Murder Ballad MondayWhisperer in Darkness: Der Erlkönig - Page 3
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Whisperer in Darkness: Der Erlkönig — 2 Comments

  1. As a parent of the younger son who is picking his way toward adulthood, I find I prefer the Steve Gillette version of Erlking.

    Gillette’s version — while never mentioning the war of that era — shows that a parent’s desperate fantasy of being able to protect one’s child has been put to rest. The parent now finds him/(her)self in despair, desperately searching for the mandated role of protector that drove all meaning up to this point.

    The seduction of the adult world is coming close to stealing my baby/child-man away and I am (as I must be) helpless against this.

    • Beautifully put, Kristen. I would place Gillette’s version in a slightly “realer” world than Schubert’s, which is timeless and primal like a nightmare. Losing a child to the world is a kind of death and in Gillette’s version he lets the father grieve.