Tag Archives | Juvenilia

Around 1984, my college roommate Paul Fine (my collaborator on the Kant Song) and I wrote, inter alia, a song called “Sister Ann,” which I like best of all our joint compositions. Below are the lyrics; lines in bold are Paul’s and the rest are mine. All the music is Paul’s.

Here’s a version with Paul singing and playing the piano (my favourite); and here’s a fancy studio version with someone else singing. There’s also an instrumental version.

Sister Ann
do you recall
     the night we met outside the garden wall
I held your hand
we watched the raindrops fall
     we had no need of words at all

Sister Ann
don’t you recall
     you were young and full of life
     the raindrops melted on your skin
     above our heads the stone cross
     spoke of sorrow and of sin
you shivered in its shadow
yet the shadow seemed so small
     I didn’t know I’d see you on the wrong side of the wall

Did they paint a God on stony throne?
were you his disapproval shown?
I always dreamed you felt as I
and never thought to question why
we felt his velvet breath inside
when we exchanged our own

     Are you happy in your garden, Sister Ann?
     do your grey eyes ever mourn the passing years?
     did you think of our embraces, Sister Ann
     as your dark hair fell like rain
     beneath the coldness of the shears?

Sister Ann
do you find
     it’s getting easier to erase me from your mind?
perhaps you can
I ought to be resigned
     to being outside and left behind

Sister Ann
do you weep
     or have they taught you how to close
     your heart’s mute door upon the time
     your body felt the wind’s kiss
     and your lips pressed close to mine?
The flesh leads to damnation
so you pray your soul to keep
     and hide in stifling robes to keep your memory asleep

Silence binds hearts when they are young
a simple glance outspeaks a tongue
but now my words will not suffice
to reach you through that sheet of ice
that binds you to the frozen Christ
and shields you from the sun

     Are you happy in your garden, Sister Ann?
     do your grey eyes ever mourn the passing years?
     did you think of our embraces, Sister Ann
     as your dark hair fell like rain
     beneath the coldness of the shears?

I’ll pluck a flower from this spot
in turn each petal will be got
perhaps it’s thus she was entombed
they took the flower just when bloomed
and left behind a heart that’s doomed
I know she loves me not