Greetings, Listeners,
Hope this extra-profound-rebirth-themed spring is treating everyone well! This week’s feature comes from a writer we’ve showcased before: an infinitely thoughtful and talented young lyricist named Aulton. He’ll be the headliner for this month’s Neurolyrical Café (a free, online open mic featuring poetry and music by nonspeaking and unreliably speaking spellers; more info here), which takes place tonight at 7pm Eastern. In preparing for the event, I conducted a written interview with Aulton about his songwriting process, in which he explained, “When I write a song, I’m thinking calming thoughts based on what I have seen or heard lately. I let my imagination pause and rewind while I listen to the day. Time slows and I start collecting musical ideas. Sometimes, I get caught in choruses that take over my life.”
Much of what’s been on Aulton’s mind – and, indeed, many minds around the world – is the changing climate, and the ways it threatens each of our planet’s inhabitants, human and nonhuman alike. Aulton wrote this song in solidarity with one of those creatures, the tiger; the piece is a masterwork of compassion and fellow-feeling, and I’m honored to share it here:
Tiger, tiger
Stay still in the jungle
Tiger, tiger
Have you been hastening to manage the night?
Rain and haze don’t destroy candlelight
Ignore hammering heart, heart, heart
And silent tears, tears, jinx tomorrow’s
Omens of ominous directions and nemesis
Alters great fears
Tiger, tiger
Simmer instincts in halls of gore
Tiger, tiger
Gems eyes tell mysterious gleams
Of banishment, signal teams to seal the seams
Tigers lay shining
By kingdoms of love
Tomorrow sounds like a madness
Games taste of riot
And worry
Creating intense sadness
Tiger, tiger
Needs remembering
Tiger, tiger
Begins to see healing in hands
Of hope, inside the stones and sands
If you’d like to hear more, please consider joining us at the Neurolyrical Café this evening. Either way, I’m sending best wishes, and many thanks for listening.
Simmering instincts,
Brian