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Seven Black Swans

from Orpheus & Swan by David Breslin

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lyrics

I have no more use for my shoulder-braid and shiny buttons
I have no more use for a feather in my cap.
Weapon for the weather is a rifle, not a rapier
Stringing up a snare as I’m sitting in a trap.
I am not afraid of the wailing wolf so wild and wicked
I am not afraid of the witches in the wood.
Yes, I am afraid of the malice of my fellow man
I am so afraid, and it’s no more than I should.

Seven black swans in the sky today
Saw them in the marsh where the corpse-lights play
Seven black swans and I heard them say
“Hey ho, freedom.”

Saw them as I lingered by the lake to shoot myself some supper
Something from a story I once heard as a child:
Seven royal brothers had a wizard for an enemy
Turned them into waterfowl to wander through the wild.
Tell me, was I free as a bird before they sent me here?
Tell me, was I free when I was an officer?
Tell me, is it not so that those enchanted Russian princes
Baffled all attempts to put them back the way they were?

CHORUS
Seven black swans in the sky today
Saw them in the marsh where the corpse-lights play
Seven black swans and I heard them say
“Hey ho, freedom.”
Seven black swans by the setting sun
Seven Russian princes a long time gone
Passing through my gunsight one by one
Hey ho, freedom.

I am better off than the convicts in the labour camp,
Have a certain freedom, although I cannot leave.
Hunting not for fun, but for flesh and fur to eat and barter
Writing to my parents, who prematurely grieve.
If I could survive an infinity of frozen forest
If I could survive, and I do not think I could
I would strike my camp, like the Nennetsye who herd the reindeer
Leave the human world to be a creature of the wood.
CHORUS

credits

from Orpheus & Swan, released December 3, 2020

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David Breslin UK

Singer-songwriter based in York, UK.

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