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Songbook 1
1982

voice
piano

duration:
Christopher Boyce's Suicide Note—2'
Two Levertov Songs—2'
Three Old French Songs—6'
Two Stevens Songs—2'
On Chloris Walking in the Snowy—2'
Three Arp Songs—6'
Five Ambo Ghost Songs—4'
Sweet Peg—5'
Les Colchiqueus— 8'

SCORE
Christopher Boyce's Suicide Note
TWO LEVERTOV SONGS
  Song for Ishtar  • The Sage
THREE OLD FRENCH SONGS
  Chanson Bachique  •  Je Sui Joliete  •  A la Cheminée
TWO STEVENS SONGS
  Life is Motion  •  Depression Before Spring
On Chloris Walking in the Snow
THREE ARP SONGS
  On Your Back  •  Cook Me a Thunderbolt  •  The Master Nailer
FIVE AMBO GHOST SONGS
  The Dove  •  I Have No Rattles  •  The Ghost is Gone
  See How it Circles  •  Ah! The Roofs
Sweet Peg
Les Colchiques

In 1982 I collected 32 songs, including these, to be performed individually or in sets as
Songbook 1 written over the previous 6 years. 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 of these issues have been
cleaned up, but I've tried to maintain the spirit as intended. It was rather sweet to see what the
25-year-old me was doing to appear 'modern' on the page, when it's clear that my music has always been, at heart, deeply triadic.

TEXTS
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 


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)

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. 


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



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)



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