YOU SPOKE OF A WHEEL

from THAT PASSED by Patrick Regan Band

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Alrihkh Absolutely adore this song! The vivid imagery it evokes reminds me very much of the camaraderie I shared with my brothers and our circle of friends on our impromptu camp-outs in treasured forest haunts of our past or during weekend lake excursions. Thank you, Patrick, for sharing such a personal, meaningful, & insightful glimpse into how special gathering around a campfire with friends is. I love the poetic narrative of this song! Highly recommended!!
9.5/10. Favorite track: YOU SPOKE OF A WHEEL.

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about

The poem is a relic of a certain period in my life: when I was exploring traditional music of Ireland, Scotland, Britain, and Scandinavia, and when my mind was full of mythology as presented in books by Joseph Campbell, J. G. Frazer, and Robert Graves.

The real treasure in this track is Andy Goessling's zither playing. Andy's home was full of old German-style zithers of different types in various stages of restoration, and he played the hell out of them. His engagement with these difficult-to-master instruments, hardly known now outside Bavaria and Austria, started when he was very young and deepened to the point where he could have been giving courses, making albums, and giving concerts with the zither as the central focus. It's largely because so little of his zither playing is available to listeners that I am including YOU SPOKE OF A WHEEL on this album.

lyrics

YOU SPOKE OF A WHEEL

You spoke of a wheel
We all spoke in turn
As I turned burnt branches
You poked up the fire
The others turned hares
Spitted on twigs
As we talked the fire around

Around went the whiskey
You spoke of a wheel
Seasons and tides
And mill wheels turning
Waters of life
Spirits of the grain
We spilled some for the earth

For the flame and the well
We shared charred meat
You spoke of a wheel
Of death feeding life
Life leaping through forms
I heaped on dried pine
And through clouds of tarry smoke

Came a quick blaze
Rush skyward of startled flocks
Of sparks in spiral flight
You spoke of a wheel
Center and circumference
Of every radiance
Under the wheeling heavens

Apples and hazel nuts
Red-gold moonrise, fall
Stars, the chilling clarity
The presence of mind
You spoke of a wheel
Describing an arc
In a leap across the fire

Fiddles, whistles, and bones
Reels, a round of laughing
Song, and all took turns
At fire-leaping, blurred
Spokes in bleary motion
You spoke of a wheel
And a nave of joined hands

Our communion made rounds
And we blessed all the lonely
Navels of buddhas
Of cartwheeling children
Of the west, summer’s end
May we all hang together, you said
You, spoke of a wheel

credits

from THAT PASSED, released January 14, 2023
Poem copyright Patrick S. Regan, music traditional (Lord Galway's Lamentation by Turlough O'Carolan, 1670-1738).

Andy Goessling, zither.
Patrick Regan: wooden flute, bass guitar, voice.

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about

Patrick Regan Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France

A songwriter and singer, I'm handy enough to be a one-man band but lucky enough to rope in great collaborators: Andy Goessling, Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks, John Andrews, Shannon Anderson, and more.

This is one place I'm preserving and publishing the best of my songs. Look for new releases here throughout 2024. ... more

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