We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

I Think the Strange, the Crazed, the Queer / Full​-​Bodied Soul - The Year Gentleness Died

from Garden Dreams by Aaron Marcus

/

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes liner notes and a booklet insert with text of all the poems. Front cover artwork by Noble Chute, overall design by Dana Dwinell-Yardley. Back cover is a montage of showy ladyslipper orchids in a fen, Berta the Steinway Model B piano, and Aaron and Sam.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Garden Dreams via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 10 days

      $15.50 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

Back in the 1960s, Sam worked for The New York Public Library record archives at Lincoln Center. One day, somebody left at the door a basket of 78rpm cardboard discs that had been recorded in a Record-Your-Voice booth in a New Orleans penny arcade in 1948 by Tennessee Williams. The first poem in this set was on one of those discs, and Sam fell in love with the poem and with Williams’s reading of it. (Pierrot is a Commedia dell’arte stock character who repeatedly woos Columbine and is always rejected.) Moore’s poem is from his 2019 collection, ‘The Song Castle’: michaelkiesowmoore.org

lyrics

[Tennessee Williams's text for "I think the strange, the crazed, the queer" is included with physical CD only]
______________________

It was the year gentleness died.
Larry was the first to go
the sweet young man covered with purple lesions.
He was the sweetest. Men can be sweet, you know.

Then it was Keith’s turn.
He was a rebel rouser, full of righteous anger.
But at his core he was all gentleness.
And it was a plague against the gentle.

And then Frederic went,
dear lovely Frederic.
His spirit was like a puppy’s
bouncing and joyful, always joyful,
and now gone.

I could tell you about Bill
and his love of angels because he was one,
and if you never met Kerry —
I could do this all day, telling you
all whom we lost the year gentleness died.

They went in the tens, then the hundreds,
we lost them by the thousands,
then ten times that across all the lands.
They kept falling, all the gentle ones.

credits

from Garden Dreams, released November 14, 2021
Poetry by Tennessee Williams & Michael Kiesow Moore
I Think the Strange, the Crazed, the Queer: Copyright © 1948 The University of the South. By special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.
Aaron Marcus: Piano, original music
Sam Sanders: Spoken Word

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Aaron Marcus image

Aaron Marcus Vermont

Aaron (they/them) is an extraordinary pianist, concertinist, tune-writer and practitioner of traditional community dance styles. They tour across the US with "Frost & Fire," "Giant Robot Dance," & "The Turning Stile." Aaron believes in the deep emotive healing power of music. Their infectious exuberance, Earth grounding, and subtle lyricism all connect with the strong rhythms of the dance floor. ... more

contact / help

Contact Aaron Marcus

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this track or account

Aaron Marcus recommends:

If you like Aaron Marcus, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now