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DEAD CAN DANCE - WITHIN THE
REALM OF A DYING SUN
1987 - 4AD - CAD 705 CD
Windfall
In the Wake of Adversity
Xavier
Dawn of the Iconoclast
Cantara
Summoning of the Muse
Persephone
The gathering of flowers
Violin: Alison Harling
Violin: Emlyn Singleton
Viola: Piero Gasparini
Cello: Tony Gamage
Cello: Gus Ferguson
Trumpet: Mark Gerrard
Trombone: Richard Avison
Trombone: John Singleton
Bass Trombone and Tuba: Andrew Claxton
Oboe: Ruth Watson
Timpani and Military Snare: Peter Ulrich
All other instruments and voices performed by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard
Photograph by Bernard Oudin
Design by Brendan Perry
Written by: Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard
Produced by: Dead Can Dance and John A. Rivers
Engineered by: John A. Rivers and Francisco Cabeza
Recorded/Mized: Woodbine Street Recording Studios April/May 1987
Published by: Beggars Banquet Music Ltd/Momentum Music Ltd
We scaled the face of reason
To find at least one sign
That could reveal the true dimensions
Of life lest we forget
And maybe it's easier to withdraw from life
With all of it's misery and wretched lies
Away from harm
We lay by cool still waters
And gazed into the sun
And like the moth's great imperfection
Succumbed to her fatal charm
Any maybe it's me who dreams unrequited love
The victim of fools who watch and stand in line
Away from harm
In our vain pursuit of life for one's own end
Will this crooked path ever cease to end
Hey Patrice don't cry they've no reason
to harm you at all
They don't realise that the angels surround you with light
They don't understand their narrow ways defeat them where they stand
They don't realise you hide your sadness beneath a painted smile
Ignorance, that light of fools steers a wayward path
And sets the course upon which we sail into the night of uncertainty
Following the stars that make their way across the sky
Valuing the love that lends grace to our hearts
We sail
Fair Roseanna your vagrancy's a familiar
tale
Fraught with danger the lives you led were judged profane
Hatred enfolds us
Inculcates the minds with it's heresy
Laymen enfold us
Clemency arrives to set you free
Faith
Although Xavier has prayed
That life-giving waters may rain
Down on the souls of man
To cure them of their ways
These were the sins of Xavier's past
Hung like jewels in the forest of veils
Deep in the heart where the mysteries emerge
Eve bears the stigma of original sin
Freedom so hard when we are all bound by laws
Etched in the seam of nature's own hand
Unseen by all those who fail in their pursuit of faith
Although Xavier has prayed
That life-giving waters may rain
Down on the souls of man
To cure them of their ways
And as the night turns into day
Will the sun illuminate your way
Or will the nightmares come home to stay
Xavier's love lies in chains
These were the sins of Xavier's past
Hung like jewels in the forest of veils
Other
Anywhere Out Of the World
By Charles Baudelaire
This life is a hospital where every
patient is possessed with the desire to change beds;
one man would like to suffer in front of the stove,
and another believes that he would recover his health beside the window.
It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I am not,
and this question of removal is one which I discuss incessantly with my soul.
'Tell me, my soul, my poor chilled soul, what do you think of going to live in Lisbon?
It must be warm there, and there you would invigorate yourself like a lizard.
This city is on the sea-shore; they say that it is built of marble
and that the people there have such a hatred of vegetation that they uproot all the trees.
There you have a landscape that corresponds to your taste!
a landscape made of light and mineral, and liquid to reflect them!'
My soul does not reply.
'Since you are so fond of stillness, coupled with the show of movement,
would you like to settle in Holland, that beautifying country?
Perhaps you would find some diversion in that land whose image
you have so often admired in the art galleries.
What do you think of Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts,
as ships moored at the foot of houses?'
My soul remains silent.
'Perhaps Batavia attracts you more? There we should find,
amongst other things, the spirit of Europe married to tropical beauty.'
Not a word. Could my soul be dead?
'Is it that you have reached such a degree of lethargy that you acquiesce in your
sickness?
If so, let us flee to lands that are analogues of death.
I see how it is, poor soul! We shall pack our trunks for Tornio.
Let us go farther still to the extreme end of the Baltic; or farther still from life,
if that is possible; let us settle at the Pole. There the sun only grazes the earth
obliquely,
and the slow alternation of light and darkness suppresses variety and increases monotony,
that half-nothingness. There we shall be able to take long baths of darkness,
while for our amusement the aurora borealis shall send us its rose-colored rays
that are like the reflection of Hell's own fireworks!'
At last my soul explodes, and wisely cries out to me:
'No matter where! No matter where! As long as it's out of the world!'