The Ballad of Hearst & Herriman

from Ventifacts by Ventifacts

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lyrics

THE BALLAD OF HEARST & HERRIMAN

Hearst and Herriman stand on a stone lip
casing Coconino, shadowless at noon.
It’s an image that returns when the sun rejoins the city
towards the flower moon.

Hearst says:

Oh! It’s so vast and so strange,
the lunar silence of that southern range.
I cannot read it by the light of day.
I don’t even see it until I step away.
But if I view it from a lesser height,
I can embody it in black and white.
No one knows what we’re looking at,
so why not spin a little gold from that.

And Herriman says:

Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

And Hearst says:

You furnish the balloon heart,
I’ll furnish the brick.
I need something to strike at;
I’m feeling a little sick.
We’re not learning to read here,
we’re not learning to write.
We’re learning to be fearless.
We’re learning to fight.
We don’t wait for fear to crush every last implement
we’ve painstakingly gathered—they’re not heaven-sent.
We don’t wake in dread to the reporting of shots,
we wake to read a table spread with bricks of thought.

[Herriman:]

Don’t look down!

And Hearst says:

Looking down is easy! It’s looking across
that makes me dizzy like I’m on the sauce.
Oh, but I am awake, and wakefulness is hard!
It is a luxury you can’t know
if you never leave the brickyard.

And Herriman says:

Wakefulness is a snow drift
on the horns of the moon.
Anyone can look up,
but you have to look up.

credits

from Ventifacts, released September 22, 2021

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Ventifacts Brattleboro, Vermont

Ventifacts is a microtonal songwriting duo comprised of Ben Spees (of The Mercury Tree) and Damon Waitkus (of Jack O' The Clock). This bicoastal collaboration has been developing since late 2019, and released a full-length album in September 2021.

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