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re: Thanks

Posted by: Taggart 11:13 am EDT 08/17/14
In reply to: re: Thanks - AlanScott 01:31 am EDT 08/17/14

Between you, I think you've puzzled out all the lyrics, except I hear "wake" instead of "wait." The first verse makes it clear that she's in a reverie.

When evening falls on this strangely gray city,
As daylight dies and the lonely hours start,
My twilight thoughts leave this alien sky
And they fly homeward, homeward --
Hoping there to find my heart.

I seem to walk through that faraway twilight,
I see a hearth where familiar fires burn.
The evening star hovers low above the plain,
A faint guitar plays a melancholy strain,
And oh! the pain as I wake to know
I nevermore can turn
Homeward, homeward --
Homeward to the homeland I adore
And will see no more.

Petina sings something garbled ("be"?) instead of "turn."


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re: Thanks

Posted by: AlanScott 04:31 pm EDT 08/17/14
In reply to: re: Thanks - Taggart 11:13 am EDT 08/17/14

Yes, you're right that it's "wake," not "wait." I wouldn't know from Petina, but re-listening to WIlli Burke with that in mind, I hear "wake."

I do hear Petina singing "turn." For one thing, I hear an "n" at the end.

And on the other recordings it seems pretty clearly to be "turn," at least to my ears. And when the chorus comes in with Petina — I stopped listening to the OBCR track last night after Petina finished singing solo — it seems pretty clear that they're singing "turn."


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Another Possibility

Posted by: Whistler 01:23 pm EDT 08/17/14
In reply to: re: Thanks - Taggart 11:13 am EDT 08/17/14

First, this is great and what I like best about this board: collective memory and analysis. So thanks again for taking the time.

Second, I think we're all trying to force the rhyme on burn/turn. Petina's enunciation of final consonants is fairly clear, reinforced by George Abbot's reputation for enforcing them, so I think she's purposely singing BE, not a garbled something else. And in the chorus section, they also seem to be ending with an open vowel. So that simply could make the lyric:

"And oh! the pain as I wake to know
I never more can be
Homeward, homeward --"

I'm not sure a person can actually "be homeward" Be "going homeward" perhaps, but, what the hell: it's poetry. And thinking about the lyric before I listened to it again this morning, I thought the words might be: "And all the pain as I wait to know I never can return" But there was no support for that once I listened to the recording, and it doesn't make more sense, either.

So I'm happy with what we have, and if someone figures out something better, great. Nice song, by the way, and I like it more for the work we did understanding it. Now I just have to learn to like the lyrics of A QUIET LAND again.


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