"You can’t follow me. I'm inhuman, remember, a monster, a chimera." She spat their private word between them and he recoiled from the lump of
it. "You are just a man, you cannot go where monsters go...No. Rot in the real world, Ludo. That's where saints live, under the sun, under the open sky. Their holiness means something there."
“Give me back eight years of huddling for warmth in a cave of your making. Give me the dress I wore in Ostia, and my cigarette-case with the cockatrice on it. Give me everything in me that was stamped out by everything in you. Give me back a girl who had never heard of a chimera, who had never read that stupid encyclopedia, who had never had to hear herself called an animal. Then I’ll come home.”
lyrics
Don't look for home in me between the lines of this, our fairytale
Man cannot follow the monsters.
It's simple for you love but never for me
Nothing can be as it once was.
Call me a beast as you've always done
but one which can no longer love you
Look for me not, lover, I am long gone
how can you hope to follow?
You're meant to crawl
upon your knees
not steal my soul
or talk to me
nor beg me to come home with you
the last thing I would ever do
I am the place where air meets ice
escaping from your paradise
the girl with the lion's tail
I don't want to be the girl you tame
an oddity locked away somewhere safe
your one-heart menagerie, lonely
Give me back the girl I was, the beast I used to be
shedding the skin of this creature
You were never cage enough to keep the light inside
deny me the sky and I'm running.
A lion must keep something back for her own
if she's been let to live
I'd sooner run than waste away at home
You already have all that I had to
Give me back my broken heart,
the dress I wore in Ostia,
everything you took away
and soul-self replaced
Take away your holiness
your pleading and your crying eyes
and bring me back the girl I was,
untamed
Go cry your ave maria my love
cry me a river to hell
Hell or home its all much the same
your script your saint your cell
I don't want to be the girl you tame
an oddity, locked away somewhere safe
your one-heart menagerie, lonely
(ave maria, gratia plena)
ave maria, gratia plena, dona nobis pacem, amen
(If you don't feed what you have tamed
how can you ask it to love you?)
(give me this!)
(I don't want to be the girl you tame)
Your one-heart menagerie
Words and music by S. J. Tucker, 2009; all rights reserved, all wrongs undone.
credits
from Quartered: Songs of Palimpsest,
track released June 1, 2009
Words and music by S. J. Tucker, 2009
All tracking and mixing by Tony Fabris, Monkey Brains Studios, Seattle WA
(Thank you, Monkey!)
All vocals, guitars, djembe, sticks: S. J. Tucker
Cello: Betsy Tinney
Shaker: Michelle Dockrey
“Without our songs and stories, we are nothing.” S. J. Tucker has been captain of her own music career since 2004, when she
left the workaday world behind to sing songs and change lives. Tucker is the voice of lore at the campfire and the sharp laughter of modern myth. With one hand anchored in her art and the other held out to us, she is songs and stories, community and wit....more
I would happily stroll the green with the Professor if the opportunity came. So very posh, and yet so very silly. Who wouldn't love a chap like this? He inspires me to parasol-rap of my own. <3 S. J. Tucker
Ginger (they, them) is my favorite recording engineer, bandmate, soulmate, and straight-up genius. This Cocoon is their first solo release. Favorite track: "Made It Home". I sang backup on "Masks" S. J. Tucker
Dogwood is the real deal: mythology, wit, whimsy, wisdom, and outstanding musical chops. Do please eat the pomegranate seeds so that you can stay a while and listen. S. J. Tucker