The most impres­sive of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach’s pieces, musi­cophiles may have told you, will knock you over with their inge­nious­ness, or at least their sheer com­plex­i­ty. Indeed, the music of Bach has, over the past two and a half cen­turies, pro­vid­ed meat and drink to both pro­fes­sion­al and ama­teur stu­dents of the rela­tion­ship between inge­nious­ness and com­plex­i­ty. It’s no mis­take, for instance, that the com­pos­er has offered such a rich source of intel­lec­tu­al inspi­ra­tion to Gödel, Esch­er, Bach author Dou­glas R. Hof­s­tadter, well beyond hav­ing giv­en him a word to fill out the book’s title. Lis­ten to the first canon from Bach’s Musi­cal Offer­ing, and you’ll hear what sounds like a sim­ple begin­ning devel­op into what sounds like quite a com­plex mid­dle. You may hear it and instinc­tive­ly under­stand what’s going on; you may hear it and have no idea what’s going on beyond your sus­pi­cion that some­thing is hap­pen­ing.

If you process things more visu­al­ly than you do aural­ly, pay atten­tion to the video above, a visu­al­iza­tion of the piece by math­e­mat­i­cal image-mak­er Jos Leys. You can fol­low the score, note for note, and then watch as the piece revers­es itself, run­ning back across the staff in the oth­er direc­tion. So far, so easy, but anoth­er lay­er appears: Bach wrote the piece to then be played simul­ta­ne­ous­ly back­wards as well as for­wards. But pre­pare your­self for the mind-blow­ing coup de grâce when Leys shows us at a stroke just what the impos­si­ble shape of the Möbius strip has to do with the form of this “crab canon,” mean­ing a canon made of two com­ple­men­tary, reversed musi­cal lines. Hof­s­tadter had a great deal of fun with that term in Gödel, Esch­er, Bach, but then, he has one of those brains — you’ll notice many Bach enthu­si­asts do — that explodes with con­nec­tions, trans­po­si­tions, and per­mu­ta­tions, even in its unal­tered state. Alter­na­tive­ly, if you con­sid­er your­self a con­scious­ness-bend­ing psy­cho­naut, feel free get into your pre­ferred frame of mind, watch Bach’s crab canon visu­al­ized, and call me in the morn­ing.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A Big Bach Down­load: All of Bach’s Organ Works for Free

The Open Gold­berg Vari­a­tions: J.S. Bach’s Mas­ter­piece Free to Down­load

Glenn Gould Explains the Genius of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach (1962)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

You’ll be hear­ing the name of Green­wich Vil­lage folk scene god­fa­ther Dave Van Ronk in the com­ing days, what with the Coen broth­ers upcom­ing Inside Llewyn Davis, a fic­tion­al­ized take on Van Ronk’s life based on his 2005 posthu­mous mem­oir (with Eli­jah Wald), The May­or of Mac­Dou­gal Street. And while Van Ronk’s is a name well-known to stu­dents of the 60’s folk revival, he nev­er achieved the fame of pro­tégés like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. But there was anoth­er singer/songwriter and future super­star breez­ing through Van Ronk’s Vil­lage scene. I’m talk­ing about Bruce Spring­steen who, before he became an are­na rock sta­ple, opened solo for Van Ronk on acoustic gui­tar at Max’s Kansas City in 1972.

In the video above, watch Spring­steen play “Growin’ Up,” a song that appeared the next year on his debut album Greet­ings from Asbury Park, NJ. The album ver­sion of the song is the kind of rous­ing, anthemic fist-pumper Springsteen’s known for, but above, he strips it down to its essen­tials, and reveals that, like most every­thing he’s writ­ten, it’s a lyri­cal tour-de-force (which is prob­a­bly why Bowie record­ed a ver­sion). The 23-year-old Spring­steen also shows us that, band or no band, he was always a phe­nom­e­nal per­former. “Growin’ Up” is still a part of Springsteen’s set, no less anthemic, although the song takes on a much more nos­tal­gic air now that Spring­steen is six­ty-four. Below, watch a longer ver­sion of the clip, includ­ing MC Sam Hood’s intro­duc­tion and Bruce’s open­ing tune, “Hen­ry Boy.” If Van Ronk’s per­for­mance from that night made it on film, it hasn’t made it onto YouTube, but there are any num­ber of his inter­pre­ta­tions of old coun­try blues online.

Relat­ed Con­tent

Bruce Spring­steen Stumps/Sings for Oba­ma: A Free Six-Song Set

Heat Map­ping the Rise of Bruce Spring­steen: How the Boss Went Viral in a Pre-Inter­net Era

Bruce Springsteen’s Per­son­al Jour­ney Through Rock ‘n’ Roll (Slight­ly NSFW But Sim­ply Great)

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness