When she returned to Texorami, Folly
improvised this song. Since this is an uncut live recording some
parts of what was said during the session is still there.
She casually plucks a half-dozen chords in rapid succession,
laying out a basic progression. She makes eye contact with
Martin and quirks an eyebrow to make sure he's ready, then does
the same for Soren.
Then, "Five six seven--"
She lays down several bars of a plaintive, arpeggiated guitar
line, modulating between major and minor. She repeats the
figure a couple of times while Martin and Soren settle into the
groove.
Then she closes her eyes and in a breathless almost-whisper
begins:
"Too long have I been scattered on the wind,
A tattered echo best unremembered,
The spark of a poem dissolved into embers
That drifts in the dreams of abandoned friends."
The guitar traces a haunted, ethereal outline, joined a few bars
later by a deeper, earthier line. Folly's voice grows
earthier, too, hinting at sex and sweat, as she continues:
"Too long have I been cocooned inside my skin,
Afraid the shape of my own breath
Would spell another little death
For the very souls I want to let in."
The arpeggiated lines give way to denser textures, a harder edge.
Folly moves with the music, at once feeling and shaping it,
intimately aware of Martin and Soren and of their every move and
note and beat. The pulse of the drum and the thump of the
bass line penetrate Folly's skin through the soles of her bare
feet and wash through her like a drug, heightening her
perceptions.
She raises her voice in a keening, open-throated wail:
"Is it kindness or cruelty, this returning?
We are ghosts made flesh to the immaterial.
Will this be an unburial,
Or a slow path to another burning?"
With her body, Folly signals a transition to a hard-rockin' 4/4.
Over the established bass line, she shifts her chords to
something with a decidedly more optimistic feel. Her voice
is strong and clear:
"But whatever the risk, I will take it --
Whatever the blame, I will take it --
"For now I know the way Home
Lies not in the 'where' but the 'who'
And whatever else I must do
And wherever else I must roam,
I see the road to Home --
And I will take it."
Folly finishes the song on a glorious, wordless vocal line pulled
from the depths of her soul, pouring all her joy and anguish and
frustration and anticipation into physical release, urging the
instruments into a barely-controlled climactic frenzy that breaks
like waves over the final few pounded chords.
For several seconds of not-quite-silence, Folly feels the echoes
of the music die away; she catches her breath and brushes a few
strands of hair from her face.