Music

Hear the loud echoes of our songs, all streamable and downloadable here for whatever you wish to pay.

We prefer bank transfers to Kiwibank account 38-9019-0522168-00 (Kiwibank Limited, Level 9, 20 Customhouse Quay, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand; SWIFT code KIWINZ22). That way, the middle man takes no cut, at least in New Zealand. Bank transfers are also easy for Kiwis and overseas users of Wise. But if you must, here is a PayPal button for credit card payments. Thanks for your support!

Album 1

We recorded and produced Album 1, our debut album, in do-it-ourselves-80%-perfect fashion at Herb Studios, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand (aka Alex's flat) in 2020 and released it on 2020-12-21. All music on the album is copyrighted under CC BY-NC 4.0 by Kate Riegle van West and Alex Raichev, as well as the lyrics for "Your Friends, They May All Be Dead", "It Should Probably Be Now", "Spider's Song", and "What's Ours is Ours". We also made the album art, which is also copyrighted under CC BY-NC 4.0.

You can listen to the entire album here with the audio player below, which, once started, will continue to the next track on the list. You can also download the music and artwork.

1. Come unto These Yellow Sands 𝄌 lyrics
2. To His Coy Mistress 𝄌 lyrics
3. Your Friends, They May All Be Dead 𝄌 lyrics
4. My Papa's Waltz 𝄌 lyrics
5. It Should Probably Be Now 𝄌 lyrics
6. The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field 𝄌 lyrics
7. A Dream 𝄌 lyrics
8. Mr. Flood's Party 𝄌 lyrics
9. The Fly 𝄌 lyrics
10. Long Live the Weeds 𝄌 lyrics
11. Spider's Song 𝄌 lyrics
12. My Mistress' Eyes 𝄌 lyrics
13. What's Ours Is Ours 𝄌 lyrics

Album 2

We recorded and produced Album 2 in do-it-ourselves-80%-perfect fashion at Herb Studios, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand (aka Alex's flat) in 2021 and released it on 2021-09-23. All music on the album is copyrighted under CC BY-NC 4.0 by Kate Riegle van West and Alex Raichev, as well as the lyrics for "Nothing to Do with Your Name", "Stop Motion", and "Good Advice That Just Hasn't Worked Out Yet". Our friend Helena Teichrib made the beautiful album art, which is also copyrighted under CC BY-NC 4.0.

You can listen to the entire album here with the audio player below, which, once started, will continue to the next track on the list. You can also download the music and artwork.

1. The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd 𝄌 lyrics
2. The Second Coming 𝄌 lyrics
3. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning 𝄌 lyrics
4. Nothing to Do with Your Name 𝄌 lyrics
5. Stop Motion 𝄌 lyrics
6. If Everything Happens That Can't Be Done 𝄌 lyrics
7. Down by the Salley Gardens 𝄌 lyrics
8. Song of the Master and Boatswain 𝄌 lyrics
9. A Poison Tree 𝄌 lyrics
10. The Gallows 𝄌 lyrics
11. Good Advice That Just Hasn't Worked Out Yet 𝄌 lyrics
12. What Is Our Life? 𝄌 lyrics
13. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam 𝄌 lyrics

Singles

Songs looking for an album. The music here is also home-recorded and copyrighted under CC BY-NC 4.0.

1. Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town 𝄌 lyrics 𝄌 2021-12-22
2. Miniver Cheevey 𝄌 lyrics 𝄌 2022-06-21
3. Fern Hill 𝄌 lyrics 𝄌 2022-09-23
4. Green Grow the Rashes 𝄌 lyrics 𝄌 2022-12-21

Lyrics

A Dream

Excerpted from "A Dream" by William Blake

  Once a dream did weave a shade
  O'er my angel-guarded bed,
  That an emmet lost its way
  Where on grass methought I lay.

  Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,
  Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
  Over many a tangle spray,
  All heart-broke, I heard her say:

  "Oh my children! do they cry,
  Do they hear their father sigh?
  Now they look abroad to see,
  Now return and weep for me."
  

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Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town

Adapted from "Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town" by E. E. Cummings.

  anyone lived in pretty how town
  (up floating many bells down)
  spring summer fall winter
  he sang he danced his did

  Women and men(both little and small)
  cared for anyone not at all
  they sowed their ain't they reaped their same
  sun moon stars and rain

  children guessed(but only a few
  and down forgot as up they grew
  fall winter spring summer)
  that noone loved him more by more
  tree by leaf

  someones married their everyones
  laughed their cryings and did their dance
  said their nevers they slept their dream
  laughed their cryings and did their dance

  one day anyone died i guess
  (and noone stooped to kiss)
  busy folk buried them side by side
  all by all

  and deep by deep
  they dream their sleep
  

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A Poison Tree

Excerpted from "A Poison Tree" by William Blake

  I was angry with my friend;
  Told my wrath, my wrath did end.
  I was angry with my foe:
  Told it not, my wrath did grow.

  And I waterd it in fears,
  Night & morning with my tears:
  And I sunned it with smiles,
  And with soft deceitful wiles.

  And it grew both day and night.
  Till it bore an apple bright.
  And my foe beheld it shine,
  And he knew that it was mine.
  (twice)

  And into my garden stole,
  When the night had veild the pole;
  In the morning glad I see;
  My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

  My friend
  I told my wrath, my wrath did end, my wrath did end
  My foe
  I told it not, my wrath did grow, my wrath did grow

  In the morning glad I see;
  My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
  

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A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

Excerpted from "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne

  As virtuous men pass mildly away,
  And whisper to their souls to go,
  Whilst some of their sad friends do say
  The breath goes now, and some say, No:

  So let us melt, and make no noise,
  No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
  'Twere profanation of our joys
  To tell the laity our love.

  Dull sublunary lovers' love
  (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
  Absence, because it doth remove
  Those things which elemented it.

  Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
  Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
  Thy firmness makes my circle just,
  And makes me end where I begun.
  

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Come Unto These Yellow Sands

Excerpted from "Come Unto These Yellow Sands" By William Shakespeare

  Come unto these yellow sands,
  And then take hands:
  Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd
  The wild waves whist,
  Foot it featly here and there;
  And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
  Hark, hark!
  Bow-wow.

  Foot it featly here and there;
  And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
  Hark, hark!
  Bow-wow.
  The watch-dogs bark.
  Bow-wow.
  Hark, hark! I hear
  The strain of strutting chanti--
  The strain of strutting chanticleer
  

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Down by the Salley Gardens

Lyrics excerpted from "Down by the Salley Gardens" and "The Coming of Wisdom with Time", both by William Butler Yeats.

  Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
  She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
  She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
  But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

  In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
  And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
  She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
  But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

  Though leaves are many, the root is one;
  Through all the lying days of my youth
  I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
  Now I may wither into the truth.
  

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Fern Hill

Adapted from "Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas

  Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
  About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
  The night above the dingle starry,
  Time let me hail and climb
  Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
  And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

  In the sun born over, over and over,
  I ran
  Time held me green and dying, dying
  I sang
  (twice)

  And the sabbath rang slowly
  In the pebbles of the holy
  (four times)
  

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Good Advice That Just Hasn't Worked Out Yet

  When the sun don't shine
  If you look inside your mind, then you
  you will see, you will see
  what you've been looking for.

  And if you take your time
  once you get inside, then you
  you will see, you will see
  what you've been looking for

  And I've been here all day
  But I’ve been 7000 miles away away miles away
  Searching for searching for
  What was already in my head

  I could stare you down, lower
  down the tent sides, past the sunrise
  Sight and sound to dust
  And my lust as that bus just pulled away from us and
  I was left, I was left
  On the path that I'm on now

  I am doing all that I can
  Oh oh, oh oh
  And when luck comes I’ll grab her hand
  Oh oh, oh oh
  

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Green Grow the Rashes

Lyrics from "Green Grow the Rashes" by Robert Burns

  Green grow the rashes*, O               rushes
  Green grow the rashes, O
  The sweetest hours that e'er I spent
  Are spent amang the lasses, O

  There's nought but care on ev'ry han'
  In every hour that passes, O
  What signifies the life o' man
  An' 'twere na* for the lasses, O        not

  The war'ly* race may riches chase       worldly
  An' riches still may fly them, O
  An' tho' at last they catch them fast
  Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O

  Green grow the rashes, O
  Green grow the rashes, O
  The sweetest hours that e'er I spent
  Are spent amang the lasses, O

  But gie me a cannie* hour at e'en**     gentle, evening
  My arms about my Dearie, O
  An' warly cares, an' warly men
  May a' gae tapsalteerie*, O             topsy turvy

  For you sae douse*, ye sneer at this    soberly or respectably
  Ye're nought but senseless asses, O
  The wisest Man the warl' e'er saw
  He dearly lov'd the lasses, O

  Auld Nature swears, the lovely Dears
  Her noblest work she classes, O
  Her prentice han' she try'd on man
  An' then she made the lasses, O

  Green grow the rashes, O
  Green grow the rashes, O
  The sweetest hours that e'er I spent
  Are spent amang the lasses, O

  Green grow the rashes, O
  Green grow the rashes, O
  The sweetest hours that e'er I spent
  Are spent amang the lasses, O
  

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If Everything Happens That Can't Be Done

Lyrics excerpted from "If Everything Happens That Can't Be Done" by E. E. Cummings.

  If Everything Happens That Can't Be Done
  (and anything's righter
  than books
  could plan)
  the stupidest teacher will almost guess
  (with a run
  skip
  around we go yes)
  there's nothing as something as one

  one hasn't a why or because or although
  (and buds know better
  than books
  don't grow)
  one's anything old being everything new
  (with a what
  which
  around we come who)
  one's everyanything so

  so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough
  (and birds sing sweeter
  than books
  tell how)
  so here is away and so your is a my
  (with a down
  up
  around again fly)
  forever was never till now

  now i love you and you love me
  (and books are shuter
  than books
  can be)
  and deep in the high that does nothing but fall
  (with a shout
  each
  around we go all)
  there's somebody calling who's we

  we're anything brighter than even the sun
  (we're everything greater
  than books
  might mean)
  we're everyanything more than believe
  (with a spin
  leap
  alive we're alive)
  we're wonderful one times one
  

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I Knew a Woman

Excerpted from "I Knew a Woman" by Theodore Roethke

  I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
  When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
  Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
  The shapes a bright container can contain!
  Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
  Or English poets who grew up on Greek
  (I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

  Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
  I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
  What's freedom for? To know eternity.
  I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
  But who would count eternity in days?
  These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
  (I measure time by how a body sways).
  

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It Should Probably Be Now

  I waited for this day
  But I didn't see it coming
  At least not this way.
  And now that it's here
  I don't know what to say
  Or how to feel.

  Oh oh oh
  I'm running I'm running away
  Oh oh oh
  I'm running I'm running away

  But you're the one that's moving
  And I'm the one that's standing still
  Because my mind was neither here nor there or anywhere in between.
  And I'm so glad you're finally doing
  All the things that I hoped you would.
  I just don't know why
  You couldn't do them with me.
  It wasn't meant to be

  All the time we shared
  I don't regret a single thing
  It's not that I don't care
  It's just time to part our ways

  Hold on child I'm coming out to play
  You materialized
  Like an elven rabbit figment of my
  Queen of hearts
  Stuck in the lost hour
  You know all my alls
  The meaningfool, meaningfool
  Nonsense.

  I waited for this day
  But I didn't see it coming
  At least not this way.
  And now that it's here
  I don't know what to say
  Or how to feel.

  Oh oh oh
  I'm running I'm running away
  Oh oh oh
  I'm running I'm running your way

  Because you are meant to be here
  Even though I don't believe in fate
  It's just the other side of the world is such a perfect place to meet.
  And I'm so glad we're finally doing
  All the things that I hoped we would.
  Word finds and tree climbs and hot chocolate tea times
  You are the magic
  It was meant to be.

  All the time we've shared
  I don't regret a single thing
  I will always care
  In each and every single way.
  

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Long Live the Weeds

Excerpted from "Long Live the Weeds" and "In a Dark Time" by Theodore Roethke

  Long live the weeds that overwhelm
  My narrow vegetable realm! –
  The bitter rock, the barren soil
  That force the son of man to toil;
  All things unholy, marked by curse,
  The ugly of the universe.
  The rough, the wicked, and the wild
  That keep the spirit undefiled.
  With these I match my little wit
  And earn the right to stand or sit,

  Hope, look, create, or drink and die:
  These shape the creature that is I.
  (three times)

  In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
  I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
  I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
  A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
  I live between the heron and the wren,
  Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

  What’s madness but nobility of soul
  At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!

  I know the purity of pure despair
  (three times)

  Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
  My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
  Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
  A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.

  The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
  And one is One
  (three times)

  Free in the tearing wind.
  

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Miniver Cheevey

Adapted from "Miniver Cheevey" by Edwin Arlington Robinson

  Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
     Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
  He wept he was ever born,
     And he had reasons
     Reasons, reasons

  Miniver loved the days of old
     When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
  The vision of warrior bold
     Would set him dancing
     Dancing, dancing

  Miniver mourned the ripe renown
     That made so many a name so fragrant;
  He mourned Romance, on the town,
     And Art, a vagrant
     Vagrant, vagrant

  "Curse this place!
  It lacks mediaeval grace.
  This suit i loathe.
  Dress me in iron clothes!
  You say, it's not,
  But i see Camelot."

  Miniver loved the Medici,
     Albeit he had never seen one;
  He would have sinned incessantly
     Could he have been one
     Been one, been one

  "Curse this place!
  It lacks mediaeval grace.
  This suit i loathe.
  Dress me in iron clothes!
  You say, it's not,
  But i see Camelot."

  Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
     But sore annoyed was he without it;
  Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
     And thought about it
     'Bout it, 'bout it

  Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
     Scratched his head, kept on thinking;
  Miniver coughed, called it fate,
     And kept on drinking.
  

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Mr. Flood's Party

Adapted from "Mr. Flood's Party" by Edwin Arlington Robinson

  Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
  Over the hill between the town below
  And the forsaken upland hermitage
  That held as much as he should ever know
  On earth again of home, paused warily.
  The road was his with not a native near;
  And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
  For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:

  "Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
  Again; we may not have many more;
  The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
  And you and I have said it here before.
  Drink to the bird." He raised up to the light
  The jug he had gone so far to fill,
  And answered huskily: "Well, Mr. Flood,
  Since you propose it, I believe I will."

  Alone, as if enduring to the end
  A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
  He stood there in the middle of the road
  Like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn.

  "For auld lang syne."
  The weary throat gave out,
  The last word wavered, and the song was done.
  "For auld lang syne."
  There was not much ahead of him,
  And nothing in the town below—
  "For auld lang syne."
  Where strangers shut the many doors
  That many friends opened long ago.
  

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My Mistress' Eyes

Excerpted from "My Mistress' Eyes by William Shakespeare

  My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
  Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
  I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
  But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
  And in some perfumes is there more delight
  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
  Music hath a far more pleasing sound;
  When she walks, she treads on the ground:
  And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
  As any she belied with false compare.
  

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My Papa’s Waltz

Excerpted from "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke

  The whiskey on your breath
  Could make a small boy dizzy;
  But I hung on like death:
  Such waltzing was not easy.

  We romped until the pans
  Slid from the kitchen shelf;
  My mother’s countenance
  Could not unfrown itself.

  The hand that held my wrist
  Was battered on one knuckle;
  At every step you missed
  My right ear scraped a buckle.

  The whiskey on your breath
  Could make a small boy dizzy;
  But I hung on like death:
  Such waltzing was not easy.

  We romped until the pans
  Slid from the kitchen shelf;
  My mother’s countenance
  Could not unfrown itself.

  The hand that held my wrist
  Was battered on one knuckle;
  At every step you missed
  My right ear scraped a buckle.

  You beat time on my head
  With a palm caked hard by dirt,
  Then waltzed me off to bed

  You beat time on my head
  Still clinging to your shirt.
  Then waltzed me off to bed
  

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Nothing to Do with Your Name

  We used to ponder the big world
  I know I know you know
  We used to paint the white walls over
  I know I know you know
  We used to sit and watch the snow fall
  I know I know you know
  We used to feel the train outside our window
  I know I know you know

  We used to pull the artificial stars close
  Like only we knew how to
  Bending fiber optic light like two black holes
  I know I know you know
  And I showed up holding on to my front tire and my
  dreams and breath as I stood on
  The edge of that bridge just exhaling my desire to go

  Ooooooonnnnnnn
  Ooooooonnnnnnn

  We used to burn the moon on dale street
  I know I know you know
  Planting weeping willow seeds in our bare feet
  I know I know you know
  We used to step right across that creek
  I know I know you know
  Thaddeus and thistle brother sister melodies
  I know I know you know

  We held on like icicle regrets just dripping away
  We held on like icicle regrets just dripping away
  We held on like icicle regrets just dripping away
  We held on like icicle regrets just dripping away
  

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Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Excerpted from "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" by Edward Fitzgerald

  LXIV
  Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
  Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
  Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
  Which to discover we must travel too.

  LXV
  The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
  Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,
  Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep,
  They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd.

  LXVI
  I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
  Some letter of that After-life to spell:
  And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
  And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:"

  LXVII
  Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
  And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
  Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
  So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.

  LXVIII
  We are no other than a moving row
  Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
  Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
  In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

  LXIX
  But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
  Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
  Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
  And one by one back in the Closet lays.

  LXXI
  The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
  Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

  LXXII
  And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
  Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
  Lift not your hands to It for help--for It
  As impotently moves as you or I.
  

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Song of the Master and Boatswain

By W. H. Auden but with the first line changed

  At Manky Matt's and Sloppy Jen's
  We drank our liquor straight,
  Some went upstairs with Margery,
  And some, alas, with Kate;
  And two by two like cat and mouse
  The homeless played at keeping house.

  There Wealthy Meg, the Sailor's Friend,
  And Marion, cow-eyed,
  Opened their arms to me but I
  Refused to step inside;
  I was not looking for a cage
  In which to mope my old age.

  The nightingales are sobbing in
  The orchards of our mothers,
  And hearts that we broke long ago
  Have long been breaking others;
  Tears are round, the sea is deep:
  Roll them overboard and sleep.
  

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Spider's Song

  Don't you fret your ears
  Because we're not going
  So very far away
  And even if we were
  To travel across the sea
  You'd be there with me

  And you stay floating for hours and hours and hours and hours and
  You stay floating right by my side with your prowess and powers and
  You stay floating for hours and hours and hours and hours and
  You do, you do you

  We have always laid
  In the same sun spot
  Trying to transmit our thoughts
  And you blink as I strum
  Listening to every note
  Sometimes nose to nose

  And you stay floating for hours and hours and hours and hours and
  You stay floating right by my side with your prowess and powers and
  You stay floating for hours and hours and hours and hours and
  You do, you do you

  Our way our way
  We can stay we can stay
  Another day another day
  Our way our way

  Our way our way
  We can stay we can stay
  Another day another day
  Our way our way

  And I don't want to know
  I just couldn't say
  What it would be like today
  If you were just to go
  I don't want to know
  What I'd do if it'd be so
  And I don't want to know
  I just couldn't say
  If you do or if you don't
  Or if you do or if you don't
  Or if you do or if you don't

  Don't you fret your ears
  We will never be
  So far away
  

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Stop Motion

  I took a leap
  Four years ago
  I packed my bags
  And said hello
  To sun and stream
  And quiet city streets
  I got by
  Like we all do
  One moment gone
  One day is through
  Trying my best to slow down time

  And I don’t think you can see
  All the things behind the scenes
  But maybe it’s my own damn fault
  Because I want to seem like

  I don’t want to go or stay here
  I don’t want to stay here or go
  I don’t want to go or stay here
  I don’t want to stay here alone
  

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The Fly

Excerpted from "The Fly" by William Blake

  Little fly,
  Thy summer’s play
  My thoughtless hand
  Has brushed away.

  Am not I
  A fly like thee?
  Or art not thou
  A man like me?

  Little fly,
  Thy summer’s play
  My thoughtless hand
  Has brushed away.

  For I dance
  And drink and sing,
  Till some blind hand
  Shall brush my wing.

  Then am I?

  If thought is life
  And strength and breath,
  And the want
  Of thought is death,

  Then am I?

  Then am I
  A happy fly,
  If I live,
  Or if I die.

  For I dance
  And drink and sing,
  Till some blind hand
  Shall brush my wing.
  (twice)

  If thought is life
  And strength and breath,
  And the want
  Of thought is death,

  Then am I?

  Then am I
  A happy fly,
  If I live,
  Then am I
  A happy fly,
  If I live,
  Or if I die.

  Little fly,
  Thy summer’s play
  My thoughtless hand
  Has brushed away.

  Am not I
  A fly like thee?
  Or art not thou
  A man like me?

  Little fly,
  Thy summer’s play
  My thoughtless hand
  Has brushed away.
  

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The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field

Excerpted from "The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field" by Richard Hugo

  The dim boy claps because the others clap.
  The polite word, handicapped, is muttered in the stands.
  Isn’t it wrong, the way the mind moves back?

  The way the mind moves back
  The way the mind moves back

  One whole day I sit, contrite, dirt, L.A.
  Union Station, ’46, sweating through last night.
  The dim boy claps because the others clap.

  The dim boy claps because the others clap.
  The dim boy claps because the others clap.

  Score, 5 to 3. Pitcher fading badly in the heat.
  Isn’t it wrong to be or not be...?
  The dim boy claps because the others clap.
  Isn't it wrong to be spastic?

  The afflicted never cheer in unison.
  Isn’t it wrong, the way the mind moves back
  to stammering pastures where the picnic should have worked?
  The dim boy claps because the others clap.

  The dim boy claps because the others clap.
  The dim boy claps because the others clap.

  I’m laughing at a neighbor girl beaten to scream
  by a savage
  father and I’m ashamed to look.
  The dim boy claps because the others clap.
  Isn't it wrong to be spastic?

  Is it wrong, the way the mind, the mind moves back?
  Is it wrong, the way the mind, the mind moves back?
  Is it wrong, the way the mind, the mind moves back?

  The score is always close, the rally always short.
  Isn’t it wrong, the way the mind, the way the mind moves back?
  I’ve left more wreckage than a quake.

  Is it wrong, the way the mind, the mind moves back?
  Is it wrong, the way the mind, the mind moves back?
  Is it wrong, the way the mind, the mind moves back?

  The score is always close, the rally always short.
  I’ve left more wreckage than a quake.
  

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The Gallows

Adapted from "The Gallows" by Edward Thomas

  There was a weasel lived in the sun
  With all his family,
  Till a keeper shot him with his gun
  And hung him up on a tree,
  Where he swings in the wind and the rain,
  In the sun, in the snow

  There was a crow who was no sleeper,
  But a thief and a murderer
  Till late hour; and this keeper
  Made him one of the things that were,
  To hang and flap in the rain and the wind,
  In the sun

  Without pleasure, without pain,
  On the dead oak tree bough.
  (thrice)

  There was a magpie, a magpie, too,
  Had a long tongue and tail;
  He could both talk, both talk and do---
  But what did that avail?
  He, too, flaps in the wind and the rain
  In the sun

  And many other beasts
  And birds, skin, bone, and feather,
  Taken from their feasts
  And hung up there together,

  All hung up there together,
  Hung up there together on the...
  To swing in endless leisure
  Without pain or pleasure

  Without pleasure, without pain,
  On the dead oak tree bough.
  (twice)
  There are no more sins to be sinned
  On the dead oak tree bough.
  (twice)

  

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The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd

Excerpted from "The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd" by Sir Walter Raleigh and from "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" by Christopher Marlowe

  If all the world and love were young,
  And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
  These pretty pleasures might me move,
  To live with thee, and be thy love.

  Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
  Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
  And Philomel becometh dumb,
  The rest complains of cares to come.

  The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
  To wayward winter reckoning yields,
  A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
  Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

  I will make thee beds of Roses
  They soon wither
  And one thousand fragrant posies
  Soon forgotten
  A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
  In folly ripe
  Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle
  Your reason's rotten

  Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
  Thy Coral clasp and amber studs,
  All these in me no means can move
  To come to thee and be thy love.
  

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The Second Coming

Excerpted from "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats

  Turning and turning in the widening gyre
  The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
  Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
  Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
  The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
  The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
  The best lack all conviction, while the worst
  Are full of passionate intensity.

  Surely some revelation is at hand;
  Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
  

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To His Coy Mistress

Excerpted from "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvel

  Had we but world enough and time,
  This coyness, lady, were no crime.
  We would sit down, and think which way
  To walk, and pass our long love's day.
  Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
  Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
  Of Humber would complain. I would
  Love you ten years before the flood,

  But at my back I always hear
  Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
  And yonder all before us lie
  Deserts of vast eternity.
  Thy beauty shall no more be found;
  Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
  My echoing song; then worms shall try
  That long-preserved virginity,
  And your quaint honour turn to dust,
  And into ashes all my lust;
  The grave's a fine and private place,
  But none, I think, do there embrace.

  Now therefore, while the youthful hue
  Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
  And while thy willing soul transpires
  At every pore with instant fires,
  Now let us sport us while we may,
  And now, like amorous birds of prey,
  Rather at once our time devour
  Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
  Let us roll all our strength and all
  Our sweetness up into one ball,
  And tear our pleasures with rough strife
  Through the iron gates of life:
  Thus, though we cannot make our sun
  Stand still, yet we will make him run.
  

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What Is Our Life?

Excerpted from "What Is Our Life" by Sir Walter Raleigh

  What is our life? A play of passion.
  Our mirth the music of division.
  Our mother's wombs the tyring houses be,
  Where we are drest for this
  Where we are drest for this short Comedy.

  Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
  That sits and marks still who doth act amiss,
  Our graves that hide us from the searching sun,
  Are like drawn curtains when
  Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.

  Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
  Only we die in earnest
  Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
  Only we die in earnest, that's no jest.

  That's no jest
  That's no jest
  Only we die in earnest
  Only we die in earnest
  That's that's no jest.
  

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What's Ours is Ours

  And the rain it turned to pure white snow
  And the city she was asleep
  I sat counting the hours until I go
  Lord sure knows
  There was nothing left to keep.

  And I hope these words do travel far
  So we know what’s ours is ours
  (twice)

  The things they left one at a time
  And the sky she stayed the same
  I always wondered what we might find if we had the time
  Before it all would change.

  And I hope these words do travel far
  So we know what’s ours is ours
  (twice)

  And now I see
  From the other side of the world
  I had it all
  To lose
  Just another second let me see

  everything, everything, everything, everything here.
  (four times)
  

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Your Friends They May All Be Dead

  And we moved up and down and side to side
  It was nothing like the tide
  It was just so mechanical
  But we carried on
  And we may just have forgotten how
  How to speak our minds
  And so we don't say anything

  But I think the time is now
  Before we just don't know how

  And we moved up and down and side to side
  It was nothing like the tide
  It was just so mechanical
  But we carried on
  And we may just have forgotten how
  How to speak our minds
  And so we don't say anything, anything at all

  Your friends they may all be dead
  At least that's what
  You saw when you raised your hand
  And you asked
  Who of you will stand by me
  If this ship
  Were to sink and fall somehow
  Who would go
  Who would go
  Who would go

  And we can never go back and undo
  all that we've done wrong
  that is why from here on out
  I am going it alone
  No meeting time and place to set
  Or waiting for replies and lies about the things you'll do

  But I think the time is now
  Before you catch up some how

  And we can never go back and undo
  all that we've done wrong
  that is why from here on out
  I am going it alone
  No meeting time and place to set
  Or waiting for replies and lies about the things you'll do
  You wont do anything at all

  Your friends they may all be dead
  At least that's what
  You saw when you raised your hand
  And you asked
  Who of you will stand by me
  If this ship
  Were to sink and fall somehow
  Who would go
  Who would go
  Who would go

  Would you stand there waiting for me
  Waiting for me
  I don't think you
  Would you stand there waiting for me
  Waiting for me
  I don't think you would
  I don't think you would
  I don't think you would
  

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