The Music Of Poligraf : The Winged Life

[Christopher Stewart]

("The Winged Man" by Odilon Redon)

"The Winged Life" takes its name from the following verse by William Blake :

He who binds himself to a joy
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise

This piece is a singularity as far as the poligrafic repertoire is concerned. I didn't aim for innovation or cleverness as I usually do because I felt that the best way to let the message through was to keep the music simple. Thus the song is about 4 minutes long and stays within a fairly standard structure.

The song starts in a negative, finger-pointing, minor mode, progressively evolves to a positive, hope-fostering mood, and ends on the instrumental section harmonized to an uplifting variation of the original chord progression.

The lyrics are at the almost-done-yet-still-tentative status :

1st Verse
I remember quite well, seems not so long ago
You had to face a choice, at last you had your chance to go

You said you would I can recall, your mind made up, you couldn't fall
But when came time to break the news, you clearly showed you were confused

2nd Verse
We took some time apart, and let the dust settle
But you let your fear build up, a pressure that you could not handle

I faced your flames, I played your games, you said that I should take the blame
And after all this much abuse, I thought for sure there was no use, in going on

1st Chorus
Because you didn't believe in us
You're not one of the team - oh believe that
Because you linger from faith to fear
You're not part of the dream

1st Bridge
We have wings, when we refuse to cry
We have wings, when we refuse to lie
We have wings, none of us can deny
We have wings, but were afraid to fly

2nd Chorus
Believe, you have to believe in us
Play your part in the team - oh believe
Believe, of faith and fear one is clear
Be your part of the dream

2nd Bridge
We have wings, when we refuse to die
We have wings, when we stand up and try
Grow your wings, and stop to ask why
You have wings
Just jump up and fly

The Music Of Poligraf series are reposts of writings and audio clips that have been originally published on The Goal Was So Near from November 2008 to April 2009, made available for those who missed the original Clip Of The Day series.