Background: I started writing this song almost two years ago but had to put it aside while I finished the WATER FALLS DOWN album. I kept going back to it every few months but would always get dragged away again before I could finish. Each time I went back I found that the song had a powerful effect on me. Click on one of the links at the top of this page to listen to the song while you read.
"Blue Flame" is a song in the troubadour tradition. The opening melody line is actually taken from a beautiful song by the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn, "Quan vei la lauzeta" ("When I see the lark..."). He probably heard this melody sung by someone else and added his own words. This was an acceptable practice at the time, so I thought I would simply slip into the troubadour tradition myself and use one of their melodies. After the first few bars I took things in a different direction but tried to keep the overall "drone" feeling that is typical of medieval love songs. The lyric, too, is steeped in the troubadour ethos.
Although some of the troubadours have been justly accused of flattering women of high birth in order to advance their own careers, there were others (including women troubadours) who wrote love songs of timeless beauty and honesty. This is where our modern love ballad was born. Jaufre Rudel's "L'Amour de Loin" ("Distant Love") and Paul McCartney's "The Long and Winding Road" have much in common!
Unlike contemporary songwriters, the troubadours took an enormous risk in writing about a romantic attraction to an Unobtainable Other. In an age when the church dominated ALL political and scientific thought, this was tantamount to heresy. Not only was the desired one NOT God, but the woman in question came dangerously close to being an object of worship herself, the ancient and powerful Goddess/Muse.
Although it may seem strange to link the troubadours of 12th century France with contemporary songwriters, Joseph Campbell goes even further, seeing them as the originators of our modern notion of individualism, so central to western society. I've transcribed a portion of an interview with Bill Moyers in which Campbell discusses his thoughts on the troubadours: Joseph Campbell on the troubadours. (If you are listening to streaming audio of "Blue Flame" the music will continue to play while you read the interview.)
