[jane's song]
[Time: 6'48"]
[Lyrics: Jane Rigby]
[First performed February 11, 1999 -- show #5]
[Appears as track #14 on "Pastor of Muppets"]
[Tim: electric bass, Nevin: violia, Kort: cello, Jamie: percussion, vocals, Andy: guitar, vocals, Thom: guitar, vocals]


A collaboration with our good friend and astronomer/poet laureate Jane Rigby,
this piece metaphorizes a physics problem (perhaps unintentionally) as a paradigm
for life on a grander scale, at least in my (Andy's) eyes,
which is why i wanted to use it. This marked the
first time that Bert used strings in a song, and also was the first Bert
song to use an odd time signature (it's mostly in 7/4)
a trick we often use to feel all big and stuff.


Pulley above belays the rope slung over and doubled down,
balancing a mirror, so carefully framed against my clinging primate self.
Ascending, descending, dissenting, I climb hand over hand.
The mirror mocks my pantomime.

Am I really moving at all?

Turning my back to the spectre I twist out toward the velvet air,
then swing back like a torsional pendulum weighing the earth.
If this mirror were only convex, I could shrink myself away
from the counterweighted bosun's chair.

Throwing back a stranger's grimace.

Maybe if I slip and fall, I could somehow break away
from the Newtonian interrogation of this interlocutor.
Plunging through inky indifference, I fall together
with mirror isomerism like a Pisan cannonball.
Accelerating in lock-step, I realize the only way I can break free
is to let the mirror myself shatter.
Then, what becomes of me?

Stretching fingertips out toward the life cord, burning skin to slow my descent.
I yank to a stop with my prehensile tail, and my echo is still there.

While my reflection frowns and contemplates a navel all his own,
I critique a panting, frightened Sissyphian soul.
Swinging to an introspective breeze.

At least this travelling companion is more loyal than most I've found.
And since there's no exit, we might as well start climbing once again.

Once again.




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