Dar Williams Mark Rothko Song Lyrics

Mark Rothko Song Lyrics




Words and music by Dar Williams

The blue it speaks so full
It's
like the beauty one can barely stand
Or too much things dropped in your
hand
And there's a green like the peace
In your heart
sometimes
Printed underneath the sheets of ashy snow
And there's a blue
like where the urban angels go, very bright
Now the Calder mobile tips a
biomorphic sphere
Then it swings its dangling pieces 
round to other
paintings here 

Your behavior is so male
It's like you can't explain
yourself to me
I think I'll ask Renoir to tea
For his flowers are as real
as they are all the time
And the sunlight sets the furniture aglow
It's a
pleasant time as far as people go, how far do they go?
Well his roses are
perfect and his words have no wings
I know what he can give me and I like to
know these things

I met her at the funeral
She said I don't know what
he meant to me
I just know he affected me
An effect not unlike his art,

I believe

The service starts and we are in the know
He had so
much to say but more to show, and ain't that true of life?
So we weep for a
person who lived at great cost
Yet we barely knew his powers till we sensed
that we had lost

A friend and I in a museum room
She says, "Look
at Mark Rothko's side
Did you know about his suicide?
Some folks were born
with a foot in the grave, but not me, of course"
And she smiles as if to
say we're in the know
Then she names a coffee place where we can go,
uptown
Now the painting is desperate, but the crowds wash away
In a crowd
of kind pedestrians who've seen enough today