When the sun was low and the air was cool,
Stopping to club the walnut tree
Standing leafless against a flaming west.
Now, the smell of the autumn smoke,
And the dropping acorns,
And the echoes about the vales
Bring dreams of life. They hover over me.
They question me…”
(from Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology)
Setting Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology was a lifelong preoccupation for the late songwriter Michael Smith. His most famous song was Spoon River, his own lyrics and music, covered by Steve Goodman and others. The first of his Spoon River songs I heard was Booze, covered by my brother’s band Maestro Subgum and the Whole in the 90s, which featured the phrase: “I’ve just come from Spoon River on the run and the whole f–ckin’ county’s run dry.” Michael sang it himself at one of his last public appearances.
Another ballad is Leafy Bower which I listened to on the first mix tape Michael gave me in the early 90s. A ballad with an Americana feel, romantic and very Michael-esque.
It is Michael’s setting of Hans Bremmer’s monologue – Michael titled Siever‘s – that stirs me every time I hear it. Here it is with Michael singing and playing, in a lovely arrangement by Peter Swenson.
Listen here:
The perfect blend of sentiment, beauty and poetry, as only Michael could do!
I’ll be performing the song in my Harvest Home concert at Tre Kronor Swedish Bistro on Sunday, Oct. https://www.jamieoreilly.com/events/jamie-oreilly-harvest-home-at-tre-kronor/
Here are the lyrics
Siever’s
Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s for cider
After school in late September
Or gather hazelnuts among the beaches
On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frost begins
How many times with the laughing girls and boys
Played I along and over the hills
When the sun was low and the air was cool
Stopping to club the walnut tree
Standing leafless against a flaming west
Now, the smell of the autumn smoke
And the dropping acorns
And the echoes about the vales
Bring dreams of life. They hover over me
They question me
Where are those laughing comrades
How many are with me
How many in the old orchard
Along the way to Siever’s
And in the woods that overlook the quiet waters
It is preceded in the play by this monologue:
Conrad Siever
Not in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit —
There where along the shaded walks
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls —
But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree,
And into the living epitaphs
Of redder apples!
