According to Salvadore Dali, the train station in Perpignan, France was the center of the universe. Subsequent epiphanies he experienced while waiting for a train brought him back to the platform ticketless, just to have the opportunity to have his imagination in its most virtuosic form. Inspired by "Epiphany at Station Gate" by Sarah McRae Morton, a collage of intersecting streams of consciousness, from mascots of Teddy Bears and Billy Possums of Roosevelt and Taft, to the image of Picasso's Guernica etched as graffiti, all of which coalesce through the gate and into the platform as a blue sky, a bottomless depth of free association expressed as an epiphany and defined only as human creativity. A testament to the power of idle time.
lyrics
Here lies historic tragedy, now scribbled on the walls in fresh graffiti,
and Billy Possum Teddy Bears, and presidents who didn’t care
For the ancient wisdom of revelation to be found
in the kitchenary stations, a cosmogonic recipe for an epiphany.
His home address was Caraques, but Salvadore would be blown which ever way,
his luxury his loving dare, a sycophant who didn’t care
For the heroes or the villains so long as Nero was ever willing
to build a pretty station, at Perpignan with scenery for an epiphany.
The walls were washed in black and white, the village never had a chance to fight or flight,
so Pablo had to stop and stare, for Guernica made him care
For the angels, for the nations they will mangle all of creation
and all the pretty stations, and skies of blue and greenery, and all epiphany.
“You had your revelation on a border town in France,
You scuttled like a rat to live in luxury and dance,
Music you do not deserve nor magic nor romance,
Your only care your own epiphany”
But Salvadore argued “won’t you please just let me be,
to paint some pretty pictures in Chateau Absurdity,
the armies of the dead they march against all poetry,
You and I need my epiphany.”
I’m passing by and sketching verse, about around the center of the universe
with constellations everywhere, on better days all I care
for levitations at the seams of leviathans and how they dream,
while waiting at the station, a poet prone to thievery,
stealing from histories written weekly, the struggle to be easy,
the vista with a warm gun so breezy, oh happiness is…(epiphany).
credits
from Flowers of the Rhododendron,
released June 21, 2020
Doug Balliet - bass; Dylan Greene - drums; Fiona Gillespie - vocals; Dave Nelson - trombones; Jeremy Thal - trumpet; Paul Holmes Morton - music, lyrics, vocals, acoustic guitar
The Icelandic songwriter packs her stunning debut with sweeping melodies delivered via intimate, folky arrangements. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 12, 2023
