James Varda – Chance and Time – brilliant album of lyrical and musical beauty in the face of great adversity

I haven’t stopped playing this album. It is so intimate and deeply honest. This feels like a creative man baring his soul as he tries to put his whole life and illness into some positive perspective. It is an artistic achievement that is immense but it is the sheer honesty and integrity that cuts into you. I’ve never heard anything like it. It is a cathartic eulogy for life. Everything is chance yet out of that random element comes beauty.
James has poured every last drop of his talents into this. It has essence about it.
I’ve never heard a tumour being compared to the big bang. All life pours out of it. The world, born of chance, is a chance event producing a paroxysm of incredible wonder.
It sounds, from the colour of this album that James has terminal cancer and this is his response. If that is the case I hope that something wonderful happens and James recovers. It happens. Where there is life there is hope. If that is not to be then this album is great addition to the lexicon of human accomplishment. It captures so many emotions that usually go unspoken and probably unfelt. James articulates them perfectly. This is a wonderful life we are living. The natural world is so incredible. This is an apt legacy.
I feel I am sharing something so personal we rarely get the opportunity.
This is an album about death but it is also a celebration of life and love. We are here for such a short time. It is our duty to live and love and delight in the glory around us in the fleeting moments we are here.
I don’t know what James’ partner feels about this outpouring. The love is raw.
Life should be about love not hatred and violence …….. if only!
There is nothing we can do in the face of chance and time but stand up to it and appreciate the sheer scope of beauty we are living amidst.
We live with what we have, without hope, and drink in the awe and majesty of the moment. There is nothing we can do but appreciate the world around us.
We have a duty to preserve this jewel of a planet and pass it on.
Thank you James. We will pass it on. There is something. We will pass it on……….