Jan's lyrics came late to this complex piece, but from an early stage we associated it with a Barbara Hepworth exhibition we'd been to in the Edinburgh Festival. One sculpture - Mother and Child - caught Jan's imagination and she worked on lyrics, as she sat and looked at it. Coincidentally, she saw someone who looked remarkably like a good friend and poetic mentor, Wendy Ruthroff. Wendy died back in 2020, but is still present as a creative mother figure, who communicated the importance of the feminine, the birther of creativity - which connected into Barbara Hepworth's philosophy of art. The song contemplates art, life, death, resurrection and the cycle of it all.
lyrics
Mother and Child
"Death’s kisses are indelible, like love" (Wendy Ruthroff)
Yesterday the sunlight sparkled in her hair
Death’s kisses are indelible, like love
The sunlight sparkled in her hair
I sleep and wake and sleep again, in a maze of dreaming
I sleep and wake and sleep again, in a maze of dreaming
We drove down to see the Hepworths – The Mother and the Child
I was sure that I saw Wendy there – The Mother and the Child
And the places where we lost ourselves – The Mother and the Child
I picked up the needle and followed the thread to my heart
- The Mother and the Child
“The meaningless absurdity of life is the only incontestable
knowledge accessible to man.” (Tolstoy)
“But what a woman desires, she can imagine into life. She can birth.” (Hepburn)
From the desperation of the act can come a resurrection,
a cycle, a birth of a form.
From the devastation of the act can come a resurrection,
a cycle, the birth of a song.
We’re searching for redemption and love
amongst the ruins of the ones we have lost
The weight of our existence falls
on our descendants, to their cost
We struggle, run, we fight and scream in a maze of Dreaming
Until we learn to dream the Dream, it’s a maze of our own making
Till we awaken
You never were rejected – The Mother and the Child
There was nothing more expected of – The Mother and the Child
But the bond of love protecting us – The Mother and the Child
As we go with the cycle of living, decaying and giving back to Life
credits
from Chiaroscuro,
released March 30, 2024
JK: Bass, Piano, Vocals
BK: Guitar, Sequencer Loop, Guitar Synthesizer, E-bow, Drumbox Programming, Percussion, Trumpet, Flugelhorn.
Image of Barbara Hepworth's Mother and Child: Janette Kidd
Not for Pussies came into being in 2008, although Brian and Janette Kidd have been together - and playing music together
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