I wrote this in the winter of 1988 when I was visiting some friends who lived on a farm in Richmond, NH. They are Buddhists and, at the time, public school teachers, and had a different week off for February vacation than those teachers from MA. I was there to write, eat good food, gets some real sleep, engage in conversation, laughter, silence, and recharge the batteries for the remainder of my leave of absence from Dedham High School. Every morning I would rise, eat a good breakfast, trudge through the snow to get some exercise and fresh air, and return to write for a few hours. Their farm was beautiful, peaceful, and clarified for me the need for rare quietude, the majesty of the seasons, and my preference for an abundance of clean, cold air. All that said—this song! What? I knew the world was quite the opposite of what I was experiencing, and I had remembered reading about the chemical spill in Bophul, plus Chernobyl had just happened, but the world seemed indifferent to the kind of changes in attitude, political and institutional, that really mattered in dealing with our contempt for the environment. Add to this my fascination with the film, “Terminator”—well, I had to say something.
lyrics
The Tide Recedes
Oh, my God—the body stinks!
Another kid has washed ashore.
The crime has poisoned all we drink,
Soon the rats will settle the score…
Oh, I adore the moon.
Corporations get their kicks
By dining with the new dictators.
We design their governments
To shoot their load and pay the bill later.
Who is the waiter, who is the maître’d?
The courts up for hire,
The kings all conspire
To light the bonfire…
Trash cans sink beneath the petrol sun,
Oh, yes! Thy Will Be Done,
Unless the tide recedes…tonight.
Luck is a collapsing bridge,
Life is like a smokestack lightning.
Where is all the foliage?
Smell the air—there’s something burning,
Children are screaming
And peasants are poisoned somewhere.
The signal is scrambled,
Political gamble,
A broken Preamble…
Holy Meltdown greets the New Creators,
Evacuation Days are here again,
Unless the tide recedes…tonight.
Someday the gods are gonna come from the sky
And they’ll take a look around;
From the counting house we’ll all try to look them in the eye
And cop a plea to be found.
Zealous Rapture! Holy Retribution!
Us and Them!
We’ll be speaking in tongues
To the Holy Clean Messiah,
Giving our lungs
To the Holy Clean Messiah,
Coming undone
For the Holy Clean Messiah,
Killing our young,
For the Holy Clean Messiah!
Jesus should have stayed around
When he broke the Moneychangers;
When He left the chips were found
And soon they bought and razed the Manger
We should have known it,
You don’t need a poet to see
That whenever the ballot’s
(Think think think before you vote vote vote)
The rich man’s palette—
(Take your time time time time)
By that time we’ve had it.
Dolphins screaming, eagles lost at sea,
And I can only pray that
The tide recedes…tonight…tonight.
Someday something is gonna crawl from the slime—
It’s gonna take a look around;
And from the Slag-Heap Altar of the Ministry of Crime
Will preach the Heirs to the Crown:
Robots, Automatons, Replicants, and Androids—
Laughing little Mutants all singing the praise
Of the Holy Dream Messiah,
Feeling the rain
Of the Holy Dream Messiah,
Giving their pay
To the Holy Dream Messiah.
Let’s call it a day
For all the Dream Messiahs!
credits
from Fill Spectre,
track released January 1, 1996
Produced, Composed, Played by Edward Morneau
Edward Morneau has been a musician and songwriter most of his life. His focus on multiple genres and interest on sound
collage experimentation makes his music hard to classify. His muses range from Beatles, Brian Wilson, Randy Newman, XTC, Kinks, Iris DeMent to Mahler, Shostakovich, Penderecki & Zappa. His background as an English & Film teacher gives humor and striking imagery to his songs....more
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