Photographs in Empty Houses
One of 9 original songs, 1 instrumental piece, 2 covers and 2 theatre songs on my first musical cabaret album.
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Des de Moor
voices, percussion, keyboards and programming
It was through Rob McKahey that I met The Sturdy Beggars Theatre Company, and ended up working on all five of their major productions. For their first, Bertolt Brecht's Baal in 1991, we mainly used arrangements of the author's own songs, but one song in the text we had, 'Old Anne's Song', appeared not to have any music: indeed, it didn't seem to be in Brecht's original German at all. I later discovered from translator Christopher Logue that it was one of Brecht's independent poems, from the Taschenpostille. For the show I wrote an original blues-flavoured setting that ended up being performed naccompanied; the version here is basically my original demo with re-recorded vocals.
I wonder why she went to the expense,
But after seven hungry days without she knew
Her appetite was sent by providence.
And if her death was only on the hop
She thanks the Lord her dentures still fit tight.
You put them in when going to the shop
And keep them in a tumbler overnight.
The priest had dabbed her brow with holy oil
And murmured the time would not be long.
Drying her plate she reckons Father Hoyle
On this occasion got his timing wrong.
And if her death was only on the hop
She thanks the Lord her dentures still fit tight.
You put them in when going to the shop
And keep them in a tumbler overnight.
She even got a postcard from her son:
That silly man said, See you anyday.
Drying her hair, she thinks if it were done
The wave might last, God willing, until May.
And if her death was only on the hop
She thanks the Lord her dentures still fit tight.
You put them in when going to the shop
And keep them in a tumbler overnight.
Music written: Deptford, London, June 1991
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Music |
© Copyright Control 1991, 1992.
From Christopher Logue's translation of Baal by Bertolt Brecht, as produced by Sturdy Beggars Theatre Company, Latchmere Theatre, London, July/August 1991.
Recorded by Des de Moor on Photographs in Empty Houses (see left).
All rights reserved. No material on these pages can be reproduced in whole or in part in any form, except for short passages for the purpose of quotation or review, without prior written permission of the copyright owner.
More lyrics |
Holy Water
The Family Way
A Million Stars
Fear of Bodily Fluids
Out of Step
Open the window softly (Brendan Behan; Mikis Theodorakis)
L'Ivrogne (Jacques Brel; François Rauber/Gérard Jouannest)
The Same Old Game
Under the Needle
Old Anne's Song (Christopher Logue, adapted from Bertolt Brecht; Des de Moor)
Picnic in the Free World
Adjusted
I saw the sun (August Strindberg translated by Jonas Finlay; Des de Moor)
Aeroplanes
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