ed on the street outside my flat in Neuss. Such things only happen once, that a songwriter from England meets a songwriter from the US on Kaarster Str. in Neuss at nine in the evening, so naturally I invited him in. When he played his first song I immediately knew this was something real. That was the first time I played the violin on one of his songs.
He never told me what to do, or criticised what I did musically, nor I he,
it was what it was…
We would talk a lot. About a lot of things, from inner feelings to far out things and the songs were an extension of that. Nothing was off limits; no dogmas and he liked laughing. Even in the hardest of times he would be laughing about something, very often himself. Sure, we’re traumatized so laughing may well be a substitute displacement for weeping but it’s a lot more fun and gets you through the day and so we kept on… until he didn’t.
A few weeks before he died he told me he had a writing block. He had some nice new tunes but the words wouldn’t come. Did anyone have any ideas, he asked. No one else could write one of Ed’s songs His songs were channelled. They are deep, multilayered, continually searching, full of landscape, nature, pain and truth and Gnostic in their scope, he was my own personal William Blake and the songs always moved me.
Was that a sign? His muse leaving and Ed following within weeks.
I often think that the ‘you’ in his songs is exactly that eternal muse, the separation from which is devastating.
We were planning to record some of his songs this year with the Black Aeroplanes in a good studio. Wasn’t to be. He remains the unsung poet, the Bohemian with a heart who never sold out. His songs are there, waiting to be given their due.
As he sang in the song God Part 2:
Maybe if I stretch my arms out into the sea
I could be everything that you are to me
Maybe just maybe there’s a place where tongues
They never lie and whispers never hurt
I hope you have found that place Ed. In fact I am sure you will find it for your childlike heart will lead you straight there. Then there will really be something to laugh about.
Matti Rouse
Remembrance
As the counter culture that we grew up with was dying, Ed was the voice in the wilderness, giving vent to the trauma and the pain of the separation it had wrought. Separation from love, from belonging, from knowing. Something we were all experiencing but preferred to pretend wasn’t happening.
I literally met Ed on the street outside my flat in Neuss. Such things only happen once, that a songwriter from England meets a songwriter from the US on Kaarster Str. in Neuss at nine in the evening, so naturally I invited him in. When he played his first song I immediately knew this was something real. That was the first time I played the violin on one of his songs.
He never told me what to do, or criticised what I did musically, nor I he,
it was what it was…
We would talk a lot. About a lot of things, from inner feelings to far out things and the songs were an extension of that. Nothing was off limits; no dogmas and he liked laughing. Even in the hardest of times he would be laughing about something, very often himself. Sure, we’re traumatized so laughing may well be a substitute displacement for weeping but it’s a lot more fun and gets you through the day and so we kept on… until he didn’t.
A few weeks before he died he told me he had a writing block. He had some nice new tunes but the words wouldn’t come. Did anyone have any ideas, he asked. No one else could write one of Ed’s songs His songs were channelled. They are deep, multilayered, continually searching, full of landscape, nature, pain and truth and Gnostic in their scope, he was my own personal William Blake and the songs always moved me.
Was that a sign? His muse leaving and Ed following within weeks.
I often think that the ‘you’ in his songs is exactly that eternal muse, the separation from which is devastating.
We were planning to record some of his songs this year with the Black Aeroplanes in a good studio. Wasn’t to be. He remains the unsung poet, the Bohemian with a heart who never sold out. His songs are there, waiting to be given their due.
As he sang in the song God Part 2:
Maybe if I stretch my arms out into the sea
I could be everything that you are to me
Maybe just maybe there’s a place where tongues
They never lie and whispers never hurt
I hope you have found that place Ed. In fact I am sure you will find it for your childlike heart will lead you straight there. Then there will really be something to laugh about.
Matti Rouse
