April 4-track song 1: The Bells

Art by Billis Helg

This month, I was thinking about the theme of “endurance” - what endures throughout the changing of time? Recently, I was spending time at Billis’s house, and kept hearing the chiming of their clock, which rang every quarter-hour. It reminded me of a time years ago I’d spent with him, hearing that same clock. I liked the notion that the ringing of the clock was a sort of eternal sound, constantly returning even as we used it to mark the passing of our own lives.

I went back and re-read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells”, and took inspiration in how each verse told of a different scene, with a different emotion, underlaid by that endless clanging. I was especially intrigued by the “ghouls” which rang the funeral bells in the final verse, and used that as a starting point for the song I was writing. Here the “ghouls” are some sort of warring tribe, invading a cozy, quiet town and filling it with the brazen sound of their marching bells. The townsfolk try to shut them out, but the younger folk are intrigued by the sound, and join the march.

In verse two, the communal scene has moved on to a personal one, where the speaker waits in anxious anticipation of some dreaded news. As they wait late into the night, the chiming of the clock comes like a mockery to them, reminding them of their isolation as they wait in a suspended state.

In verse three, at a later point in time, the bells are heard in the streets again, as a parade passes by, celebrating old saints and old memories with fresh blood. The speaker joins in, submitting to the bells once again, with renewed joy and richness of experience.

(Somewhere not far from Billis's, someone is learning to play bagpipes, and can be heard afternoon hours. I snagged a phone recording that begins and ends this piece.)

Recording:

Track 1: drums/bass/bagpipes

Track 2: Vocals

Tracks 3-4: guitars

Lyrics

We beat the bells, we left the roads littered

With the footprints of our sound

We called to the parents, salesmen, priests, and police

“We’ve taken you and the hour!”

They beat us up, they called us ghosts,

They told their children not to let us in;

The first, the second, their kids came out, saying

“I thought I heard something ring”

The house fell dark, I couldn’t find a thought

To distract me anymore

The watching dread - “and is he dead?” -

Breaking down the unprotected door

Then time fell out replaced by the silence

Of an unseen darker power

The first, the second, the bells rang out, saying

“We’ve taken you and the hour!”

The streets were filled with saints all marching singing

The parade’s cacophony

Singing “life is wider, love is longer than we could have

Ever hoped to see”

I sang aloud the song I knew back when I thought I knew everything

Our voices full, the words were true that started when

I thought I heard something ring