1. |
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Serpent In The Garden Waltz. 3’27”
Words & Music by Roger Gregg. 2009.
Come sweet child come dance with me
Just take hold of my hand.
Let us waltz to this old apple tree
Where the seeds of our story began.
You’re Innocent and blameless
But ignorance is not bliss.
For you see you’re also quite aimless
And there is so much to life that you miss.
Oh open your eyes
And know you’re truly alive.
Free to choose wrong or right
And to see the world’s not black and white.
Through this garden you wander
And marvel at all you see.
The answer to all that you ponder
hangs here on this old apple tree.
Hidden in the midst of this garden
Forbidden to touch this sweet wood.
For the fruit of this tree shall give unto thee
The knowledge of evil and good.
Chorus.
It’s true there will come some sorrow
And tomorrow has no guarantee.
But you’ll have a choice and gain your voice
And your Will, will finally be free.
If you’re meant to take life for granted
then why was this tree here planted?
If the truth is meant to be so clear,
Then why was a Serpent like me put here?
Chorus.
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2. |
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Freakchild 1’02”
Poem by Patrick Chapman. [ printed by kind permission].
Running in the street
& the house is on fire
& Knowing that I was the one
Who left the oven on
& Grandad is asleep
Or will be till the smoke
Grabs him by the throat
& Flings him around the room
Before he melts from
Beating back the flames,
I wonder what’s the deal
With all that noise & That commotion.
Is the fire truck arrived already?
Wow.
[ Find out more at Salmon Press. http://www.salmonpoetry.com/bookshop-search.php ]
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3. |
The Hole In The Sky
04:19
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The Hole In The Sky. - 4’20”
Words & Music by Roger Gregg.1998.
Now she’s on her way
With her wings through the sky
She flies through the rays
And the winds carry her cry
She may wait no longer
You’re hearing her voice
Echo through yesterday
Tomorrow’s today
Then here at last gone
She’s gone away.
Now hear her song
Weave round the world
Wave after wave
She sings through the surf
Through the seas
I make into graves
Heavy snow falling in a frozen May
I know the weather wasn’t always this way
My world’s much brighter now
More sun more bleaching rays
See how she cries beneath the hole in the sky?
Now let me love today
Let me stay
Close by your side
How can I run away
From this shadow
I carry inside?
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4. |
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10 Blind Men With Hammers. 2’35
A poem about my fingers.
Words & Music by Roger Gregg. 2011.
Smashing, crashing, mayhem n’ clamour
10 Blind men swinging their hammers.
Clumsy and blunt, gruff and crude
Always rough, never smooth.
No poise or flair. No precision or grace.
Even standing still they wreck the place.
One played tennis with a child’s balloon
Took a wide swing in a narrow room.
Broke his bone as he hit the wall
bent ever since never stood tall.
The Boss tries to lead but no one obeys.
His pointing is pointless.
he don’t know the way.
Hopeless inept, fixed in a line
Can’t march in step, can’t step in time.
The three on the end are frozen and cold.
They’re swinging is slower, they’re gettin’ old.
Twitchy n’ itchy, always in haste
Together forever chained at the waist.
Things get broken as they push and shove
I’ve heard tell they’re looking for love.
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5. |
Funeral In My Brain
02:33
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I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again.
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And being, but an ear,
And I and Silence some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here.
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -
EMILY DICKINSON.
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6. |
Would I Yes To Say Yes
02:58
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7. |
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Inherit The Kingdom Prepared For You. 2’07”
Words & Music by Roger Gregg. 2009
Now some one is hungry Lord.
Lord grant us more guns.
Some one is thirsty Lord,
Dying for a drink.
Lord grant us more guns.
And the prisons are over-crowded Lord.
Lord grant us more guns.
Some one is naked Lord –
A crazy Crack Head,
Trying to wash your window.
Lord grant us more guns.
You know they hate us.
Oh Lord they hate us.
Why?
Some one is homeless Lord,
You see him crying out on that street corner,
You know he’s going to do something Evil!
Lord grant us more guns.
Sick people crying for a free hand-out.
Lord grant us more guns.
A whole parade of marching perverts,
Celebrating their vile filth!
Lord grant us more guns.
And the Foreigners! Strangers!
Seeking to undermine our way of life.
Lord grant us more guns.
You know they hate us.
Oh Lord they hate us.
They hate us.
Why do they hate us?
Why?!
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8. |
Sonnet 9 For Orpheus
02:33
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Nur wer di Leir schon hob
auch unter Schatten,
darf das unendliche Lob
ahnend erstatten.
Nur wer mit Toten vom Mohn
a, von dem ihren,
wird nicht den leisesten Ton
wieder verlieren.
Mag auch die Spieglung im Teich
oft uns verschwimmen:
Wisse da Bild.
Erst in dem Doppelbereich
werden die Stimmen
ewig und mild.
TRANSLATION:
Only he who has also raised
his lyre among shadows
may find his way back
to infinite praise.
Only he who has eaten with the dead
from their stores of poppy
will never again lose
the softest chord.
And though the pool's reflection
often blurs before us:
Know the image.
Only in the double realm
do the voices become
eternal and mild.
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9. |
The Devil's Whip
02:50
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The Devil’s Whip - 2’ 48”
Words & Music by Roger Gregg. 2013.
A wild fearless boy
sparkle in his eye
The tumbling impish acrobat
Who’d always make Mama laugh.
Child of reckless joy
Dancing on his hands
Making daring leaps in life
Never caring where he’d land.
Then came that autumn night
He was passed a rotten pipe
N’ the tail of the Devil’s whip
swung ‘round with a crack
Then with an innocent grip
He put the mouth of hell to his lip
And oh, there was no going back
Long gone the big brown eyes
Now red with bitter tears.
He stumbles on his thorny path
Years since he’s made Mama laugh.
And now I see a ghost
In shackles where he stands
Dead to all he once loved most
A shadow of a man.
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10. |
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Angel With The Snow White Wing. 3’01”
Words & Music by Roger Gregg. 2006.
I am the angel with the snow white wing
And baby blue eyes
My Master knows ‘bout your suffering
And sent me to your side
Just let me be your guide
My child no wonder you’re confused
Always wearing other men’s shoes
Walking through the strife of life
Seeing things from their points of view
Now they ain’t Chosen like you.
You see that Devil is oh so charmin’
He always comes in disguise
His wily smile is so disarmin’
And he tells the sweetest lies
Yes he tells such sweet, sweet lies.
So let me make you a shining arrow
I’ll shoot you from my mighty bow
Flying through to the straight and narrow
Piercing this darkness below.
Piercing all this darkness below.
Yes the end is now
Says my mighty Lord
So drop your plough
Take up a mighty sword.
Fire up the furnace
To burn the chaff
And all who stray
From our righteous path.
Just go to hell all them Satan’s minions
With their false religions and their Ugly opinions.
We gonna trample down them grapes of Wrath.
We gonna see to it that the Lord gets the last Laugh.
I am the angel with the snow white wing
And baby blue eyes
My Master knows ‘bout your suffering
And sent me to your side
Just let me be your guide
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11. |
Shem Is A Sham
02:49
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12. |
Fetters & Chains
01:05
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And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
MARK 5: 2-5.
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13. |
Through The Veil
03:52
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Through The Veil. 4’03”
Words & Music by Roger Gregg. 1984.
What becomes of a shooting star?
Rips through the heavens
Yet leaves no scar
A silent night
Is the only wake
No carved rock
Is going to mark its grave
Heaven merely blinks an eye
Slowly exhaling
While gazing through the veil
Gazing through the veil.
I was staring at what must have been
His shaking reflection
On the surface of a ruffled pool
All the while he sat unflinching
On a distant shore.
I lowered my ear to the timeless earth
And heard an ancient voice
Then I too spoke a language we once heard
While silent in the womb, now sleeping
Beneath the grass.
I was breathing through a film of dust
Flung in the atmosphere
Bathing this globe and muting the sun’s kiss
Oh let our lips meet once again.
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14. |
Dangerous Felon
02:06
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Dangerous Felon - 2’05”
Words from a ‘Dangerous Felon’.
I’m a ‘Dangerous Felon’!
I’m a dangerous felon
Because I possessed cocaine.
I can’t be trusted!
It ain’t like they want to save anybody
From anything.
You know, it’s just a big
Crock of shit.
As far as I’m concerned,
it’s the government’s fault
That I turned into being an addict,
Because they didn’t protect me
From the drug dealers.
But I am the one
That’s paying the cost of it all - In my eyes anyway –
A lot of people
Don’t agree with me on that one.
Because I’m a Felon now.
Their supposed ‘War on Drugs’
Didn’t solve anything for me.
You’re stripped of everything.
Run around with a little blue jumpsuit on.
You’re not allowed to have anything.
You can’t own anything.
You can only eat the shit they give you.
You’re just a nobody.
I’m a felon now.
You’re just herded in there
And you sit there and wait.
Then they drag you out.
They send you into the D-Block
And you sit there with 20 other guys.
For half of these guys,
This is a routine for them.
99% of its Drugs.
Almost all of it is Drugs.
I’m a Felon now.
The sad part is there is a lot of
Young kids, 18, 19, that have already
Been there three, four times,
And this is like part of their Life.
Like you gotta be kidding me.
You know, if you’re used to this already - you’re fucked.
If this is the way life is going for you,
You are so fucking screwed.
I’m a ‘Dangerous Felon’.
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15. |
The Muse of Black
01:53
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THE MUSE OF BLACK
Words & Music by Roger Gregg. 1983.
I am the Muse of black in theta wave
There is only light and shade
Not a shell but a dome
do I dance beneath
In fleeting light I bathe.
My sweet touch comes unbidden
as you whirl on life’s sharp lathe
wrapping you in ebony ribbon
that binds you to the grave.
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16. |
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I will arise and go now, and go to Innishfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
W. B. YEATS.
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Roger Gregg / The Bee-Loud Glade Ireland
Roger Gregg is an award winning playwright, composer, multi-instrumentalist and actor. His plays have been produced in Ireland, Germany, Australia and the U.S. In 2006 in a special feature reviewing his work, BBC Radio 4 hailed him as ‘one of a handful of truly great radio dramatists’. He is composer and director behind the on-going series of Bee-Loud Glade cabarets. ... more
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