“Vassar Days” tells a tiny bit of the story of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s life at Vassar College. The song is track 4 from No Clothes on Ragged Island, the Ghost Ghost album I co-wrote in a single day with Kevin Peckham. Of the five songs I contributed to the album, it was either the first or second song I wrote that day. There are references to Millay’s wonderful poem “Renascence,” which was one of her first published pieces, as well as her famous sonnet “Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow.”
Lyrics
I’ll take the field and the forestI’ll take the sound
Of the sky to one ear
One ear to the ground
Springtime all hands
Reach to the sun
I will touch one hundred flowers
And not pick one
I will be the air
If you’ll be the seed
I will carry you
If you will go where I lead
Summer wind carries us down these halls
Faster than we can run
I will knock at one hundred doors
And not enter one
If I escape will you
Run after me?
If I come back to you tonight
Will you turn away from me?
We make our bed in these autumn leaves
Night sky above
I will light one hundred fires
I will give myself to love
(Alright)
I am most constant when I
When I am least true
But the miles stretch between us
It doesn’t hurt like it used to
We lie as seeds between the winter snow
And the stone
I will touch one hundred women
And still feel alone
Copyright © 2010 Karl Ward
Release info
- Track 4 on No Clothes on Ragged Island
- Artist: Ghost Ghost
- Format: Digital LP, Vinyl 7” single (b/w “Bizarre Love Triangle”)
- Links: Bandcamp, iTunes,Spotify
- Date: 1 March 2010
- Personnel:
- Karl Ward: acoustic guitar, analog synth, electric guitar, floor tom, harmony vocals, lead vocals
- Kevin Peckham: harmony vocals
- Tim Ireland: snare, tambourine