In this song
scenes from my real life flow into literary, geographic and popculture
hallucinations, through the "River" symbol, done in a "punk-hymn"
style. It's full of references to rivers, places, songs and books
(Thomas Wolfe's "Of Time and The River"; "Ask" by The Smiths; a nod to...
a Robert Johnson lyrical image (later used by Zeppelin); scenes of
Victoria and Oyama, British Columbia; Calgary; Luxembourg; Europe's
rivers Rhine and Mosel, and Calgary's rivers: The Bow, The Swift (old
name for Elbow), Fish Creek and Nose Creek).
MOSEL
I hitch-hiked all the way from victoria bc, to calgary with my dog
mosel by my side, through a wood near oyama and mosel found the way,
she led me around to the beach at jade bay. another time another beauty
and me hiked the rhine, and drank erdberen wine by the mouth of the
mosel, hazel nuts hung on branches and vines climbed the hills, we
toasted to luxembourg's buck-toothed girl: "if there's something you'd
like to try, if there's something you'd like to try, ask me i won't say
no how could i"... and, "if there's something you'd like to try, and
there's one thing i'll never prove, through valleys and hearts i wanna
move." the come of the sun, the juicy earth, the come of the sun, the
juicy earth. my church is the birch-wood my juice is the flood that
runs down the leg of the one who i love, we ask and we answer in new
kinds of play, and oh its so sad when sweet friends go their way.
things flow through me just like a river, is there any doubt that we
are all kin of rivers? the Bow the Swift the Fish the Nose and Mosel.
the vine-root threads the bones of buried lovers.