Migrant Chorale-Daniel Kahn/the Painted Bird

[00:31.334]Alien evening, dark after four, [00:39.296]Break out the bulbs from the Arabic store. [00:44.378]Shoulder the market by the canal, [00:52.301]Break out in tune to the migrant chorale. [00:56.414]Twisting of language, breaking of vows, [01:00.366]Translating names to what tongues will allow, [01:04.341]Hiding in cellars, listening through floors, [01:08.278]Settling debts with inherited wars. [01:15.952]Carrying records, town after town, [01:20.282]Keys to the temples they burned to the ground, [01:23.894]Mounting the hill for the final display, [01:27.692]Dragging the bones of the bodies away. [01:31.392]Occidental, oriental, over seven seas, [01:39.161]Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied. [01:46.587]Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied. [02:02.028]Crossing Morocco, dry desert plain, [02:09.665]Over the border and make it to Spain. [02:14.693]Wear for your coffin a mandarin van, [02:22.816]Abandoned in London on down by the strand. [02:26.818]Once there were bellies of galleons to fill, [02:30.473]Back from the Ivory Coast for a kill, [02:34.302]Now there are offices crowded with tongues, [02:38.208]Each of them waits for their number to come. [02:46.238]Lasers are strafing the valley with light [02:50.063]Under the quiet New Mexico night [02:53.981]Laying it's hand on invisible lines [02:57.824]Death is a friend to a field full of mines [03:01.733]Occidental, oriental, over seven seas, [03:09.077]Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied. [03:16.601]Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied. [04:15.928]Gaggle of ragged, frost-bitten geese, [04:23.430]Murder of crows at the end of a lease, [04:28.438]Swallows or sparrows, Gypsies or Jews, [04:36.245]Everyone knows when the rent will be due. [04:40.276]Vultures despising the swans for their pride, [04:44.191]Wearing their wings like a train on a bride, [04:48.130]Under the bridge with their heads in their br*asts, [04:52.010]Waiting for winter to summon them west. [05:00.319]Reading of horrors in papers of home, [05:04.295]Hearing reports over satellite phones. [05:07.961]Shone in the river, the town is a-fire, [05:11.546]Sending the pigeons over the wire. [05:15.676]Occidental, oriental, over seven seas [05:22.893]Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied [05:30.379]Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied