From the recording Midsummer Night's Dream Come True
"Midsummer Night's Dream Come True" see its central figure a woman trapped in Shakespeare's era of 1592--(I was inspired by the film "Shakespeare In Love" with Gwyneth Paltrow to take this music in that lyrical direction). Women were unable to enact females roles in that era--all roles were played by men--and so I got the idea of having this female spirit appear in my dream to play the various great roles of Juliet, Lady Macbeth, etc(and so her struggle for fame and recognition is relegated to someone's dreams)...in the lyrics reprinted below, I include the passages from Shakespeare that I chose for DeSales University student Sarah Vetter to recite, and we interwove some of these famous female lines and monologues from the Bard's works into the fabric of my song--creating a chilling effect--especially in the final fade with the murderous Lady Macbeth and her rantings...kudos to Jon Wilson's crucial drumming in this tune as we begin with jubilant Shakespearean era trumpets in an March beat--and then deftly merge into a 4/4 Pop Ballad beat--the final fade does it in reverse, as the outro is the march drumming reminiscent of another time and era...this song is my "Beatlesque/Sgt.Pepper" kind of departure and I'm very proud of the job the musicians and engineers did to create this magical dreamscape--enjoy!
Lyrics
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM COME TRUE
("Three words dear Romeo, and good night indeed
If that thy bent of love be honorable,thy purpose marriage,
Send me word tomorrow by one that I'll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite
And all thy fortunes at thy foot I'll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.")
--Juliet, from "Romeo & Juliet"
Deep in the night in a fairy tale land
Only Shakespeare could write
Out of the mist she appears
Like a goddess fortelling my fears
Chorus:
She's the woman without a name
But she's haunting me just the same
Is she Juliet or Lady Macbeth?
Ophelia or Queen 'lizabeth?
She's the woman inside my mind
She is cruel to be kind sometimes
She's the Tempest and sometimes the Shrew
a Midsummer Night's Dream Come True
("Oh Romeo, Wherefore are thou Romeo?")--Juliet
She's found a place buried deep
In a part of my subconcious sleep
There she can roam unrestrained
Through the castle of dreams in my brain
(Chorus)
("Come--now a roundel and a fairy song!")
--Titania from "Midsummer Night's Dream"
Bridge:
In my mind she can play her parts
Ingenue and the Queen of Hearts
Every night she is on the stage
Lost in love or a fit of rage
She explores what she could not do
In Fifteen-hundred and ninety-two
It is theatre of the mind my friend
I drift to sleep and she reappears again and again
Again and again...
Deep in the night in a fantasy play
Only Shakespeare could write
She looks at me with a smile
As she swallows the poisonous vial
(Chorus)
("Farewell, God knows when we shall meet again,
I have a faint cold fear that thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life...
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?...
What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead?...)
---Juliet
("There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies.
That's for thoughts.
There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end,--)
--Ophelia from "Hamlet"
("Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty!
Make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!
Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief!
Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry "Hold, hold!")
--Lady Macbeth from "Macbeth"