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Jason Rubero: Music

We Sigh For The Child Slaves (2006)

(Jason Rubero)
July 12, 2010

Wow..... that's a hell of a lot of lyrics to type out.  By far the most words I've ever written for a song.  But FUN words.  I had a blast channeling Bob Dylan's stream-of-consciouness imagery into my own song.

In fact, this song used to be called 'Dylan 65', in honor of that pivotal time when he turned folk music on its ear by bringing an electric band on stage.

Read whatever you want into the lyrics.  If you buy me a nice micro brew, I might even tell you what I was thinking about when I wrote each individual verse....

 

Well I saw the prophet walking

National guitar in his hand

And around his waist, a belt of secrets

With his pockets all full of sand

I watched his footprints fall silently back onto the land

And like an apparition, he melted into midnight as he planned

 

The pocket soaked his reeds

And chose his words better than you or I

Grabbed the neck of his six-string

Tipped his hat to Whitman and sighed

Turned to Ophelia, said 'this one's for you', and forced a smile

And when they lit the sea shells, the priest and the architect just cried

 

The revolution started slowly

With a busker and a libertine

Whispering electric words

Flashing like the neon of a dream

And the people say the Emperor's just not at all what he seems

He spends his time embalming, and polishing the jar which holds his spleen

 

The politicians play games of chance

Union mobs and tarot cards at the wheel

While the mansions they inhabit

Contain broken homes they try to conceal

Twisted ambassadors, thrust forth the zealot they believe is real

While the medics poke and prod the broken body, and wonder what it feels

 

Cast down these silicon gods

Who push their brutal technology

The purser and the pugilist

Don't need your black lights to see

That the walls are getting higher, and deaf as nails - but how can it be?

That the things which draw us nearer are the very things which keep us from being free?

 

And the Duchess reeks of cognac

Her head swells in the ether of the clouds

People say 'don't take him so seriously'

But her brother always draws a crowd

When he conducts his business, holding snakes and wearing nothing but a shroud

In zero gravity, nothing falls but the mantle of the proud

 

The say the prisoner lost his courage

When the bars were taken from his cell

And the world he persecuted

Reflected the pain he knew so well

The press dogged him for his story, but his demons would just not let him tell

And the night he kicked the air, locals watched a shooting star as it fell

 

Rumor has it that the Judge

Wears a necklace of crushed bone and human hair

And the wine of his deliverance

Flows from the sword he swings through the air

And the jesters in his court write his praise in semaphore, but he don't care

For his thoughts plumb the gulf between what is right, and what is fair

 

The shining pacifier

Soothing the Debutantes in the night

Becomes a silver spoon

Feeding the icons of the left and right

Austere little convicts, holding their shining chokers to the light

While the manicured bankers drive the vehicles of finance to the fight