Music To My Eyes

When I look at fine art, I see beauty.

Well, sometimes. Much of the time, I only see crap. I’m not exactly the most cultured alter ego in the world.

But it’s not often that I hear things when I stare at a painting.

That’s about to change, however, because of a discovery in one of the most famous works of art in history. A computer technician and musician in Italy says he’s discovered musical notes hidden in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper.

It seems that millions of art historians and interested tourists have missed the clues for more than 500 years. The Italian codebreaker drew the five lines of the standard musical staff across a copy of the painting—and discovered that the hands of those sitting at the table and the loaves of bread on it represented musical notes.

The notes apparently sounded like garbage (I’m imagining something like Nickelback) until he used one of Da Vinci’s own tricks. The master used to write some musical riddles from right to left, you see. Playing the unearthed notes backwards in a slow rhythm—suggested by other clues in the painting—reveals a requiem-sounding hymn lasting 40 seconds that fits the somber mood of the depicted scene.

For years, with books like The Da Vinci Code, we’ve been searching art for things like secret mysteries of the Catholic Church. All this time, we’ve been missing great pieces of music concealed within paintings.

I’m guessing these works actually contain earlier versions of the following songs:

Monet’s Water Lilies: The Commodores’ “Still” and Dave Mathews Band’s “Don’t Drink the Water”

Dali’s The Persistence of Memory: Pink Floyd’s “Time” and Coldplay’s “Clocks”

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes : Rush’s “Ceiling Unlimited” and Poison’s “Look But You Can’t Touch”

Van Gogh’s The Starry Night: Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night” and Moby’s “We Are All Made of Stars”

Wood’s American Gothic: John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Small Town” and Pearl Jam’s “Daughter”

Picasso’s Guernica: Iron Maiden’s “Killers” and Slayer’s “Raining Blood”

Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa: Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” and Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch”

Munch’s The Scream: The entire Judas Priest catalog.