Modern Age (Michael Gray)
Music files
ICON | SOURCE |
---|---|
File details | |
Help |
- Editor: Michael Gray (submitted 2013-03-10). Score information: Letter (landscape), 16 pages, 340 kB Copyright: CC BY NC ND
- Edition notes: While edited for choir, the work is best done in the original 5 voices. In this edition, the bass part is a solo throughout.
General Information
Title: Modern Age
Composer: Michael Gray
Number of voices: 5vv Voicing: SSATB
Genre: Secular, Madrigal
Language: English
Instruments: A cappella
First published:
Description: Originally for only 5 voices. Part of a larger collection called "Modern Living"
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
Ev’ry moment my earphones date me with news from space
But I can’t even give you a description of my neighbor’s face.
Is it a man or a woman, well whom am I to pry?
I can’t be held responsible to look them in the eye.
I take advantage of cocooning in a modern age.
Maybe we’re not meant to see
I have the freedom to be entertain’d inside a cage
Maybe we’re not meant to be
Should I be fearful that my soul will start to disengage
What it’s all crack’d up to be
A part of humanity
So I’ll continue
Blindly crawling through
This modern..
In a vehicular bubble
Commuting solitarity
The seats design’d for passengers
Are permanently people free
And I alone as a symptom
Of humming to myself?
I’d have to pay attention if I chauffeur’d someone else.
I can surround myself with plethora’s of me
Let me embrace my small kingdom
I do no harm if I’m my own community
My shallow world is turning
Disturbing my reflection
I can email my money
And send a goat to Bangalore
But I won’t give a breadcrumb to a person begging at my door.
I’d have to lift a finger to see what I could spare
The energy exerted might be more than I could bear
I feel the pressure of cocooning in a modern age
If I lift my head to see
If I squint hard I can delineate the bars of this cage
Ev’rything is not all for me.
Perhaps I’ll locate the desire to engage
Maybe I’ll begin
To come in
To this modern..