What started out as a songwriting challenge at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic has become this collaborative piece of art which Simon and I would like to share on this Erev Hope.
The Rescue is a musical rumination on a video I took of Simon "saving" an abandoned doll found floating in a murky pond at Todmorden Mills, Toronto, May of 2020.
The song emerged at a time when George Floyd had just been murdered and the entitlement of his police executioner left so many of us figuratively gasping for air.
The "Iris" I sing about in the song is the singer and songwriter Iris DeMent, whose plea to "let the mystery be" seemed a fitting antidote to the arrogant and blinding certainty prevalent today amongst too many of us.
And so, while we celebrate hopeful inaugurations and vaccinations, it will not be politicians, jurists, scientists or even gurus that will ultimately save us... the rescue will have to be of our own making.
Lyrics
Saves us from our certainty
A circuitry
Of lock and key
Pull the rug
The stubborn plug
That endless tug and
let it drain
Release imagined reins
Rescue us from drowning in
Our stagnant pond
Our Cheshire grin
As Iris sings
That ancient hymn
Just let the mystery be
Dredge from murk and quarantine
Banished by a questful queen
Now resting in surrender’s scene
A state of grace not grasp
Rescue us from drowning in
Our stagnant pond
Our Cheshire grin
As Iris sings
That ancient hymn
Just let the mystery be
Hear it in the headlines read
The words unsaid and
The gasps for air
Its time to dare
Rescue us from drowning in
Our stagnant pond
Our Cheshire grin
As Iris sings
That ancient hymn
Just let the mystery be