Weeping separation

from Fading Purple Sky by Nathan Fivecoate

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.

Purchasable with gift card

name your price
Buy the Full Digital Album

about

In college, my friend Bryan and I would occasionally get together to have jam sessions, he on the double bass, and I on the keys. We didn't always write stuff down, but we would have fun throwing rhythmic and melodic motives at each other on which to improvise. Towards the end of our time in college, we discussed some lyrics-music collaboration projects, and he offered a poem that he had written to be submitted to the college newspaper to be set to music. My original idea was to set it as part of a larger oratorio of sorts for choir and a sort of electric orchestra. I did so, and soon found myself disillusioned with it. After college, I revisited the text and decided to try writing it in song format instead. To be sure, I liked this far better than the original idea. That was two years ago. As far as this song is concerned, the rest is history.

lyrics

To hear weeping fall
like music from a father's lips:
"O Absalom my son!"

To search to understand in vertigo,
to run across a barren mind
with a fading purple sky
to your own river separating
North from South;
a divided kingdom.

Sobs sounds across borders
like the bellows of livestock
that bleat longingly across a pasture.

They lament their own
who crossed over the boundary:
those taken by kingship lust or crocodiles,

those riding, captured, hung in trees,
those devoured, put to pieces,
leaving only red rivers behind.

--lyrics by Bryan Runck

credits

from Fading Purple Sky, released November 5, 2010
Bryan Runck (lyrics)

license

about

Nathan Fivecoate Chicago, Illinois

contact / help

Contact Nathan Fivecoate

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Nathan Fivecoate, you may also like:

ROOM MUSIC
by The Black Box Theory

This collaboration between the Italian guitarist and saxophonist leans into improvisation to create an alternative instrumental sound. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 19, 2023
go to album
Blue Pine Vol. 2
by Wisbands

Two dozen 12-string acoustic improvisations that feel undeniably haunting, like lost transmissions from ancient Appalachia, rediscovered. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 17, 2022
go to album
Confluence
by Greg Dallas & Jan Esbra

Sail away on these foamy atmospheric electronic tracks that swell and expand slowly and patiently. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 17, 2022
go to album
Dawn Firth
by Whin

Martin John Henry (De Rosa) and Robert Dallas Gray (Life Without Buildings) make dreamy, improvised, folk-inflected music together. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 12, 2022
go to album
Twilight EP
by Wisbands

A riveting jam session from Pittsburgh, Pa. folk band Wisbands, who infuse classic Americana with jazz and psychedelic rock. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 15, 2021
go to album
Hong Kong
by CHEER-ACCIDENT

The new album from the Chicago art-rock group is based on a series of recordings made on walks throughout Hong Kong in 2015. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 10, 2021
go to album
A Solar Flair
by Zane Coppard

A moody, enveloping record from Zane Coppard, where dense and intricately crafted atmospheres cradle yearning vocals. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 1, 2021
go to album