I wrote this song about a close friend of mine who went to prison for something ridiculous. He is a very creative person so my heart ached for him knowing he’d have to spend a year in jail. This song came out of that feeling and it deals with the conflict between the baser body and our temporal surroundings with our higher creative spiritual nature. I knew Calliope was a greek goddess but I learned after I wrote this song that she was the muse of heroic epic poetry and Homer’s muse for The Iliad and The Oddyssey. The minor editing to the video was done to exemplify the transfiguratin that occurs when one engages in a creative act (consorts with the muse).
Calliope
(verse 1)
The children of Alcatraz, are playing monopoly.
Roll the dice. Roll the dice.
The bird man of Alcatraz,
is building a flying machine, for to fly, for to fly.
(chorus 1)
Work, work, play.
Wasted all the day.
I’m falling.
Calliope’s calling, out to me.
(verse 2)
We are the American boys.
We’re writing the alphabet, in the sky, in the sky.
We watch the American girls.
They move like Calliope, through our eyes, through our eyes.
(chorus 2)
Work, work, play.
Wasted all the day.
I’m flying.
Calliope’s sighing, under me.
(verse 3)
The archangel Gabriel,
he stands with a flaming sword, for to guard, the entrance to Eden.
The angels were astronauts.
They found the sky larger than, all the moons of Jupiter.
(chorus 3)
Wake, wake, dream.
I’m bursting at the seams.
I’m dying.
Calliope’s crying, over me.
The children of Alcatraz, are playing monopoly.
Roll the dice.
