The Song

***The Song***is a poem written by Paul Gaugin  and published first in 2003's *Tales of a World Far Away* collection as part of Piero Thomas's 'Tales of the Human Heart' author appreciation initiative.

## Transcription

The Song - The Theme

Once upon a time, there was me. Then there was a song.

Well okay, there wasn’t really a song, more of a theme song. Or song that was in the movie but wasn’t the theme, or… Well, you get the point. I hope.

What I’m trying to say is that once upon a time when I was a little tyke, I never really liked all that “popular” jumbo that everyone else always said they liked. I always found it, I don’t know how to put it. Flat? Soulless? Dry? Thin? Flakey? It seemed like a hoarse scream that could peel a two dimensional orange off of onion paper. Well, at least I listened to something good sooner or later, finding that there was much “deeper” or more “powerful” music out there, at first primarily through film scores. Since my family wasn’t very music-centric, well, my dad was, but other than listening and liking well enough his blues and jazz and other sorts of depressing bar songs I never really felt like it represented me as a person. Or that I could play it in the background and someone else who just happened to walk indoors would get a really sour impersonation of me anyhow. What I mean to say, is that I found music from films, or heck, themes the kid shows on TV ten times more catchy and meaningful than any other junk that was on the air. (Arthur, anyone?) Plus, I also watched these TV shows every single day, so that probably ingrained it into my mind a bit more.

Okay, before I get ahead of myself, I guess at this point I should say that I don’t hate all sorts of music (except for country. Not old western sounding country, but that new love song garbage), but that I reasonably like all sorts of music at different times. Some of these times occurring during a movie.

I first heard of Jurassic Park back in first or second grade, when my class would head down to the school library and check out young readers books as part of some reading initiative. I, bored and wandering around the library (and staying away from the creepy section by the far wall) wondered what a kid (whose name I can’t remember) was reading, sitting in a nice, plush chair with another student harrying over his elbow like a fat hawk. Coming over, I peered down and saw the most terrifying and transfixing image I’d ever see in my life, a near-dead guy with a bunch of tubes sticking out of him in the dead of night, and on the next page a creepy-face dinosaur T-Rex doing a big roar while people ran away. Man! How’d that get in the school library?

Many years later, I heard of this “dinosaur movie” by other kids in the school, and I asked my dad if we could ever see it. He said I could, but it might scare me, while he told me how this PG-13 movie should've been rated R. That set a precedent as this movie as an over the top, nightmare-inducing scarefest that I was too young to see. Until one day, as the In-Gen helicopter settled down over the green striations of a rocky, sun-lit valley as John Hammond himself first stepped out of that red-tinted bird of war, I instantly fell in love with the world. The dinosaurs, the movie, the magic, the promise. Heck, for some strange reason I found the first twenty minutes of the film, the part where it focuses on the park and the people and all the set-up and how everything was “normal” was far more interesting than the final dino showdown near the end, but nevertheless anytime that iconic theme would come on cue I’d instantly love that scene, and would carry memories of this tremendous movie for millennia to come.

I’m not so sure what it is about the theme that caught me in its grace. Perhaps it was the eerie and creeping start, forcing oneself into a state of surreal beauty, rising out of the depths as a composed piece of ocean brilliance. Soaring to great heights as the tone rumbles with a great magnificence that slowly gnaws away the fear that slowly builds until a giant crescendo booms up, but instead of dread comes hope. Surprise, and glory as the music builds up to a royal procession, repeating itself until an upbeat tempo and horns herald the coming of the new age, all as it fades slowly into the night.

Fear, juxtaposed with beauty. That was what hooked me. The nature of nightmares, yet tinged with the sweet taste of victory. There can be no rise in spirits without a fall in fear. And there can be no fear without victory. A paradox. And rightly so.

Then: Here I am now. Over six years later, and I still listen to the songs riveting spirit and the movies grand themes whenever it’s on cable, even going as far as to bloating in giddish joy when it was re-released in 3D some summer long ago. Even now, many years later, I still can hear the long distant fog of Isla Nublar, the screeching call of a Pterodactyl bouncing off the craggy spires of that mysterious island. Or the loving grasp of a Velociraptor as it slowly decimates its victim from the inside out. I am, and shall always be, a prisoner of the park.

And I will always come back for more.

## Notes and references

1. ↑ *My Life*, section under 'About,' retrieved from personal website. Janurary 21st, 2016. Code P: 4532B