My grandmother, born in 1908, wrote in her diary every day, but destroyed each filled diary when she got a new one for the next year. Which horrified me. But she had told me that, "These are my thoughts for me and me alone." OK then. As I'm a kind of historian, I wish I had done that all my life, too. But I would never have destroyed what I view as history and a part of humankind.
Anyway, I was fascinated by the album for years. I have long thought, perhaps presumed, it was from a native American poem for some reason. I was fascinated by experimental music as a kid. But also classical and pop, rock, and so on. Mostly not country music as our mom had about 12 singles at 45RPM (thus, 24 songs including the "B" sides). She would play them once in a while and they became part of the musicology of my childhood. It was an interesting assemblage of music styles, some of which I was not that attracted to and which might in part explain my consuming so much unusual music back then. In the end I came to believe all music is good music, if well designed and performed.
Anyway, I was fascinated by the album for years. I have long thought, perhaps presumed, it was from a native American poem for some reason. I was fascinated by experimental music as a kid. But also classical and pop, rock, and so on. Mostly not country music as our mom had about 12 singles at 45RPM (thus, 24 songs including the "B" sides). She would play them once in a while and they became part of the musicology of my childhood. It was an interesting assemblage of music styles, some of which I was not that attracted to and which might in part explain my consuming so much unusual music back then. In the end I came to believe all music is good music, if well designed and performed.
The poem on the back of Morton Subotnick’s The Wild Bull album is not from The Epic of Gilgamesh, as is sometimes mistakenly stated, but rather from a Sumerian lamentation poem — specifically, one mourning the death of Dumuzi (Tammuz), a shepherd god and consort of Inanna (later Ishtar in Akkadian mythology).
This is from a Sumerian dirge or lament dated to around 1700 BCE, making it one of the oldest surviving pieces of written poetry in human history.
Dumuzi was a dying-and-rising fertility god whose myth parallels later seasonal death/rebirth deities (like Adonis or Osiris).
His death is mourned in a series of laments — likely performed ritually — expressing grief over the death of vitality, crops, and fertility during dry seasons.
Subotnick encountered this poem (or a museum display quoting it) and was deeply struck by the emotional universality and timelessness of the grief expressed. He chose it as the thematic basis for The Wild Bull, using electronics to convey the mourning and transcendence embedded in the poem — making the ancient future-facing through avant-garde sound.
So, while not Native American, the poem is profoundly ancient — Sumerian — and one of humanity's earliest artistic meditations on mortality.
Certainly, the poem featured on the back cover of Morton Subotnick’s The Wild Bull album is a Sumerian lament for the god Dumuzi, dating to around 1700 BCE. This ancient text mourns the death of Dumuzi, a shepherd deity associated with fertility and the cycle of seasons. The lament was likely performed in ritual contexts to express collective grief and to ensure the return of fertility to the land.
Here is the full text of the lament as it appears in translations:
The wild bull, who has lain down, lives no more,
The wild bull, who has lain down, lives no more,
Dumuzi, the wild bull, who has lain down, lives no more,
The wild bull, who has lain down, lives no more.
O you wild bull, how fast you sleep!
How fast sleep ewe and lamb!
O you wild bull, how fast you sleep!
How fast sleep goat and kid!
I will ask the hills and the valleys,
I will ask the hills of the Bison:
"Where is the young man, my husband?"
I will say,
"He whom I no longer serve food,"
I will say,
"He whom I no longer give to drink,"
I will say,
"And my lovely maids,"
I will say,
"And my lovely young men?"
"The Bison has taken thy husband away
Up into the mountains!"
"The Bison has taken thy young man away,
Up into the mountains!"
Bison of the mountains, with the mottled eyes!
Bison of the mountains, with the crushing teeth!"
This lament captures the profound sorrow of Inanna, Dumuzi's consort, as she searches for him and mourns his absence. The repetition of phrases emphasizes the depth of her grief and the communal loss experienced due to Dumuzi's death. The imagery of the wild bull and the bison symbolizes strength and vitality, now lost, reflecting the natural cycle of life and death.
Morton Subotnick drew inspiration from this ancient text, channeling its themes of loss and transformation into his electronic composition, thereby bridging millennia of human expression through art.
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