Lyrics Migrant Chorale - Daniel Kahn, the Painted Bird

Migrant Chorale

Alien evening, dark after four
Break out the bulbs from the Arabic store
Shoulder the market by the canal
Break out in tune to the migrant chorale
Twisting of language, breaking of vows
Translating names to what tongues will allow
Hiding in cellars, listening through floors
Settling debts with inherited wars
Carrying records, town after town
Keys to the temples they burned to the ground
Mounting the hill for the final display
Dragging the bones of the bodies away
Occidental, oriental, over seven seas
Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied
Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied
Crossing Morocco, dry desert plain
Over the border & make it to Spain
Wear for your coffin a mandarin van
Abandoned in London on down by the strand
Once there were bellies of galleons to fill
Back from the Ivory Coast for a kill
Now there are offices crowded with tongues
Each of them waits for their number to come
???
are strafing the valley with light
Under the quiet New Mexico night
Laying it’s hand on invisible lines
Death is a friend to a field full of mines
Occidental, oriental, over seven seas
Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied
Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied
Gaggle of ragged, frost-bitten geese
Murder of crows at the end of a lease
Swallows or sparrows, Gypsies or Jews
Everyone knows when the rent will be due
Vultures despising the swans for their pride
Wearing their wings like a train on a bride
Under the bridge with their heads in their breasts
Waiting for winter to summon them west
Reading of horrors in papers of home
Hearing reports over satellite phones
Shone in the river, the town is a-fire
Sending the pigeons over the wire
Occidental, oriental, over seven seas
Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied
Capricorn & Cancer dance a sorry gules lied