Enjoy some famous paintings of Lazarus:
“sometimes the miracle you’d choose
is different from the one that’s done to you”
ABOUT THE SONG:
Worrying about endings can be worse than the endings themselves.
Not always, but sometimes.
I find Lazarus a fascinating figure.
How were those people not haunted by his presence once the miracle was done?
Like, in resurrection he’d been recalled from the mystery — but the mystery remained.
After writing this song I started wondering if Lazarus was the first literary instance of a… zombie.
That’s probably sacrilege, but hey, I was curious. In a sorta jokey way.
Anyways, he wasn’t. (Neither a zombie nor the first zombie).
Turns out tales of zombies go all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia.
In the Descent of Ishtar and the Epic of Gilgamesh, there’s a passage that goes something like this:
If you do not open the gate for me to come in,
I shall smash the door and shatter the bolt,
I shall smash the doorpost and overturn the doors,
I shall raise up the dead and they shall eat the living:
And the dead shall outnumber the living!
Yikes.
Peeps been worried about endings since the beginning, I guess.
🧟♂️
🎙️
WORDS for a Karaoke Party
the olive tree is casting this
shaky shadow on lazarus
the same familiar face
the same familiar clothes
oh what’s waiting for us after this
ask lazarus
go ask lazarus
you wake up one day and have to admit
it’s over between us now, it’s time to quit
the more you brace yourself
the more you’re broken, don’t you know
but what happens to us after this
averages
sometimes the miracle you’d choose
is different from the one that’s done to you
but no writings by pliny or tacitus
ever adequately captured this
how every empire’s gotta line
beyond which you don’t go…
so what’s waiting for us after this
savages
oh what happens to us after this
go ask lazarus
—
SONG Credits:
Written and performed by Chris Robley at Bite My Tongue in Lewiston, Maine
Mixed and mastered by Edwin Paroissien at Echohill in Portland, Oregon
