Another Hill Song
This song is a re-visitation of a theme I was working on back in 2016. This used to be the view out my window - it was originally this hill covered in trees, but then it got destroyed when some mean woman decided to build a house on top of it (she never did get her house built cuz of all these code violations or something along those lines). Anyway, the hill got denuded of trees, except for the oak tree in the lower right. Actually when I took this picture the hill was already in the act of getting destroyed, as you can see when you look at that ugly, silver fencing material at the bottom, that didn't used to be there. And when you see the picture at the bottom, you’ll notice how bad it’s already looking in this picture because it gives you a basis of comparison.
This is all to say, a song came to me in a dream this morning, and when I came up with the B phrase, I realized it was one of the death songs of that there hill. In 2016, when the hill was getting destroyed, these songs came to me in my dreams, and I took them to be the death songs of the hill, and I recorded 'em to give the hill a voice. Those recordings are on the April 29 through May 29, 2016 entries in this here blog. (A death song is a tradition in many indigenous tribes in America - in brief, it’s a song you sing when you’re dying.)
The B phrase in this song is a variation on one of the death song themes, so I decided to make this song about the hill, as well as, in general, how the earth is continuing to get destroyed by people. The earth, which used to be beautiful is now covered with crap, but you already know that. I don't have to tell you. Our short-sighted species thinks it's more important to have a housing development and a mall than it is to have old growth forests and things like that.
The lyrics are:
Now it is a thing-used-to-be
Can you hear me? I don't know if you can hear me
Walking through the stupid shit
That the world...has on top of it
It's a thing that used to be
When nature once was free
Can you hear me? I don't know if you can hear me
Oh, fuck, mother fucker, fuck, fuck, fuck, mother fucker, fucker, fucker, fucker, fuck, fuck, fuck
I used to look outside and my window
Showed me a happy sight, and I said, “whoah,”
It was a hill that had some trees on it,
Standing at my windowsill, I felt fond of it
Then the chain saw came and they raped it
I don't know another way that I should say it
Before it was turned into a big pile of sand
It came to my dreams, singing the song of the land
Can you hear me? I don't know if you can hear me
Now the hills are calling to me
Telling me who they used to be:“Once we had a bunch of trees;
Now ugly buildings cover me”
Oh, fuck, mother fucker, fuck, fuck, fuck, mother fucker, fucker, fucker, fucker, fuck, fuck, fuck
Here's the alternative player thingy, in case the one up top doesn't work on your portable electronic device:
This is what the hill outside my window originally looked like. In the end, alf of it got destroyed and half was spared - this is the half of it that was spared. But the right half, the view right outside my window, got denuded, and as you can see up top - that process had started when I took that picture. Man. I won’t show you a picture of the complete destruction because it’s too disturbing.
