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Songbook 1
1978–1982

voice
piano

SCORE
Les Colchiques
•
Sweet Peg
•
Christopher Boyce's Suicide Note
•
TWO LEVERTOV SONGS
Song for Ishtar
The Sage
•
THREE OLD FRENCH SONGS
Chanson Bachique
Je Sui Joliete
A la Cheminee
•
TWO STEVENS SONGS
Life is Motion
Depression Before Spring
•
On Chloris Walking in the Snow
•
THREE ARP SONGS
On Your Back Or On Your Stomach
Cook Me a Thunderbolt
The Master Nailer
•
FIVE AMBO GHOST SONGS
The Dove
I Have No Rattles
The Ghost is Gone in Rags
See How it Circles
Ah! The Roofs
•
MU'TAZZ SONGS
Night has Fallen
Watch Now
The Lemon on its Branch
Streams of Wine
The New Moon
The Narcissus Stares
The Cavalry of Dew
When Fire is Fanned
The Night I Worried
The Burdened Clouds

29 songs to be performed individully or in sets. 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
LES COLCHIQUES
The meadow is poisonous but pretty in autumn. 
The cows that graze there are slowly poisoned.
Meadow saffron, the colour of lilacs, and of shadows under the eyes, 
Grows there, your eyes are like these flowers.
Mauve as their shadows
And mauve as this autumn, 
And for your eyes' sake my life is slowly poisoned. 

Children from school come with their commotion. 
Dressed in smocks and playing the mouth organ
Picking autumn crocuses which are like their mothers
Daughters of their daughters and the colour of your eyelids
which flutter like flowers in the mad breeze blown. 

The cowherd sings softly to himself all alone 
While slow moving, lowing, 
The cows leave behind them forever this great meadow ill flowered by the autumn. 
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) trans. Oliver Bernard 


SWEET PEG
Oh, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen.

Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the forest quire,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale:
Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a briar.

But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;
See where she sitteth; come away, my joy:
Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo
Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.

O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green;
And then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen. 
Thomas Dekker (1570-1632)


CHRISTOPHER BOYCE'S SUICIDE NOTE
My thoughts are a jumble. My emotions are bled white. I have become callous. I have been dancing on a razor. I close my eyes and I feel my falcon beating hard into the wind. 
Christopher Boyce (b.1953)


TWO LEVERTOV SONGS
Song for Ishtar
The moon is a sow
and grunts in my throat
Her great shining shines through me
so the mud of my hollow gleams
and breaks in silver bubbles 

She is a sow
and I a pig and a poet 

When she opens her white
lips to devour me I bite back
and laughter rocks the moon 

In the black of desire
we rock and grunt, grunt and
shine 
Denise Levertov (1923–1997)


The Sage
The cat is eating the roses:
that’s the way he is.
Don’t stop him, don’t stop
the world going round,
that’s the way things are.
The third of May
was misty; fourth of May
who knows. Sweep
the rosemeat up, throw the bits
out in the rain.
He never eats
every crumb, says
the hearts are bitter.
That’s the way he is, he knows
the world and the weather. 
Denise Levertov (1923–1997)


THREE OLD FRENCH SONGS
Chanson Bachique
Chanter me fait bons vins et resjoir;
Quant plus le boi et je plus le desir,
Car li bons vins me fait souef dormir;
Quant je nel boi, pour rien n'i dor mi roie,
Au resveillier voientiers beveroie
En bon vin a soulas et grant deport
Quant plus le boi et je plus m'i acort
Car de bon vin peut on revivre mort;
Religion s'i assent et atroie,
Et le bon vin doit on boire à grant joie.
Chançon va t'en, ou bon vin mant solus.
Maint homme a fait tumer en la palus,
Et maint en fait gesir la nuit vestus,
Et maint en fait cheoir en belle voie.
Bien met l'argent qui en bon vin l'emploie.

Je Sui Joliete
Je sui joliete
Sodete, plaisons, jeune pucelete;
N'ai pas quinze ans;
Point ma melete
Selonc le tans;
Si deüsse aprendre
D'ormors, et entendre 
Les semblons
Deduisons. 

Mais je sui mise en prison.
De Dieu ait maleïçon
Qui m'i mist! 

Mai et vilanie
Et pechié fist
De tel pucelete
rendre en abiete.
Trop i mes fist, par ma foi;
En religion vif en grant anoi,
Dieus! car trop sui jonete. 

Je sens les dous maus desous ma œinturete:
Honi soit de Dieu qui me fist nonnete.

A La Cheminee
A la cheminee
Et frait mais de janvier,
Vueil la char salee,
Les chapons, gras mangier;
Dame bien paree,
Chanter renvoisier,
C'est ce qui m'agree:
Bon vin à remuer,
Cler feu sans fumee,
Les des et la tablier 
Sans tencier.


TWO STEVENS SONGS
Life is Motion
In Oklahoma,
Bonnie and Josie,
Dressed in calico,
Danced around a stump.
They cried,
“Ohoyaho,
Ohoo” . . .
Celebrating the marriage
Of flesh and air. 

Depression Before Spring
The cock crows
But no queen rises. T

he hair of my blonde
Is dazzling,
As the spittle of cows
threading the wind. 

Ho! Ho! 

But ki-ki-ri-ki
Brings no rou-cou,
No rou-cou-cou. 

But no queen comes
In slipper green. 
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)


ON CHLORIS WALKING IN THE SNOW
I saw fair Chloris walk alone, 
Whilst feather'd rain came softly down, 
And Jove descended from his tower 
To court her in a silver shower. 
The wanton snow flew on her breast 
Like little birds unto their nest; 
But overcome with whiteness there, 
For grief it thaw'd into a tear; 
Thence falling on her garment's hem, 
To deck her, froze into a gem. 
William Strode (1602-1645)


THREE ARP SONGS
On Your Back Or On Your Stomach
The day is flat at times.
Try as you may you just can't get up.
There is no room to soar.
You're forced to remain flat on your back 
or on your stomach
flat as a sheet of paper in a writing pad. 

Cook Me a Thunderbolt
Water the moon for me
Brush the teeth of my ladders for me.
Carry me in your flesh valise onto my bone roof.
Cook me a thunderbolt.
Clap the earthquakes into a cage for me
and pick me a bouquet of lightning.
Cut yourself into two and eat one of the halves.
Ejaculate yourself into the air
haughtier than the fountains of Versailles.
Turn yourself roll yourself into a ball
Be a ball with archaic laughter rolling around a pill.
Stick out all your tongues at roses.
Give your tongues to the gentle rhinoce roses
Go stew yourself into a stew
Toady yourself into a toad
Append yourself as a signature under my letter. 
Jean Arp (1887–1966) trans. Joachim Neugroschel

The Master Nailer 
When I arrive my friends drop everything
and dash up to watch me nail.
My hammer and I are one. I can only nail nails into a bread crumb
But when I nail nails into a bread crumb
I nail so well that my friends forget everything
and are literally transported
transfigured into pure welkin. Only gradually
gradually do they reappear
do they recover
in running azure
then in flesh and blood
after I've stopped nailing my nails into a bread crumb 
Jean Arp (1887–1966) trans. Joachim Neugroschel


FIVE AMBO GHOST SONGS
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


MU'TAZZ SONGS
Night Has Fallen
Night has fallen about us my friend, light our fire with wine
So, while the world sleeps, we may kiss the sun in the dark.

Watch Now
Watch now the beauty of the crescent moon as it ascends,
Ripping the darkness with its light 
Look, a scythe of silver
Mowing a black prairie that's clustered with white narcissi.

The Lemon on its Branch
And the lemon on its branch is true gold,
A coloured ball once struck hangs in flight
For an eyeblink, still poised on the swung polo stick.

Streams of Wine
With streams of wine the garden is crossed,
And the doves sing higher and higher.
Do not blame the branches if they dance,
They are drunk with song and liquor.

The New Moon
Thank God, the new moon,
Ramadan has gone.
Quick, lash out the wine;
the moon's a silver dhow
Laden with amber.

The Narcissus Stares
The narcissus stares without once resting its eyes; its back is bent 
By still raindrops, its face is pale
Watching how the sky chastens the earth.

The Cavalry of Dew
The cavalry of dew is mounted on flowers.
Stirred by the whip of the wind.
The field gallops as it stands.

When Fire is Fanned
When fire is fanned
Wood and charcoal
Flames rise like cedars of gold.

The Night I Worried
The night I worried stretched so long
I felt the sun had joined the stars.

The Burdened Clouds
The eyelids of the burdened clouds let fall cascades 
Of rain, and the parterred garden is spattered with drops.
You see the exact spot when each hits the hoed ground:
It's like silver coins which bounce, are snatched, yet leave a mark.
So often the rain slaps the cheek of the earth
There are running streams and the garden newly blossoms. 
Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz (d.869) trans. Abdullah al-Udhari and George Wightman