Songs Tagged: literary

2015

Hegel Revisited

A searching ballad that uses dialectic as a way of thinking about conflict, from the intimate to the historical. What keeps it human is the sense that every grand argument still lands in lived experience.

2014

Urizen Awake

A philosophical piece built on a complex instrumental architecture ), which is unusual enough to shape the whole sonic character. The title references William Blake's personification of cold reason, and the...

2016

Undiscovered Country

A folk song built on Hamlet's phrase — the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns — and tracking decline through seasons of the soul. Eight verses, each ending on a different tag. Long,...

1981

Sufi Poem

One of the oldest pieces in the catalog. The lyrics are a translation of a poem by the ninth-century Sufi mystic Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri, set to original music.

March 2, 2026

Columbia

A song, about the loss of something the narrator loved enough to call Columbia. The verses work through grief in the traditional way — what was, what isn't, the attempt to make a new song out of it. The bridge...