Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Beyond The Wasteland

To listen to Beyond The Wasteland, click here




I built a bridge but the bridge fell down
"After The Battle", Prashker, 2013
I lit a candle but the light went out
I found a road but it led nowhere
Turn, turn again

Turn, turn, turn again
Turn around my friend
When every cause is lost
And dust returns to dust
Turn to the rain and the wind

If I have hurt you please forgive my sins
I swear that someday I will make amends
My hands are open but they clutch at wind
Turn, turn again

Beyond the wasteland there must be some hope
Is that a fire is it only smoke
I'll hang my faith now upon reason's rope
And turn, turn again

Out in the desert where the jackals howl
Out in the jungle where the cheetahs growl
Or in the city where hyenas prowl
Turn, turn again


I found this is a notebook, twenty years after I’d written and completely forgotten about it. At first glance, forgetting it for another twenty years seemed the most sensible response, but on reflection I rather like its naivety and it generates a lot of inward intensity when you sing and play it, which validates almost anything for me. The punch-line is again Dylan, straight theft (click here for the Dylan); but then Dylan stole it from Shakespeare (Feste in “Twelfth Night”) and Shakespeare stole almost everything he wrote, so he can say where the real copyright belongs. Plus Dylan also admitted the melody wasn’t his; he stole it from a guy called Paul Clayton, but probably Clayton got it from an old Scottish ballad called “The Two Sisters”. Hints of Leonard Cohen’s Bird On The Wire in the second verse. Did Neil Young have an impact on the opening? I can’t remember. Who really cares anyway? A song is a song, and not just a collection of influences and derivations. It works or it fails to work. This one ultimately fails, but it does so quite pleasantly. I have thrown out literally dozens of songs that didn’t meet the undefinable benchmark of intuition, sending them to the wasteland where they belonged; this one somehow survived, and perhaps I knew it would when I gave it that Eliotesque title.






If you would like to include "Beyond The Wasteland" in your repertoire, either for paid public performance or to record for commercial purposes, or if you would like to re-use the recording attached to this blog-page for commercial purposes, contact argaman@theargamanpress.com. 

Use of this song, and/or this recording, for non-commercial purposes, is not simply permitted but invited.


Words and music by David Prashker

Copyright © 2014 David Prashker


All rights reserved


The Argaman Press


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