Grave Domain, a song by Grave Domain, featured on Grave Domain's debut album : Grave Domain
A starting point for those already lost
Song lyrics don’t work on the written (or typed) page. Not usually. At least not for the last 2,500 years or so.
So I’ve got no pretension here that the lyrics that follow are anything more than a sketch of the sound produced when the words are uttered within the context of melody and harmony and everything else that exists in songland.
Nonetheless, I will share them here as it’s a decent starting point. And what I mean by ‘starting point’… well, like once you are already lost on your journey you pull out a map and attempt to figure out where you are. That’s a starting point.
The lyrics we discover upon opening that map contain the theme of the song ‘Grave Domain’ on the album of the same name by the band of the same name. The savvy among you may notice that this is also the name of this here newsletter (and only functionally the name of the author that is given to these posts). In myriad ways, I see this song — and this phrase: Grave Domain — as central to the musical work that I intend to pursue for some time, no matter what form that music may take.
The song. It’s not a perfect song. And it’s not a perfect recording. It was written in a kitchen. It was performed and recorded in a kitchen. Long have I worked in the kitchen. Initially what was contrived of convenience has become over the course of the last twenty years more of a crutch. I need close proximity to the allowances of the kitchen. The ability to step away from the recording, work on a dish, and come back to it renewed.
The kitchen that I work in was built in 1927 — it is the modern addition to a small brick house constructed in 1840 along the oldest street in a town that itself dates back to 1734. The house sits on a street where at one end of the block there is an Episcopal graveyard and at the other end a Catholic graveyard. The old tracks of the B&O railroad are still used by the CSX freight trains out of Baltimore and the MARC commuter train to Washington, DC. Two blocks away meanders the Patapsco River which spills out into Baltimore Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay.
The neighborhood itself feels partly like the bailiwick of ghosts who remain and partly like the way station of those just passing through like leaves upon the river. Sometimes those leaves will get caught in a little tide pool or will get hung up in the grasses along the bank. They float there — seemingly shivering… by daylight, by moonlight, by no light — as they await whatever the river has in store for them.
I know you are not ready No one is ever ready But I have come to make it easier on you And to help you find your way I’ll lead and you will follow I am not here to harm you For dying’s so much very different than death That’s what all the dead souls say I know you are not ready No one is ever ready This line of work is steady I’ve led so many back home And I notice that often the closer they get The more that they feel alone But this is where you’re going This is a grave domain I can help only so far Then you’ll need bear your own weight You’re not the first to do this You will not be the last There’s nothing that you’ll need there But you’ll need bear your own weight Do you know where you came from Do you know how things were Before you came to exist Ere time itself existed But this is where you’re going This is a grave domain I can help only so far Then you’ll need bear your own weight You’re not the first to do this You will not be the last There’s nothing that you’ll need there But you’ll need bear your own weight And here the psychopomp waits As dusk fades into night As evening’s shadows grow long As the shadows grow long I know you are not ready No one is ever ready But this is where you’re going This is a grave domain I can help only so far Then you’ll need bear your own weight You’re not the first to do this You will not be the last There’s nothing that you’ll need there But you’ll need bear your own weight