Homophonic! 2021.
Lyrics.
I am who I am – Caerwen Martin
I am what I am
I love who I love
Oh I want me
I’ll have my life thank you!
I am what I am
I feel what I have to
Ooh I choose love
I’ll take passion.
Where have you been?
Who have you been with?
Where have you hidden?
Who did you lie with?
I choose love or I’ll take my life.
I choose love, let me be with
Who I want to
Who I care for
Who I dream of
Let me be who I am
I choose love!
I am who I am
I love who I love
Oh I want me
I’ll have my life thank you!
I am who I am
I feel what I have to
I want love
I’ll take passion
I am who I am
I love who I want to
I am love
I live
Take back what I need to live my life
Thank you!
Shimmer – Louisa Trewartha
This work is written for septuagenarian Maxx Primmer AKA drag queen Di Alysis from Daylesford. Four music groups represent four people:
Group 1 is Maxx who loves classical Piano
Group 2 is his partner of 30 years Ken, here represented as a classical tenor
I always ached to get back to the trees
I always ached to get back to the trees and the birds.
Shimmer, my love, shimmer.
The 3rd group is a friend of Maxx’s from Daylesford who loves soft pop like ABBA
Bernardo!
You came into my life when it was empty.
You filled my heart like no-one else could do.
Bernardo, I love you!
Be mine for all of time
You and me together
Be mine for all of time
You and me together, baby, you and me together.
The 4th group is Maxx’s childhood friend from school who loves musicals
I can’t believe we’ve only just met each other
Doesn’t it feel like we have known each other all this time
If only we had something else in common,
More than perfect harmony.
If only circumstances would allow us, darling
But it seems awf’ly complicated right from the start
But we should try to make it work my darling,
Played out across three Acts.
Nothing could get in the way
I’m nearing my dying day
Such drama, and glamour, a musical!
Each group come in and out of Maxx’s life (the piano line) sometimes neatly, sometimes unexpectedly.
Moonlite (Excerpts) – Words: Maria Zajkowski Music: Wally Gunn
SCENE 02
Scott’s letter: “Situated as I am I wish to speak what I know, but the hearts of the so-called Christians of the nineteenth century are harder than stones and refuse to be written on even by the finger of God.”
The future by the past
Truth stays true
“I shed no blood”
what is said about what is said
“starving”
the map too late
“the battle was unequal”
born twice
“in the darkness of our misery”
in a man
“think of us with charity”
met and not met
“promises I have made”
in my debt
“are broken by death”
the static wanders
“to quietly stand”
the fate of halves
“and be shot”
great things stain the baby’s head
“this is my birthday”
rust in rain
“my death day is near”
beautiful habits
“to fathers and mothers”
clear to god
“teach your children to be cowards”
I couldn’t see
“as in all things”
but went
“I was opposed”
beyond the road
“wait till the grass grows on our graves”
magnetic
“as in all things”
it is not the water
“I did not so much sin”
that drowns
“as was sinned against”
it is not the air
“standing as I do”
that hangs
“on the verge of”
SCENE 05
“We were for some months free men, though narrowly watched by the police, hunted down and maddened by injustice and slander. The newspapers were filled with nonsense about us.”
Even in that dark time
Judgement walks slowly
cross days’ nameless faces
it hammers the iron
of life coming down
misery more than
the devil and all things
with nothing to own
and no-one to be
little defeating
the law of our hunger
to uphold the honest
with poverty’s stain
rich men sleep sweetly
in air unlike any
while we the unlucky
have streets turn away
and hope is the danger
where danger is hope
gold is just dust
and dust is our loss
SCENE 09
“Our life was mixed; content with bread and tea, sometimes bread without tea, sometimes without either. Even at this time I remember with sweet pain my dear friend’s kindness as he softly spoke words of comfort. We were one in hopes, one in heart and soul. Nesbitt and I were united by every tie which could bind.”
Every tie which could bind
You are unfolded in the dark, stronger weakness
you are the sound my hand becomes bound to
you are the light so deep unseen come to free me
you are the fear I seek to keep longing
you come apart, your breath untied in mine breaking gently
seeking your name, the cure I fall before, deeper
you come undone in fever, free
you are the true and tender urge I feel, growing open
you are the fire I hear within my ear, burning, reaching
you are the air, the purpose of my heart, unseen meaning
no more contained in what I came to bear, aching, bound to
you are desire reflecting in my heart, holding closer
your name, the cure I fall before
you are a sea enfolded in my arms, stronger weakness
the true and tender urge I feel
you are my eyes, the light so deep unseen come to free me
the fire, the purpose of my heart
you are the fear I need to keep longing, no more waiting
no more to bear what I’ve contained
you come apart, your breath untied in mine, breaking gently
tonight, tonight I speak in stars
seeking your name, the cure I fall before higher
you come undone in fever, free
unfolded in the dark, tender
the purpose of my heart, gently
you are deeper, closer
you are
Hyr – Ellie Lamb.
I know you by your footsteps in the sand
Walking hand in sunburnt hand to the sea.
I know you by your whisper in my ear
As the storm clouds gather near over me.
I know you so well.
I will know you when the stars begin to fall
When cities burn and oceans boil all around
I will know you when at the end we stand
Still hand in tender hand as the sun goes down.
I’ll know you then, as I know you now.
I’ll know you always.