Lyrics with Marian Crole: Recent Episodes
Marian Crole
Each new episode presents the story behind one of Marian Crole’s compositions... a path through human life and emotions in the quest for connexion and freedom.
As her songs are in French, Spanish and English, the language of each podcast varies, with an English transcription available for each episode.
Lena had left me a whatsup audio telling me she had a benign tumor and had to undergo 14 hours of surgery. The morning after hearing from her, I sat at the piano and this sentence came " I don't know if this burning is bringing death or life"... I didn't know but at the very same time Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was in flames. That is how my song "Lena" started.
Lena es el nombre de mi hermana menor, una noche me deja un audio en whatsup diciendome que tiene un tumor benigno en el cerebro y que va a pasar por 14 horas de intervención quirúrgica. Al día siguiente, sentada frente al piano, me llegan estas palabras " no sé si este fuego va a traer vida o muerte", yo no lo sabia pero en ese mismo momento la Catedral de Notre Dame de Paris estaba en llamas.... así nació esta canción.
êtes-vous fatigué de sentir qu'il manque toujours quelque chose? Que vous y êtes presque, juste là mais pas encore? Fatigué de ce sentiment… cette impression que si vous-même ou la planète étiez ou votre famille étaient juste un peu plus ceci et un peu moins cela alors… alors ce serait enfin suffisant! Si vous avez répondu oui, alors ma chanson Enough est pour vous! Ici je vous raconte son message et le processus créatif derrière elle en backstage.
¿Estás cansado de sentir que siempre falta algo? ¿Que estás casi ahí, justo ahí pero todavía no? Que si tú, o la situación, o el planeta fueran un poquito más esto o un poquito menos aquello entonces… ¡entonces al fin sería suficiente! Si respondiste que sí, ¡entonces mi canción Enough es para ti!
Le monde, meaning the world in English, is a song inspired by the refugees Marian Crole worked with in 2011. The process behind this song was led by the intention to emphasize on the strength of migrants and on how such experiences can force someone to develop himself.
A song to explore the path from frustration to presence... Inspired by ancestral tantric wisdom with this mantra : "to you whatever you want from me", Marian Crole shares the creative process of the bilingual song "A toi" (meaning "To you" in French). A journey to inner peace and from there to endless possibilities
Le monde est une chanson au sujet du courage. Below an English transcription of the podcast.
Le monde
The world is too afraid of those who keep their eyes open in the dark without ever giving up, never locking their hearts up, never flinching in the face of their fears
Scared of these men and women who seem to be dancing in flames, laughing at their own deaths and making their tears sing,
I hear them say:
Leave me alone in my madness, eyes wide open in the night, I will be there, I will be there when the dawn raises up.
The world is too afraid of those who follow the traces of fire through the night, of these frail souls, these souls strong enough to face the magic of their fate. Of these women and men who offer themselves as the mirror of the crazy ones we are and refuse to see.
Leave me alone in my madness, eyes wide open in the night, I will be there, I will be there when dawn comes.
You can't kill the ones, who come through the night 'cause they got the dawn inside.
Leave me alone in my madness, eyes wide open in the night, I will be there, I will be there when dawn comes.
One day, I found myself working as a teacher for non-french – speaking children. All but one were asylum, coming from different countries at war, having crossed deserts, some had lost their brothers or sisters, some had lost their father, or their mother.
How is it possible to ask so much from a human being?
Not only to go through such experiences, plus all the ones they will never tell and all that is unimaginable, but in addition to that, once arrived in a new country which is not at war, to learn a new language, a new culture, and to find a way of making the link between the before and the after, defining the shape of a new self, a coherent identity made of fragments. And all of that, without even being sure that they will be able to stay in this new country. Administrative procedures take months and sometimes years.
I always said, and I will always say that even though I was the teacher during that year, they were the ones who taught me.
And by the way, their teaching techniques are the ones I prefer, no exercise, no ex cathedra course .
None of that, just them, their presence, their looks, their words, their silence, and this force, this intensity of life, just there in front of me, day after day, every morning at 7.55 am.
And then nearly as a miracle understand each other through a simple glance. to give oneself, to find someone.
Le monde is a song about courage. The courage of not burying our head in the sand, of not fleeing, the courage of standing there with our eyes wide open facing our inner nights, and also the nights of history.
Some people have the choice to bury their head in the sand, I am one of them, it is up to me, if I want I can bury my head in the sand of excuses, denials, if it tickles too much then take a few painkillers without daring to look for the cause of my irritations
For others, there is no option tu bury their heads in the sand. when war knocks at the door, the unthinkable is there in front of you, touching your flesh.
Le monde is a song about courage
In front of madness.
First, the insanity of a world where there are children who are seeking asylum.
Then our own craziness, the craziness of wanting to resist, of wanting to make our own way despite the outside forces , the craziness of keeping not only the eyes but especially the heart open even in a society that invites to point out at the differences, and circle faults in red since primary school.
Leave me alone in my madness, eyes wide open in the night night, I will be there when the dawn raises up.
Life, I think, is a bit like sunrise, if you want to see the light make its way through the day first you have to get up while it is still dark around.
Arbol is still an enigma for me. It is one of those songs that arrive one day and continue revealing its message through time, drop by drop.
This song has a lot of Uruguay, it has Horacio Quiroga, the writer, Juana de Ibarburu, the poet, it has those silver fields that reach the horizon on full moon nights.
It has those years of my adolescence in Uruguay, stories of my uncles hunting in the ombu’s woods.
And much more.
I could take several paths to tell what this song carries inside. I could speak of the full moon as a symbol of femininity, I could speak of the canoe as a link to the indigenous populations, the Guaranis who were the inhabitants of the Rio de la Plata in lands we, today, call Uruguay, long before other populations and cultures arrived.
But for today, I decide to stay with the notion of a tree. Because all those images, and archetypes, femininity, connexion to the earth, history, are found in the tree. Tree as a genealogical tree, or tree as the great tree of humanity.
“Accross the land ploughed by your silence” this verse speaks of all those words left unsaid that make furrows in the land of a relationship or in oneself.
It is difficult to forget a word that has been said, when it wasn’t authentic or true, when it was said without being able to express what one really wanted to say. Those words that are arrows instead of open hands.
What is difficult to forget in them is not what they said, but what they hid, what they left unnamed.
That being said, I think that the most difficult to forget are not the words we said, but some of the silences filled with the desire to embrace, to shout, to run, to express oneself.
Those feelings and truths locked up waiting to be released, and to travel to their intended recipient, these are the ones that plough.
And in a way, they are what give the tree's bark its shape. In psycho-genealogy much importance is given precisely to what is in the family’s unconscious without having been brought to the surface. Like a parallel story that is not told, the secrets, or so many times, the love left unsaid, love that one generation perhaps could not express in the way the next generation could receive.
As for example in the creation "Vive la Vie" which means "Celebration to life" of the dance and theater company “Interface” from Sion in Switzerland, the father expresses his love through material things to his son, because it is what he worked for, it was the dream of his generation, the comfort, the washing machine, the car, etc. The son, born in another era, in other circumstances, would like to receive a love that is expressed through shared time, in simplicity. And so the words come out unable to express what is ... because despite they speak the same language ... a common way of expression is missing.
Ways of expression that, in my opinion, our society overlooks and even represses, such as an embrace, a gaze, or poetry.
“Accross the land plooughed by your silence a new tree will grow again”
Yes, I’m the one who wrote this verse ... but it was dictated to me by ... who knows what, or who ... Today I decipher it as a message of hope, a message that comes to tell me, or to tell us that even where hearts, relationships, families have furrows of pain and silence, something new can always arise and grow.
For me trees are teachers and examples of resilience. Such as the trunk cut near the ground, from which new branches grow, so can we. This is how a family can be, be it a small family, or our human family, we have in us the wisdom and strength of the tree.
Crumpled barks, and ashes, but also ... roots, time and land to grow again ... to re-invent ways of expressing love.
In the ashes of the full moon after the last candle turns off I come seeking for the roots of the tree
In the ashes of the full moon you and I After the last candle turns off across the land ploughed by your silence a new tree will grow up you and I Lay your back on the wrinkled bark the roots of the tree that saw us growing up
In the ashes of the new sun Slide down the river left by your love Canoe of dreams as I wake up to kiss the tiredness
In the ashes after dawn first candle Across the land ploughed by your silence a new tree will grow up you and I lay your back on the wrinkled bark the roots of the tree that saw us growing up
Nobody, I will save nobody only a piece of me if I'm lucky. This song “A toi” started with this first line, written in English. It was one of those evenings, where I was frustrated, frustrated that my free will had to stop where other’s free will starts. Not always funny, hu? I was in one of these dynamics where while wanting to help the other so much I forgot to ask myself: what does the other really need? Desire? And me? Wanting to help him or her... what do I want? What do I need?
So I started there, accepting that I will save nobody. Only maybe just a piece of me.
Save from what? That’s another question? Save from the absence of presence? Perhaps from a lack of consideration...
Then quickly came this other verse "to you, whatever you want from me". This sentence was given to me by Paolo Carnaghi, it comes from the Tantric tradition. It invites us to what in Spanish we call “entrega” a word for which I have not yet found an exact translation into English. It is close to surrender. It is a state of devotion, of self-giving. Giving in, letting go, free from any will, free from the desire to give. There is no "wanting to give". There is just the act of being there and accepting to be moved and transformed by life, to be taken by it.
"To you, whatever you want from me" is the most direct sentence to acceptance I have ever found, and from there to the power of what is.
I think that often we try to change things without having accepted them, without accepting what is, without having embraced it, without having felt it and having accepted what it made us feel. To make a change from there would be like wanting to change a path before having traveled through it. Or change the route from a point you haven't reached yet.
I explain myself:
In my experience, inside this interior gesture of acceptance there’s always a teaching, there is always the discovery of a larger, more spacious part of oneself, the part that must precisely open to become able to accept.
It is like an inner stretch.
Perhaps, it is related to this saying that one cannot solve a problem from the same state of consciousness in which it was created. Einstein said it I think.
Wanting to change something without first accepting it, is like trying to solve a problem without elevating our perspective.
When I don’t accept something I am resisting it. But when I resist, I stay outside of what I am resisting. I can't get into it. Until I walk through, until I embrace what I’m resisting to, I am loosing the chance to earn knowledge from it.
If I don't accept my personal frustration, my frustration of not being like I think it would be better to be, or my frustration of not doing what I want to do, I am denying my helplessness.
And if I resist my helplessness, I am refusing to know it and to learn from it.
Now, if I plunge into my feeling of helplessness, if I embrace it and I let it kiss me, if I give myself to it, then I will find the lesson, the change of perspective. By no longer resisting it, I will see through, I will perceive what is on the other side.
My song “A toi” talks about that, it's a movement through, in this case through my helplessness.
This movement starts from acceptance: I’ll save nobody . I will find no way. I will keep nothing.
And from this new valley, where I drop the expectation of saving someone, finding something, keeping something, what do I see?
I see that I can feel, the earth in my hands, my skin in the hands of another, and this movement, this dialogue between life and me, where one gives himself to the other and vice versa. To go to a new hill, I must agree to be in the valley where I am, otherwise … how could I perceive the path?
Did you enjoy this? You are welcome to check my blog and music on www.mariancrole.com
Rio is a soulful poetic song written in Spanish, in this podcast Marian Crole tells the story behind the song... about feeling small and inifinite at the same time. English transcription of the podcast below.
Rio es una canción poética escrita en español, en este podcast Marian Crole nos cuenta la historia detrás de la canción... un sentimiento de ser pequeñísimo e infinito a la vez.
Rio started in the kitchen of a friend. He lives with a physical disability, therefore when I go to his home, I’m the one who makes coffee. Given his way of life, he needs things to always be in the same place, and he is very strict about how to proceed for different tasks. For example, after having heated water in the boiler, boiler must be emptied and placed next to the base. Which is actually a good idea because it prevents limestone to build up.
One day, I was making coffee, and suddenly I realized he was looking at me from the door. And there, we exchanged one of those looks that say everything. He looked at me as if asking "Let's see, did you do everything right? »And I, with just one look, answered « Yes! I know you »and in that simple look was the complicity and affection of our friendship. In that instant I felt at the same time the joy and the nostalgia of knowing how ephemeral that moment was.
In the afternoon, after returning home, this phrase came to me:
When my body falls into the bed of the river, don't let me know.
In this image, the river refers to this life.
the song Rio is like a prayer to not always be aware that life is a river, and that it is ephemeral.
Suddenly I had in mind many situations in which I wondered how would it be?
How would it be if the basalt that is born in the depth of the sea, knew that with time, after becoming a rock, sooner or later it would end up being sand?
How would it be if the sun and the moon knew that in each eclipse, each time they kiss, a shadow is made in the distance.
I started to think ... how many times one would like to know what the result of an action will be, the end of a story ... and how much we wouldn’t even dare to try if we knew beforehand… and how much we might then lose for not trying.
I have lived my whole life with something, I can call intuition, conviction, experience, memory, a something in the heart that knows ... that knows how much behind my eyes there is to know. That something in me always knew that deep down, in silence, there is a place of peace, a place to reach to each other, and where to be together in presence.
So this phrase: when my body falls in the bed of the river, don't let me know » is like a wish to forget how ephemeral I am.
« When my body falls in the bed of the river » refers to my birth. It is a wish to not be aware of how ephemeral I am. To forget that this magic I am, condensed in this identity, in a human flowing time, in this accumulation of energy is just a moment.
Maybe that something in my heart is what we can call soul, and Rio is a request to not always remind me of everything that my soul knows or remembers of infinity.
Because sometimes navigating into this reality so full of lines, rules, ideas, contradictory opinions and countries with borders is difficult, It it is difficult when one carries seeds of infinity ...
but hey, maybe the first stage for those seeds to germinate is to remember them ...
to you, thanks for listening ... you can find my music, texts, and videos on www-mariancrole.com and on all music platforms.
With love
Marian Crole