This track is a spoken word piece put to music, which we know is an approach that Ehresman has returned to time and time again, going all the way back to his first album--1989's "Honor In the Swine?".
Ehresman relates: "One night, as I was riding in a taxi home from a night out, I saw that we had a Cheshire moon here in San Miguel......And I was suddenly struck, looking at that wry smile in the sky, with the question of what those brave fighters in Ukraine would feel, looking up at that indifferent (mocking?) sight above them on those nights.......I had a dream about it that evening, and the next morning I wrote the words that had come to me in the night........This one goes out to the lonely soldiers in the field, fighting off the Russian invasion and experiencing long hours of tedium and stress between chaotic moments of horrific violence.......May they triumph in the end."
Woke us up before the dawn, the night a threatening wall--
black cannot describe it……just no color there at all;
The sergeants hissed the usual threats as we put on our gear,
and silently filed to the void, and chewed the cud of fear.
They took some land some years ago—the world was not aroused;
And now they’re back to take the rest—so again we drop the plow;
My wife and child have gone to ground—I will not see them soon;
For now we march into the void, beneath the Cheshire moon.
Their cruelty, a fetish, and their souls have left the field;
They shell the old and sick and lame, and scream for us to yield;
The global robber barons think it poor form to refuse,
and wish us ill as we march on, beneath the Cheshire moon.
And to the East, the dragon stirs atop its golden horde;
Replenishing our enemy with new and mighty swords;
We try to gauge the hearts out West by throwing of the runes,
and hear a distant laughter falling from that Cheshire moon.
The night explodes, we hit the ground (for some, it is too late),
and ponder our realities, our geographic fate;
We dream of peace, but wonder if we’ll ever know that tune,
as war drums thunder through the night, beneath a Cheshire moon…..
as cycles weep to end themselves, beneath the Cheshire moon……
as, once again, we rise and march beneath that Cheshire moon.
credits
from Cassandra, Cursed,
released October 17, 2023
Walter Ehresman: narration; keyboards.
Produced & engineered by Walter Ehresman at Snipe Bog Studios, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
p. 2023 Walter Ehresman. All rights reserved. Snipe Bog Records.
Called "the quintessential Austin DIY artist" by famed local disc jockey Charlie Martin , Walter Ehresman was an eccentric
presence in the Austin music scene from the '80s until his 2015 move to Mexico. A prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording artist...and a restless musical spirit, always looking for something new, expressed with fearlessly honest, socially-conscious lyrics....more
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