Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
This song features a sizable spoken word passage adapted from Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem “Savitri”, from which Haines' middle name comes from. Haines writes on her website that:
Aurobindo wrote an absolutely astounding long poem, called Savitri, which means “truth” in Hindi, and as a result of this...
If I could go back, if I could reach that feeling again
If I could go back, if I could reach that feeling again
I would not have let shit-talkers stop me
Failures whispers sad how hard she tries
Advance retreat, accept defeat so softly
Shrink inside to see through your camera's eyes
The greatness she has dreamed her acts have missed
Her labour, her passion, her pain
A rapture and pang, her glory and her curse;
(The greatness she has dreamed her acts have missed)
And yet she cannot choose but labours on;
Her mighty heart forbids her to desist
(Her failure lives, her failure lives!)
For as long as the world lasts her failure lives
Astonishing and foiling Reason's gaze
A folly and a beauty unspeakable
A superb madness of the will to live
A superb madness of the will to live
(A superb madness of the will to live)
This is her being's law, its sole resource;
Though satisfaction never comes
(Never comes, never comes, never comes)
Her hungry will to lavish everywhere
Her many-imaged fictions of the Self
And thousand fashions of one Reality
(One reality, one reality, one reality, one reality)
Escape from the moment's prison of littleness
(She shuts eternity into an hour)
Almost
(almost)
She nears what never can be attained;
(So softly)
She shuts eternity into an hour
She serves no aim
But labours driven by a nameless will
Her secret and impossible task
She serves no aim
But labours driven by a nameless will
(So softly)
So she follows her sublime irrational plan
Invents devices of her magic art
But even now she knows not what she's done
For all is wrought beneath a baffling mask
A semblance other than its hidden truth
The unfinished creation of a changing soul
In a body changing with the inhabitant
(So softly)
The unfinished creation of a changing soul
(The unfinished creation of a changing soul)
In a body changing with the inhabitant
(In a body changing with the inhabitant)
Insignificant her means, infinite her work
(Work, work , work, work, work)
On a great field of shapeless consciousness
A strange enthusiasm has moved her heart;
She hungers for heights, passions for the supreme
Hunts for the perfect word, the perfect shape
Leaps to the summit light
(Summit light, summit light, summit light)
And woos his large-eyed wandering thoughts to dwell
In figures of her million-impulsed Force
Woos his large-eyed wandering thoughts to dwell
In figures of her million-impulsed Force
Her million-impulsed Force
(So softly)
Her million-impulsed Force
That's it
(So softly)
Her million-impulsed Force
(So softly)
Choir of the Mind was written by Sri Aurobindo & Emily Haines.
Choir of the Mind was produced by Emily Haines & James Shaw.
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton released Choir of the Mind on Fri Sep 15 2017.