Hyacinth Boy

"'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.'
– Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence."
– T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

A song of manic teenage infatuation. Ben and John had composed a typically quirky instrumental and alerted me asking for a quirky song; a romantic song "with a twist". When it came to it, I discovered that my usual microphone was not working, and had to use an old and rather poor one which necessitated me singing as loudly as possible. So it is not sung in my characteristic style. But the need to sing loudly enabled some effects that work well. Who is the Hyacinth Boy? I think it is both the singer and the addressee. That is the nature of infatuation. The infatuated is not able to make a full distinction between himself and the other. So strong are his feelings, that he cannot understand that they are not mirrored in the other. A perfect recipe for wretchedness... And thus it occurred. In this regard, "They Know What They're Doing" is similar. (GG, 10/2026)