THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Tags

Don Quixote, La Mancha, movies, MUSIC, Obama

SALVADOR DALI – L’Age d’Or  (Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

No mention of The Man of La Mancha is complete without hearing the show’s most renowned piece, The Impossible Dream.  This inspiring song has fallen victim to its own success; suffering abuse from so many pretenders from Elvis Presley to the local elementary school drama group. Luckily, Youtube carries the original movie version by the Peter O’Toole, who, while no Pavorotti (who performs the ultimate concert version with his friends Carreras and Domingo) , manages to deliver the song with his trademark intensity. Less fortunate is the video quality – but then it is all in the hearing.  If your taste is more for music than drama, there are several other Youtube offerings below, including in French and Spanish.  Whatever you do, do NOT miss the HONDA commercial!

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest

To follow that star

No matter how hopeless

No matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march into Hell

For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man,

Scorned and covered with scars

Still strove

with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable star

HONDA TV Commercial – with Andy Williams

[Wikipedia Info]

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RICHARD KILEY – ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST (1965)

PLACIDO DOMINGO

ROBERTA FLACK

LUTHER VANDROSS

ELVIS PRESLEY

SHIRLEY BASSEY –

LA QUETE – JACQUES BREL

[Click on the image]

– LYRICS in French

[Click on the image]

SUENO IMPOSIBLE –

PALOMA SAN BASILIO

[Click on the image]

– LYRICS in Spanish

LIFE AS IT IS

Tags

Don Quixote, La Mancha, movies, Obama

Watching our new president take on the greedy CEOs, raging republicans and all the sordid demons that plague our land, I couldn’t help but think of another unlikely champion who dared to fight against impossible odds — Don Quixote, Cervantes’ gallant Lord of La Mancha, the defender of the destitute and the slayer of windmills.

I do hope our modern-day knight errant keeps the faith like the 17th century Don; but unlike the legendary Spaniard, I hope his quest will not end in madness.

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And maddest of all…

to see life as it is

and not as it should be!

Click on the image to see Peter O’Toole recite this memorable soliloquy from the movie production of the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha.

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Life as it is.

I have lived for over forty years,

and I’ve seen…

life as it is.

Pain…

misery…

cruelty beyond belief.

I’ve heard all the voices of God’s noblest creature.

Moans from bundles of filth in the street.

I’ve been a soldier and a slave.

I’ve seen my comrades fall in battle…

or die more slowly under the lash in Africa.

I’ve held them at the last moment.

These were men who saw life as it is.

Yet they died despairing.

No glory, no brave last words.

Only their eyes, filled with confusion…

questioning why.

I do not think they were asking why they were dying…

but why they had ever lived.

When life itself seems lunatic,

who knows where madness lies?

Perhaps to be too practical is madness.

To surrender dreams, this may be madness.

To seek treasure where there is only trash…

too much sanity may be madness!

And maddest of all…

to see life as it is

and not as it should be!