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| official Triptych poster designed by Ian Adams! |
We had a great time performing on 11/14 at Oberon as part of Catherine Capozzi‘s Bring Us Your Women project.
Bring Us Your Women is: “An homage to women, divinity, and the pursuit of freedom will be performed by Catherine Capozzi with Axemunkestra. Multiple songs will be performed accompanied by dance, visual art, and spoken word. This performance explores issues related to women, religion, sex, and politics. The focus is on tolerance and inclusiveness, strengths and commonalities – themes that are bigger than individual beliefs and are shared by the most prevalent religions on our planet including various versions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Paganism.”
So, I have no religious background; I can count the number of times I’ve been in a church on one hand (weddings & funerals) and aside from one intro to philosophy class, I haven’t spent any time with the bible. Therefore, I was quite apprehensive when Catherine asked me to write a song about Mary Magdalene for this show. However, the mystery of her story really started to grow on me the more I researched her. Her life has been written and rewritten by men to suit the time and how they were deciding to treat women at any given point. In 591 Pope Gregory the Great was the first to combine her in with several other women mentioned in the gospels – and for the next 1400 years she was regarded as a prostitute. More recently, with many thanks to Dan Brown, many people believe that she was actually Jesus’ wife and bore his children. As far as I could find, neither of these things are necessarily correct (and definitely not the former). Very, very little is actually known of her life, other than that she was very close to Jesus and she was witness to the resurrection.
With the song, I didn’t want to get overly literal (I tend to dislike things that are very narrative or obvious, especially with political-type songs); but I did want to concentrate on the fact that she’s been called all these names: prostitute, mother, wife but never was she written about as a person of her own agency or a person who had any worth outside of her relationship to a man. Despite how important she was, we know nothing about her, so I wanted to give her name back to her a little bit.
Lyrics:
you want to write my story make me a woman marked you didn’t quit even when you got the glory but I tell you I don’t quit when it gets dark
I’m not the woman you choose
one of flesh and sin
I got a name you can use
it’s magdala magdalene
put me in my place decide my fate
Give me a reputation
truth comes around even if it’s late
Same ol’ story since the dawn of creation
I don’t belong in your frame
make all us marys the same
you wanna call me a name
well how about magdalene
You wanna call me a name
It’s magdala magdalene
Yeah I got a name
It’s magdalene
Maggie Maraschino, one of my favorite performers, accompanied this song with dance, here’s video:
(thanks to John Doherty for the live video!)
The second song I performed with Axemunkee was a reprise of a song we did together last Spring at an Encyclopedia Show about Sirens, the women/creatures who would sing and lure sailors to their death in Greek mythology. When there is killing involved, the obvious and best choice of performer is Honey Pie; and Ants Conley played a hapless sailor that meets his demise. It was all I could do to keep up vocally with Honey Pie’s exultant killing!
(thanks to John Doherty for the live video!)
Lyrics:
come closer come closer
don’t use your eyes, just use your eyes
come closer come closer
let water rise let water rise
come closer come closer
it’s just rocks it’s not hard
come closer come closer
follow your heart follow your heart
I was here at the beginning
I can show you anything
I can show you anything
the tides the moon the rocks glow
I know what you want to know
come to me come to me
make you believe make you believe
come to me come to me
be with me I’ll make you free
come to me come to me
close your eyes, go to sleep
make you king of the sea
make you king of everything
of the sea of the sea
Eowyn Evans also created a new work visually exploring mermaids/sirens/sailors – it is most awesome, check it out and consider buying a print of it – www.dandysexual.com!
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| by Eowyn Evans of DandySexual.com |
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