nealonsongs

Maybe for Christmas to be valuable, you need to be broke. Maybe only people in darkness can see the great light.

Recorded live in the studio on December 28, 2011 without overdubs. I've since then edited the words a bit.

Descend Into Sorrow          Dave Nealon           December, 2011

Lest the holly and ivy in an ancient appeal

Should convict their caretakers of willful neglect

You have gathered the families for a holiday meal

Traded stories and presents and paid your respects

It’s another safe Christmas that works out alright

In ambiguous balance of value and cost

So you look to the children to see through their eyes

Even they’ve gone nostalgic in a vague air of loss

Descend into sorrow on the year’s longest night

For the people in darkness have seen a great light

When the glow of the street lamp erases the stars

Like the rush of the wind all but muted by cars

Or the crash of the ocean when it’s hushed by the din

Of the cascading echoes of the discord you’re in

If your eyes were just blind there would be no disgrace

You insist that you see so your darkness remains

Through the vast, empty vacuum of parsecs of space

Flies the bright solar wind to illumine your face

It’s a pale imitation—the lights on a tree

Of how stars power planets distant light-years away

But at Mercury sunset into nocturnity

An entire year passes before the new day

Descend into sorrow on the year’s longest night

For the people in darkness have seen a great light

Basic power and plumbing, and the digital grid

Why should you be ashamed of aught that you did?

Too involved to be lonely, too well-loved to be sad

You’re too full to be hungry, too polite to be bad

There’s nurse for the dying; there’s a purse for the poor

There’s a dance for the aged and aching and sore

The traditional revels of music and lore

In the home of the drifter there’s a truce for the conscripts of war

Descend into sorrow on the year’s longest night

For the people in darkness have seen a great light