LET’S DISCUSS THIS AT THE HOSPITAL – The Vampire's Wife

My ferociously talented and radiantly beautiful friend, Florence, blows us all away with her new song, ‘Free’! Filmed in Kyiv and dedicated to the Ukrainians, it is a wonderful and spirited song. Flo, we adore you here at The Vampire’s Wife. Love Susie x

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui8kUKuLBaU

Free

Sometimes, I wonder if I should be medicated

If I would feel better just lightly sedated

The feeling comes so fast and I cannot control it

I'm on fire, but I'm trying not to show it

As it picks me up, puts me down

It picks me up, puts me down

Picks me up, it puts me down

A hundred times a day

It picks me up, puts me down

Chews me up, spits me out

Picks me up, it puts me down

I'm always running from something

I push it back, but it keeps on coming

And being clever never got me very far

Because it's all in my head

"You're too sensitive," they said

I said, "Okay, but let's discuss this at the hospital"

As it picks me up, puts me down

Picks me up, puts me down

Picks me up, it puts me down

A hundred times a day

Picks me up, puts me down

Chews me up, spits me out

It picks me up, puts me down

But I hear the music, I feel the beat

And for a moment, when I'm dancing, I am free

I hear the music, I feel the beat

And for a moment, when I'm dancing

I am free

Is this how it is?

Is this how it's always been?

To exist in the face of suffering and death

And somehow still keep singing?

Oh, like Christ up on a cross

Who died for us, who died for what?

Oh, don't you wanna call it off?

But there is nothing else that I know how to do

But to open up my arms and give it all to you

'Cause I hear the music, I feel the beat

And for a moment, when I'm dancing

I am free

By Florence Welch

AH, MY DEAR ANGRY LORD

I love this terse little poem by the English poet, orator, and priest, George Herbert about the contradictory nature of religious belief, its good and bad sides, and its joy and sorrow. There's nothing like a bit of hard religion on a Sunday morning!!

NO TEAR-FLOODS OR SIGH-TEMPESTS

In A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, the English poet, John Donne, likens his relationship with his wife, Mary, to a spiritual entanglement between two souls as he says farewell to her before he goes on a mission to Europe. I love the lines ‘let us melt and make no noise/no tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move’. Beautiful!

THE CARNIVAL IS OVER

I have just a simple song for you all from 1967, all the way from Australia (where my husband is), by The Seekers. I love this song, melancholy but so stirring, and Judith Durham, dressed in what looks like something from the archives of The Vampire’s Wife, is so touching. It is a song full of tears about the end of things and love’s enduring presence. We adore this song here at The Vampire’s Wife.