We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The King Of Rain: Music From Episode 7 of Baudelaire In A Box.

by Emmy Bean, T-Roy Martin, Chris Schoen, Sad Brad Smith

/
  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Booklet features complete lyrics for all 15 songs, plus original artwork by Dave Buchen, adapted from scrolls from the show.

    Includes unlimited streaming of The King Of Rain: Music From Episode 7 of Baudelaire In A Box. via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    edition of 300 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Downloads come with a PDF booklet containing liner notes and complete album lyrics.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

1.
The Bad Monk 01:46
In ancient cloisters on their frescoed walls Were painted truths of highest holy writ Which cheered the pious entrails in the halls Whose temperaments were cold as they were lit Back then bloomed Jesus Christ from every seed And more than one famed monk, forgotten now, Took for his muse the graveyard strewn with weeds And sang for Death as well as he knew how. — My soul is now a tomb, grave cenobite, I wander here in perpetuity; And barren are this evil cloister’s walls. O lazy monk! What will I learn to make Out of the living dumb-show of my grief, The labor of my hands and the love of my eyes?
2.
I know more than if I’d lived a thousand years Open your drawers filled with plastic souvenirs Old journals pens and maps of city streets Broken watches, restaurant receipts My sad brain holds more than all these things you have hid Buried in the sand; An undiscovered pyramid With more dead than a dark collective tomb I am a mass grave unmolested by the moon Filled with ravening worms that track their necrotic prey Their successful hunt brings my sweet corpse’s slow decay I’m an old dusty boudoir filled with brown crusty roses And outmoded dresses hung in moth-eaten poses Where a faded Kinkade lighthouse watches the room Absorbing open old stale deserted perfume Nothing drags on like these endless days I limp down the trail as the snow melts away So boredom, that fruit of our sad apathy Can germinate, blossom, and ripen eternally Your time’s done, epoch of the breath and skin What once was flesh is marble in the scouring wind Unmoving in the hazy desert night The Sphinx sits staring, eyes bereft of sight Deep in the Sahara, her neck cranes from a dune With the setting of the sun she finally sings this tune: Ooooh!
3.
One might clad you like a bride in white While another dresses you in mourning, O Nature Send word to someone you are laid out on a stretcher Say to another: splendor and light Hermes, God of conjurers, I enlist You gives me such gastritis You’ve turned me into Backwards Midas The saddest possible alchemist Through you I change gold to lead And heaven into hell instead Deep in a shroud of tangled clouds I find the bones of a friend long-dead Along celestial riverbeds I engrave tombs for the departed!
4.
From that dark and twisted sky As bleak as what is yet to be Descend into your empty life What thoughts? Playboy, answer me! I love to live where its dark and unstable I’ll not whine like Ovid, chased from some happy fable Oh, Heaven splitting at the seams You are the mirror of my pride Your heavy grieving clouds will ride Like the black hearses of my dreams And your dark, red rays reflect The Hell my heart has come to expect Loves and respects
5.
To A Madonna 05:04
I’ll build for you, Madonna, mistress mine deep in my crypt of woe a secret shrine And carve out in the darkest corner of my heart, Far from abject desires and worldly art, A niche, with gold and azure all about you, Where you shall dwell, my dear amazed Statue. On this polished metal trellis my Verses climb Those bursts of gleaming crystal form the Rhymes I shall make for your head an ornate Crown, And from my Jealousy the finest gown, O mortal Madonna, I fashion it for you Barbaric, heavy, stiff, with greenish hue Which, like a safe, protects you, precious dear; Embroidered not with Pearls, but with my Tears! Your dress will be my quivering Desire, Undulant this garment, rippling like fire Perched on the crests, reposing in the troughs, Clothes with a kiss your body pink and soft. Of my Self-respect I’ll make your Slippers fine, The satin, humbled by your feet divine, Imprisons them in a delicate embrace, The contours of your toes they closely trace; If I can’t, in spite of all my labors spent, Carve a Moon of silver for your Monument, I’ll put the Serpent who feasts upon my heart Under your heels, for you to tear apart, Triumphant queen, all pregnant with redemptions, That hateful snake, grown fat on vile pretensions. You will see my Thoughts like rows of votives lit Before the Queen of Virgins’ altar sit Starring all the azure ceiling higher, And watching you with flickering eyes of fire. Since nothing in me that you do not stir, All will be offered, frankincense, and myrrh, And up to you, white peak, in clouds will soar My stormy soul, in rapture, to adore. At last, your role of Mary to perfect And mingle barbarism with respect — Of seven deadly sins, O black delight! Remorseful torturer, to show my sleight, I’ll forge and sharpen seven deadly swords And like a callous juggler on the boards, Taking it for my target, I would dart Them deep into your streaming, sobbing heart.
6.
January hates the whole god-damn town Spits out the icy wetness of her black disdain On the pale corpses waiting in the cemetery ground And the sorry living forced to face the sleet and rain My poor old cat growls, as she’s wandering the floor Seeking only comfort from her mangy coat A dead poet howls, pacing right outside my door Cursed to fail to speak with his ethereal throat There’s a distant sub-woofer as the heat kicks on The clock on the mantle clucks right along As the cards are shuffled I can smell the stale perfume Of a woman, quiet sickly and long-gone The red Jack of Hearts and the black Queen of Spades are drawn They sneer in rueful memory of their lost love’s doom
7.
The great hearted maid that made you so jealous Sleeps her sleep in the forgotten grass I think that we should bring her some flowers The sorrows of the dead are so much deeper than ours And when October bares the trees to their bones Blowing his somber wind around the headstones The dead bear the living with such chagrin To sleep, as we do, so snug in our linens While they are consumed by black desolation Without a bed partner, or soft conversation These frozen old skeletons sculpted by the worm Each winter snowmelt how keenly it burns And the centuries pass without friend or kin To replace the old tatters that flap in the wind If some evening while the fire whistles and sings I saw her sit, calm in her chair, placidly rocking If on a blue and cold night in December I found her by the fire, raking the embers Solemnly returned from her eternal nowhere To swaddle again the child raised under her care How could I answer that pious soul in reply When I saw the tears falling from her excavated eye?
8.
What does God do with that stream of curses Rising each day to the Seraphim? A tyrant bloated on meat and juices Who falls asleep while we plead with him. The sobs of martyrs and the tortured Must seem to him a pretty symphony Since despite the pain and blood it costs us The Lord will crave more eternally O! Jesus! Remember in the olive trees When in your simplicity you prayed and blessed Him who in Heaven laughed at the sound Of nails being driven into your flesh? Did your thoughts fall back into the past When you were told of His eternal promise? You rode through town upon your stinky ass Your fingernails and beard all caked with hummus. You swelled with courage, were filled with hope And whipped those merchants with a vengeance. You thought you were their master, you stupid dope Now you must suffer for your ignorance! When my time comes I’ll be quite satisfied To leave a world lovely only when we sleep. I’ll live by the sword and by the sword I’ll die. Saint Peter denied his master reasonably.
9.
You would take the entire world to bed with you Spoiled woman! Boredom makes love cruel. To sharpen your teeth at your one diversion You need fresh hearts to string up on the rack. Your eyes, they shine like cheap storefronts, Or street-fair Christmas lights, Brazenly using their borrowed gleam To insult the laws of beauty itself. Oh deaf-and-dumb machine, you violent tool You drink the coursing blood of all the world. Have you no shame and have you not yet seen In passing mirrors, your beauty spent and faded? Does the vision of this evil Cause you to stagger — you, animal! Woman, vile queen of sin, You master of depravity? O gorgeous filth! Magnificent disgrace!
10.
Sepulcher 02:43
Let’s say the night is heavy and somber And some good neighbor out of mercy Buries your body, the one we’ve all pondered Behind a pile of old debris Let’s say the prudish stars have ebbed Closing their heavy-lidded eyes Then the spider will weave her web Then the snake will hatch her babies Throughout many an endless year The wounded cries of wolves you’ll hear Wailing, yes wailing, above your skull And the shrieks of ravenous witches Lustful old men who clamor for riches The whispers of bandits echoing through the rubble.
11.
I’m like that king of a rainy land A hard-weathered figurehead, a wealthy but withered young man Just as bored with obsequious tutors as he Is bored with his hounds and the beasts of his menagerie No sport, not his falcon, no manner of toy No not even the pleas of his suffering subjects bring him joy His best fool’s lascivious ballads of death Fail to distract from the pain of each labored breath The Royal bed’s become his tomb The ladies-in-waiting are waiting in his room They whore themselves up in vain hope they’ll evince An affectionate smile from their quarry; the skeleton prince The alchemist who draws out gold from lead Can’t elicit ease from the tired monarch’s head Though ancient Romans bathed in blood-filled pools This favored tonic among those who rule Will never warm this corpse’s veins, they flow With Lethian ooze; Thick tepid, green and slow.
12.
Tell me does your heart ever try to fly away, Agatha? Far from the green waters of this filthy city To an island blue and magical With waters of untouched virginity? Tell me does your heart ever try to fly away, Agatha? The sea, the endless sea consoles us in our prison Some demon taught the sea to sing and the winds will let us listen To lullaby our greasy eyes to sleep. The sea, the endless sea consoles us in our prison. O, how far off you are, and how far you’ll always be My sweet dream of paradise Where blue skies keep watch over our love And each thing we’ve loved we’re allowed to love twice Where the sinking heart can kiss the sky above O, how far off you are, my love O, love was like Heaven in those early days Singing and kissing, asleep in the flowers Behind the hills above the violins played Carrying magic through the moonlit hours O, love was like Heaven in those early days That innocence I’m always longing for Is it farther off now than my own end? Through no human cry can the past be restored No song I sing will ever bring it back again. The innocence I’m longing for The innocence I’m longing for
13.
Beatrice 03:46
In an ashen land, without leaf of green To the charred terrain I unburdened my spleen I carelessly wandered at my heart’s request As I honed my grievances against my breast When at brightest day my head was plowed into by a sodden stormcloud And accosted by the villains inside Some gang of trolls on a drunken ride They considered me coldly and gave me the once- over, like I was the village dunce Furtively laughing and whispering Trading winks and toothless grins – “Let’s leisurely contemplate this lampoon This would-be Hamlet, this slouching buffoon His irresolute gaze and his discomfited hair Such a pitiful sight, this old Devil-may-care This tramp, this out-of-work clown, this wit He sure knows his role and how thick to lay it Trying to seduce, with his gripes and his pains Eagles, crickets, –the sea! and the rain! And even to us, who taught him in this hokum He belches his diatribes–Don’t you just want to choke him!?” – My pride is as high as the mountains, it’s true I could have stared down that cloud and it’s crew With a simple turn of my sovereign face If I’d not next seen in that mob’s embrace The peerless queen of my only heart As the sun looked on without a start She laughed with with them at my dark distress Without a pause in her lustful caress
14.
When the sky’s a coffin lid that’s pressing down On my spirit, buried with with its prized ennui The ring of the horizon changes round To a dark day bleak as any night could be When the world’s a dungeon lined with dripping stones And Hope’s a bat that’s fluttering around Smacking granite walls that crush its flesh and bones Bleeding out, it suffers, twitching on the ground When the streaks of rain paint the window panes Like the steel-barred sills of prison cells Dimpled spiders strain, spinning webs in our brains Work their loathsome skills as their egg-sacs swell While carillons ring out their furious boasts Roaring clanging howling tunes up to the skies The highways are jammed with sad wandering ghosts Reaching nobody with their impotent cries Silent hearses hauling fresh-harvested souls Ignore my curses–Pay no heed they’re full Leave my slouched corpse to languish. Through the kingdom they roll As the Queen of Anguish plants her flag in my skull.
15.
You were most wise and fair of all the Angels young, O god whom fate betrayed and left unsung, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! O exiled Prince borne down by many lies, even mighty in defeat he does arise, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! The all-knowing lord of subterranean things, Who remedies our human sufferings, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! To lepers and lost beggars full of lice, You teach, through love, the taste of Paradise. O Satan, have pity on my long misery! You who on Death, your old and ever-faithful wife, Engendered Hope — the sweetest folly of this life — O Satan, have pity on my long misery! You give to men condemned a countenance unbaffled That they rebuke the thronging mob around the scaffold, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! You have seen in darkness and can bring to light The gems a jealous God has hidden from our sight, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! You to whom the secret arsenals are known Where iron, gold and silver slumber, locked in stone, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! Your enormous hand has hidden the abyss From the sleepwalkers that skirt the precipice, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! You who rescue from the trampling horses’ feet the poor old drunkard who has fallen in the street, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! You, to ease the wanderings of our troubled minds Taught how sulfur and saltpeter are combined; O Satan, have pity on my long misery! You who form in subtle friendliness the wealthy and the merciless, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! You pour into the hearts of women A trifling love of blood full brimming, O Satan, have pity on my long misery! Step-father of poor bastards robbed of pardon, God in his anger exiled us from Eden’s garden O Satan, have pity on my long misery! Glory and praise to Thee, Satan, on high, Where You once reigned, in Hell where you now lie, Vanquished, silent, dreaming eternally. Grant my soul some day to rest close to Thee Under the Tree of Knowledge which shall spread Its branches like a golden Temple overhead.

about

The King of Rain features music from Episode 7 of Theater Oobleck's Baudelaire In A Box—a 10-part cantastoria cycle based on the poems of Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal. Originally mounted theatrically in 2014, the album features studio versions of all 15 songs from the original show, each adapted from a separate poem from Les Fleurs du mal.

To learn more about the Baudelaire In A Box project, please visit:
baudelaireinabox.wordpress.com

"Oh Satan, Have Pity On My Long Misery!"

credits

released September 14, 2015

Emmy Bean: Voice, Ukulele, Piano, Autoharp, Percussion
Ronnie Kuller: Accordion, Violin, Piano
T-Roy Martin: Voice, Ukulele, Guitar, Banjo, Percussion
Chris Schoen: Voice, Mandolin, Banjo
Sad Brad Smith: Voice, Guitar, Piano
Joey Spilberg: Acoustic Bass

Trumpet by Dave Costanza of Art Of Flying
Engineered, Mixed, and Mastered by Erik Rasmussen at Decade Studios, Chicago, IL
Produced by Emmy Bean, Ronnie Kuller, T-Roy Martin, Chris Schoen, Sad Brad Smith, and Joey Spilberg
Illustrations and Art Design by Dave Buchen

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Theater Oobleck Chicago, Illinois

contact / help

Contact Theater Oobleck

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like The King Of Rain: Music From Episode 7 of Baudelaire In A Box., you may also like: