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East EP

by Dao Strom

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    Also available: downloadable PDF of the accompanying chapbook for 'We Were Meant To Be A Gentle People' & song lyrics sheet.
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  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 6 Dao Strom releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Redux (Outtakes), Sense, East / West, East EP, everything that blooms wrecks me, and Send Me Home. , and , .

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1.
Cataclysm 08:00
I don’t know if I can fake it anymore I’ve lied long enough for you & if you think you know me just because you’ve read the words I wrote well, here’s another song for you Is every word is a cataclysm & does it hurt to say what fills your heart with lonely rhythm in the aftermath of Rebirth ? I wanted to be your vessel I wanted to fill your need but the past is an unwieldy burden & I fell out of line again ‘cuz every word was a cataclysm & does it hurt to say what fills your heart with lonely rhythm in the aftermath of Decay ? If I dress it up in ribbons if I groom and make it glisten will that make it easier for you? will you finally stop & listen? ‘cuz every word is a cataclysm & how it hurts to say what fills your heart with lonely rhythm in the aftermath of the Shame
2.
All my life I have been waiting for the rain to come and sate me For I am just a child of the dust you ate that enslaved you Forgive us thus our unbound lust that holds you in our brethren For we knew not what your wings would cost the day we sought to cut them
3.
Didn’t you once believe in art? Didn’t you once have a beating heart? when you told me the story about a poet and her friends who went to see a king but he wouldn’t let them in except for her fine eyes She told him of the troubles throughout their country She told him of her worries for all their people She told him this in rhyme and in the rhythms of her song She told him this in rhyme and with the poetry of her tongue & that’s when he began to see (( )) Mother you once watched a monk light himself on fire in 1963 when you thought fire might say more than a gun or all the bombs over Viet Nam but his ashes contradicted him he was burning himself for peace It was that kind of world So you took me away to an ivory tower In the hills where gold lay I grew into a princess and I never learned to speak in my rightful language I only learned to choke on all the beautiful English That burns my throat today (( )) Didn’t you once believe in art? Didn’t you promise to fight with your words? Well, fight with words we did stumbling over our own tongues Mother, you were the child that I failed to love And I’m sorry if I did ‘Cause now you praise the warfare and the flags of our follies & I am just an innocent who knows nothing of History I only know the stories about the old poets who once you dreamed of following bringing the world to reason As I still dream today
4.
Night after night the bombs fall sweeping girl stops her broom (to listen) to the gods falling apart & heaven throwing our prayers back at us Does a mother wake feeling the walls shake & when she hears her child cry she says I will sing you a lullaby But this was not the song I had in mind this lullaby of the artillery fire this lullaby of the artillery fire we were meant to be a gentle people & you ask what is the greater evil? [*based on "Dai Bac Ru Dem" by Trinh Cong Son]
5.
Origin Tale 09:11
Mountain mother mourning all her rivers that flow with the blood of soldiers the children who remain pick up the pieces they plant the seeds Dragon father you always were so restless so you took half of the children and you led them south to the seashore where you taught them freedom Mother she is crying but her tears fall as drops of ink so Mother she cries a newspaper and her sorrow is only documentary newsreels tell me what to feel because I don’t know what is real t.v. communicates our rage but a death count is all that speaks our sadness Sister searches high & low for her Brother she once knew in the north and Brother he writes long letters home “is a flag not but a piece of cloth?” tell me what you saw that night when the bomb’s fire mingled with the starlight thought I was witnessing the end of my Time but then I learned that the guilty survive we survive ((we will suffer no more)) ((we will not carry your war))
6.
< —break the silence— > <tell them what went wrong at the breaking of our new dawn> <we once were kin breathed of the same skin — <oh my sisters have they forgotten me ? > <i was the Torus you were the Ram’s nest> <we kissed & the whole thing shuddered to Life > <i took your wing you caught my tailspin but still I fell> <Mother you tempted me said you cannot change your destiny— oh but surely by now I have proven you wrong> <Break the silence, Tell them what was the real Reason that we Left >

about

East (EP)

credits

released May 24, 2013

all songs by dao strom | the sea and the mother
recorded by dylan magierek @ type foundry studio, portland & at home by dao
dao strom - vocals, guitars, bells, piano
nial nutter - electric guitar, piano on Track 5
amanda lawrence - viola, violin
celia straub, cassandra yardley - choral voices on Track 5

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Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.

tags

about

Dao Strom Portland, Oregon

/// songs. poems. song-poems.
poetry+art. spaces in-between. /// / // /

(sometimes sea)
(sometimes her)

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