A strange memory of a dying swan

I was just listening to an artistic vaporwave album on Bandcamp, Between Two Worlds by Infinity Frequencies, and there was a sample from Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals. It brought back an early memory of a feeling, specifically to the segment of The Swan (the dying swan, more accurately). I remembered being a little kid in elementary school music class.

It was the early 90s. My music teacher had turned off all the lights and brought out a projector of some kind, a device that contained illustrated cards that a teacher flipped through, and they were projected onto a wall or white pull-down screen. She played Carnival of the Animals along with the accompanying illustrations, and during it she turned a little knob to flip to the next picture in time with the segments.

I'm not sure why, but as a child, Carnival of the Animals sounded threatening within the first few seconds with such deep and foreboding instrumentals. It was a weird dreamy sound to me, and I didn't hear it in the way it was intended. A threatening dream approaches vibe, maybe?

When it got to The Swan segment, my teacher flipped through a series of paintings of a beautiful white swan slowly turning black, which was meant to depict it slowly dying. When it fully turned black, it symbolized death. This utterly terrified me, especially with all of the lights off combined with my already warped interpretation of the general vibes of the music. Granted, I had an panic disorder, and I suspect psychotic symptoms, and we'd listened to Danse Macabre with a series of pictures before that.

Danse Macabre's illustrations depicted Death playing a violin for dancing skeletons, some of which became horrifying at the end with glowing eyes. You can actually watch the same sequence I did as a kid here.

I did some more research on the dying swan stuff, and I found it to be traced back to a belief that the mute swan only made a sound when it was dying, and it was a beautiful song. It was thought that Camille maybe believed that myth.

The Swan segment has left an eerie feeling ever since, and it unnerves me still. Thanks for traumatizing me, Mrs. G.

©2022 Shane Blackheart