CRUEL AS APRIL (2007)
(v1)
Why’d you have to smile like that?
Why’d you have to drape your hand on my arm
Like it was nothing
Your hand was warm
And something starts stirring in the dormant soil
Flickers of life that start to grow disloyal
When the healing rains begin, where do we hide?
(chorus)
I had forgotten the feel of the sun
I didn’t realize that winter was done
And suddenly you’re the one
But you’re almost as cruel as April
(v2)
Watching out the corner of my eye
You finished every drop of the drink I mixed
Like it was nothing
And licked your lips
And water starts flowing in the frozen streams
Melting the ice that covered up my dreams
Thawing out a thought I’ve always denied
(chorus)
I had forgotten the feel of the sun
I didn’t realize that winter was done
And suddenly you’re the one
But you’re almost as cruel as April
(bridge)
I’m sick of reading poems ’bout memory and desire
January February March and I’m barely here
Getting through the winter I thought I was a survivor
Now I have to get through the rest of the year
(v3)
Why’d you have to kiss me goodnight?
Touch your mouth to mine, a momentary brush
Like it was nothing
It won’t take much
Facing my tomorrows creeping in this petty pace
Seeing nature testifying all over the place
Don’t ask me to take this beauty in stride
(chorus)
I had forgotten the feel of the sun
I didn’t realize that winter was done
And suddenly you’re the one
But you’re almost as cruel as April
©2007 Z. Mulls
This lyric is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office as part of the collection THE COLLECTED LYRICS OF Z. MULLS Volume Two 2007
I riffed on the "April is the cruelest month" phrase, and I think it came out well. The bridge references the Eliot poem as well.
This recording is a first draft. Jim and I didn’t get a chance to go back and forth at all with ideas -- he needed to get it done quickly for a competition on the Muses’ Muse. So I’d like to go back and work on it some more, give it some more momentum.
But this is the initial musical idea, and it flows nicely.
