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Five Ambo Ghost Songs
1982

voice
piano

SCORE
The Dove
I Have No Rattles
The Ghost is Gone in Rags
See How it Circles
Ah! The Roofs

In 1982 I collected 32 songs, including these, to be performed individually or in sets as
Songbook 1. Most of the very earliest of these were virtually unperformable as originally
notated: unrealisticallly fast, vast vocal leaps, obsessive use of articulations and dynamic
swivels. As they appear here the most egregious naivities have been cleaned up, but I've
tried to maintain the spirit as intended. It was kind of sweet to see what the 25-year-old
me was doing to desperately try to appear 'modern' on the page, when my music has always
been, at heart, deeply triadic.

TEXTS
The Dove
The dove stays in the garden
Oh you dove
Oh that dove 

I Have No Rattles
I have no rattles
am shabby
for the shades

The Ghost is Gone in Rags
The ghost is gone in rags
The ghost is gone in rags
And the ghost in rags
The ghost is gone in rags

See How it Circles
See how it circles
The airplane on its airdrome

Ah! the Roofs
Ah! the roofs
She climbs the roofs
Our mother
My friends?
Why do you call me?
The boy sleeps in the bush
This is like a swing 

anonymous (Zimbabwe) trans. Bronislaw Stefaniszyn