If this is not the most beautiful song ever, there are none more beautiful: Don McLean’s Vincent, an Ode to Van Gogh.  More beautiful as poetry than as music and, set to prose it might read like this:

Starry, starry night, paint your palette blue and gray, look out on a summer’s day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul.

Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodils, catch the breeze and the winter chills in colors on the snowy, linen land.

Now, I understand what you tried to say to me and how you suffered for your sanity, and how you tried to set them free.  They would not listen, they did not know how; perhaps they’ll listen now.

Starry, starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze, swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue; colors changing hue, morning fields of amber grain, weathered faces lined in pain are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.

Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me, how you suffered for your sanity, how you tried to set them free.  They would not listen, they did not know how, perhaps they’ll listen now.

For they could not love you, but still your love was true and when no hope was left inside on that starry, starry night, you took your life as lovers often do.  But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night, portraits hung in empty halls, frameless heads on nameless walls with eyes that watch the world and can’t forget, like the strangers that you’ve met; the ragged men in ragged clothes, the silver thorn of bloody rose lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now, I think I know what you tried to say to me, how you suffered for your sanity, how you tried to set them free.  They would not listen, they’re not listening still, perhaps they never will.
_______

Lyrics set to prose copyrighted by Don McLean.  Observations and commentary, © Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.