Lyrics Via Lacrimosa

 

Premières Communions

Words: Arthur Rimbaud, Music: Martin von Arndt

 

Meet Moshe Dayan in a Russian bunker

Words and music: Martin von Arndt

Down again at the edge of sensation
I could feel the sharp crawls of utter frustration
Grabbing my soul as she passes by minefields
Telling her sad tales, ah, she feels...

Meet Moshe Dayan in a Russian bunker
Feel the need of the bunker soldiers
They hold their heads in their hands, so they see
More from a deeper point of society...

Blood on the floor, puked by a drunkard
Me and my love down in the bunker-
Meet Moshe Dayan in a Russian bunker
Feel the need of social amendments-
Amendments...

Out again on the churchyard of selfishness
White crosses mark the tombs of desires
A nail in each hand, chatter below my feet
I'm living it down, the suspended animation

The skies get closer, at this juncture
I'd prefer being in the bunker...
Meet Moshe Dayan in a Russian bunker
Feel the hands of bleeding Guernica
I'm living it down, my mental diaspora
Much obliged you, Francis Goya...

There might be a wall, there might be my head
My head against the wall, that's what I dream of
Meet Moshe Dayan in a Latin funnel
Feel the need of mental amendments-
Amendments...
Dying amendments...

 

House of the rising sun

Words and music: traditional, rearrangement: Ansgar Noeth

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the rising sun
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl
An' me, oh Lord, I'm one.
If I had listened to what my mother said
I'd been at home today
But I was young 'n foolish, oh God,
Let a rambler lead my astray.
Go tell ma baby sister
Never do like I have done
But shun that house in New Orleans
They call the rising sun.
I'm going back to New Orleans
My race is almost run
I'm going back to spend my life
Beneath the rising sun.

 

Le Juif errant

Words and music: Georges Moustaki, rearrangement: Ansgar Noeth / Martin von Arndt

 

Pseudo-Philon

Dedicated to Váslav Nijinsky
Words / music: Martin von Arndt

"There was a time when, though my path was rough,
This joy within me dallied with distress
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
Whence fancy made me dreams of happiness"-
It seemed to be just for a minute,
Life was prepared for respiration-
But stronger than this Pseudo-Philon
Words are no ease and at least it's all the same...

You can't say that it's a torture-
The little ballet dancer's just overstrained himself...
The Don Quixotte who played a faun
But the windmills turned, yes the windmills all turned black.
A white cross and a necklace
All the voices in his head shout shrill-
But stronger than a Pseudo-Philon
Words are no relief and at last it's all the same...

He cuts for a minute the wires in his head and
Settles on a rat-hat, settles on a black cat
Pain in his eyes and God in his mind
He could feel divine pleasures lest the wine was a torture-bed
On the carpet he's grabbing for breath
Slightly showing his teeth to a bat
But he keeps up his mind and he keeps up the black cat
And we who are sane, can we say that that's an ease?
He made the wrong, wrong jump with his young heart
He just couldn't see the divine choreography
This might be an extemporary, an expostulate,
An expurgatory piece
Each fibre of his senses broken
There's a little tiddle-fiddle in his head-
But stronger than a Pseudo-Philon
Words are no ease and at least it's all the same...

"A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief
In word or sigh, or tear"-
It seemed to be just for a second,
Life was prepared for respiration-
But stronger than this Pseudo-Philon
Words are no relief and at last it's all the same...
- Free me from mine thoughts! -

 

Drapa

Words: Martin von Arndt, Music: Ansgar Noeth

There's a drum in the dark
The smell of burning myrrh
I try to raise my body
With that certain kind of strain-
For I'm covered with mire
And I'm drowning in the mire
And with that last strain
I'm emerging to foul air...

When mine eyes are dazzled
By the funeral procession
Of a goddess-queen who
Changed her portico for a pyre-
Slaves all around the corpse
All clothed in sheer gold
One fat's still fanning
Musk and perfume to no nose...

Then the corpse's on the pyre with
The hundred slaves beheaded
Their torsos fill the gaps between
The treasures and the wood-pile -
And with a mighty groan
Upwards the flames lick
To mingle the bodies, the
Jewels and the mire...

Still the drum's in the dark
Still musk in the air
My feet won't touch no ground
And my yells don't reach the sound-
Then a demon with a noose
Swiftly breathes in mine ear:
"A reminder for your journey
Your feet do now touch ground!"
And down the noose draws...

 

The cold earth

Words: P. B. Shelley, Music: Martin von Arndt

 

Three victims of bloody March

Words: Martin von Arndt, Music: Ansgar Noeth

Mi primera aparición estuve en una acequia
Entonces intenté de rebeber mi alma
Hacia el punto quando mi conciencia durmió
Y mis piernas vacilaron en locura pueril.
El rey risueño lució abajo sobre mí
Su sangre fundió en un lago de fuego
Y Christo dijó: "Sacrificaréte:
Escupe y clavate a mi carne..."

La segunda aparición: una puta sangrienta
Murió debajo de las ojas de un sol sucio
Trepó hacia me y espetó mi lengua:
"Para siempre la tuya, la mía - loco - mío..."
Belsazaro me encontró en una bacanal
Lo visto desnudo estrangulando un profeta
"Mi chère Madame, una cosa a aclarar:
¿Dormiste con las llamas en mi pared?"

Soy la nodriza de Elagabal
Soy el espectro que roba tu aliento
Soy el discurso que tú no hablarás
Soy herético, bufón ... y vuestro papa!
¡Te abrazo, niño querido!

 

Embryo

Words and music: Ansgar Noeth

Man is a beast
An insane beast is man
Within my life
My everlasting life
I was protagonist to
Millions of murders
Rich manured
Rich manured the ground
Gruel of human entrails.
"PANTA RHEI"
Bustling on staggering corpses
Everywhere
Under each step:
Putrefied bones, ashes
Felted hair
Smashed teeth
Fractured skulls
A beast
The terrible beast I am.
My jests do cover ya-
I got mine plans...

 

Tutuguri (Rite of the black sun)

Music: Ansgar Noeth

 

Frights of the retina

Words and music: Ansgar Noeth

Watching the devil's eye
In the ocean
The roaring waters
A background of boredom
Animal lust
Of a sky-shrinking sun
And the sound of the storm
In the spitted grass
The dunes, to the dunes
Thou art banned!...
That click inside thy brain
Horses at horizon
Licking and shrinking and spitting
And spoiled!
Turn down thy head
My mouthful of sand
Wind whispers: keep the silence
Whispering...
... Silence???

 

Last hour's sleep (Edit)

Words / music: Martin von Arndt

Silver meadows over which
Heaven persists in silence
And the last hour's sleep...
Uncovering trembly-archy
The most intimate of life
And beheading itself the dull crawls
Until nothing more is left
But the last hour's sleep
Over silver meadows
Under which
Earth persists in silsnce
And the last hour's sleep
Until nothing more is left but
Vanity - Vanitas - broken roses and
Silver meadows
And silver meadows...
Which uncovered uncovering itself
From eternal nakedness and
Vanity with broken necks over which
Heaven persists in silence

And in the last hour's sleep
A body in which guts do steam
And without the last hour's sleep
Until nothing more is left
But the executioner's axe!
And the last night's piss
Over silver meadows and
Vanity - broken neckroses under which
Earth - earth - persists in silence
Until nothing more is left but the eternal nakedness
And the dull crawls lying beheaded
On silver meadows
On silver meadows!
Requiescant!