Written by: Paul Gleason
Just for a few moments, forget the term “psych rock.” Embrace, instead, Romanticism – especially in one of its experimental heydays: England in the early 19th century.
This was the time of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who said, “The mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within…”
This was the time of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who wrote of Shakespeare: “[N]o passive vehicle of inspiration possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge became habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to…stupendous power…”
Even though both poets were deeply skeptical of the poet’s ability to sustain the intensity of the moment of inspiration in writing, they agreed on a number of key points: that the poet was a vessel through which transitory inspiration flowed, that the composition of poetry couldn’t be willed, that the poet’s personality mingled with this inspiration in his/her art, and – perhaps most crucially – the poet was a person of learning and openness to experience (see: travel, drugs, sex, mysticism, Eastern religions), who had the tools to create when the “inconstant wind” hit him/her.
John Keats, perhaps the finest Romantic lyric poet, composed his “Ode to a Nightingale” in one sitting, creating a text that a bird inspired but allowed him express his personal concerns with life, death, dreams, time, and his poetry’s capacity for capturing his feelings about them.
Brian Wilson, a later day Romantic and “psych rock” pioneer, wrote “God Only Knows” in 30 minutes. The melody and lyrics simply “arrived” – and Wilson and co-writer Tony Asher had the musical and poetic tools to be the vessels through which their mournful tune about lost love reached the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkPy18xW1j8
John Lennon, another later day Romantic and a musician near to the heart of Elephant Stone’s Rishi Dhir, crafted “I Am the Walrus” out of his reading of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which taught him to play with language, to make up words. But the immediacy of inspiration can really be found in Lennon’s spontaneous decision to turn on a radio and randomly put a section of a broadcast of King Lear into the mix.
In linking the Romanticism of Shelley, Coleridge, and Keats to psych rock, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles, I want to make a few simple statements about the importance of the work of Rishi Dhir and Elephant Stone’s album The Three Poisons.
They, like the Romantics who followed the satiric and ironic literature of the 18th century, and like the great bands of the mid-to-late 1960s who came after the commercial songwriting of the Brill Building, are creating art that is new, heartfelt, and innovative.
Heartfelt and innovative? Yes.
And there’s no better place to look than their 2014 album, The Three Poisons, which demonstrates Dhir’s highly evolved learning. Sure, Dhir is a veritable master of two instruments – the bass and the sitar – and he knows how to write a catchy tune and sing it with the best of them. His partners – Gab Lambert on guitar and Miles Dupire on drums – are also master musicians. These guys have the tools.
But what sets them apart as heartfelt and innovative?
The answer is simple: Dhir’s openness to experience. He’s the contemporary embodiment of Shelley’s fading coal, Coleridge’s “vessel…possessed by spirit.”
Dhir’s music results from where this openness to inspiration takes him. The title track of The Three Poisons comes from his engagement with The Tibetan Book of the Dead and Buddhism (the three poisons: ignorance, attachment, and aversion), as does “All Is Burning,” which derives from The Fire Sermon, in which the Buddha discusses the liberation of suffering through detachment from the five senses and the mind. And “Intermediate State” is a moment of reflection on the record, which parallels Bardo, the intermediate existence between life and death in Buddhism – the state in which people learn if they’re ready for liberation from the body and prepared to accept enlightenment.
The sequencing of these “Buddhist” songs is crucial to The Three Poisons, mainly because Dhir positions “Intermediate State” midway through the record, while “All Is Burning” comes near the beginning and “The Three Poisons” near the end. The placement of “Intermediate State” as track six on an 11 track record indicates that the record’s protagonist (perhaps Dhir himself?) does not feel that he’s overcome sensual attachment and is not ready for enlightenment – hence, the five remaining songs on the record, which include the three poisons of ignorance, attachment, and aversion.
Is it any wonder that “Child of Nature (Om Namah Shivaya)” comes after “Intermediate State” on the record? The frightening music forecasts the temptation of attachment that will cling to the child – who wasn’t ready for enlightenment during Bardo – as he lives.
(A short pause and a question: How many records can you name that accomplish what Dhir has done with The Three Poisons? The man has definitely brought artistic innovation into the world.)
But the thing about The Three Poisons is it doesn’t feel like an apologia for Buddhism – and Rishi Dhir is not a didactic songwriter. Rishi’s you; Rishi’s me.
Dhir accomplishes this universality of theme by using his own exploration of spirituality to create a sonic field that elevates the other songs on the record and gives them a sense of deep meaning (William Blake: “For everything that lives is holy.”)
The next time you spin the record, really listen to the lyrics. I mean, really listen. You can hear songs like “Worlds Don’t Begin and End with You” as a simple love song, but listen to the way in which the words tie into Dhir’s spirituality and bigger themes of salvation and the cycle of birth and death.
It’s no wonder that “Wayward Son” follows on the record. Sure, it’s perfect pop. But it’s also simultaneously a love song to Dhir’s wife and – I’ll say it – God.
And for Dhir, the personal can’t exist without some kind of political commitment. “Motherless Child (Love’s Not for War”) and “Knock You from Yr Mountain” open the record with a cry for peace that rivals the work of both Shelley and Lennon.
It’s Dhir’s ability to find the richness of life abiding in all areas of creation that make his songwriting so special, so heartfelt. In other words, The Three Poisons is Dhir, and Dhir is The Three Poisons.
Dhir is a mild-mannered revolutionary, a Romantic psych rocker in an ironic time, a man whose music must be felt and not “heard.” There’s quite simply no one else who’s doing what he’s doing – and the earnestness of this article is only a shadow of the beautiful earnestness of The Three Poisons.
Portrait of Shelley by Alfred Clint.
Portrait of Coleridge by Pieter van Dyke.
Photo of Elephant Stone by Bowen Stead and Daniel Barkley.
