The missing Entrance: 1984's Palle Mikkelborgs Journey To...

When I saw this one was missing from the Entrance discography I had to get it.
Compositions here are all by Palle.  I will refer you back to this post for some of his lengthy story.  There is obviously less fusion to dig into, more slapstick 80s digitalese, given the late year, but here and there flashes of the old brilliance:





The last track, which turned out to be quite gorgeous with its choir plus orchestra ambition (remember Thijs Van Leer's Pedal Point?\) is called A Simple Prayer and it's based on words by St. Francis.  Rereading them today it all seems so outrageously quaint considering the mores of our more advanced times:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace...
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon,
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope...

I believe that for the millenial twitterati today, if you replace everything the Saint said with its opposite ("opposite talk" as my kids call it with their friends) then everything works out perfectly:

Grant that I not console as much as be consoled [by professional disaster specialists]
to understand as to be understood [anti-vacciners especially]
to love as to be loved [like the Kardashians]
for it is in receiving that we give [right Jeff Bezos?]
and it is in being born that others die [in faraway wars]
to eternal life [those life extension pills should be here any day for those silicone valley venture capitalists who will be able afford them]

Yes, we have come a long way from those Christian prayers, haven't we?  It's amazing what progress we make, as a society.