There’s a girl singing in the ghetto standing outside of a bar
she raises again the ipod’s volume not to hear her city’s scream
“hurricane annie ripped the ceiling off a church and killed everyone inside”
like a blinded nightingale she sings to cast the darkness away
and pushes harder her headphones against her ears to be more closed into herself
to listen only to her tiny heart in all the noise around
what it takes to be a man / when i don’t know who i am chorus
what it takes to be a man (and what it takes to be a man)
There’s a black lady in Times Square naked inside of a black plastic bag
like trash thrown on the ground she cries strong enough to tear your soul away
selling tears is her business, pain for mercy
for thirty pieces from the tourists she erodes her dignity
and i can’t see the face of the man in the mirror
snowy hair since longtime, a cane is the guide
of the old and exhausted Tiresias that heard life become myth
i was in Babel among thousands of voices of peoples
which i still hear in the heart of the metropolis
steel and concrete fingers digging the ground
the cloth and the fringes, masses gather
in circles of sorrow on the Ganges
the same sign in every time of the Kingdom
time passing, growing, consuming and devouring
millions of lives, of names
but the soul is just one
but the soul is always the same
credits
from L'esercito del sole,
track released July 2, 2011
Zanna : Vocals
MattiaC: Keyboards
Kappah: Additional programming
ReddKaa: Electric and acoustic guitars, programming, live recordings: Brooklyn, NY
Howard “Mr.Nice” Marks
An ambitious pop song cycle about human loneliness and fear, thick with harmonies and buoyed by tight musicianship. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 27, 2018