79. Song 79: Spiritual

Dr.Pope · middle · 90 BPM

Title Persona Style prompt (Suno) Lyrics (with stage directions — for Suno)

[Intro]
(a door — heavy, wooden, the sound of entering a large stone room)
(harmonium — one chord sustained, the wheeze of old bellows, warm and imperfect)
(muted trumpet — a phrase that rises and doesn't come back down, it just stays up there)

[Verse 1]
(Chronos — slow, reverent, the voice stripped of its usual exhaustion, replaced with something like wonder)
I am older than every religion
I watched you build the first altar
From a flat stone and a question
And the question was not
Is anyone there
The question was
What is this feeling
That I am smaller than something
And the smallness is a relief

I have outlived every god you've named
And I don't say that to diminish them
I say that because the gods keep changing
And the feeling doesn't
The feeling was there
Before the stone
Before the question
Before the species that asks questions
Had the larynx to ask them

And I don't know what that feeling is
And I have had eleven billion years
To figure it out
And I have not figured it out
And the not figuring it out
Is the closest thing I have
To worship

[Pre-Chorus]
(accordion — a sustained chord, warm, the harmonium answering underneath)
And worship
Is not the word
But it's the best one you've built so far
A syllable and a half
Trying to hold an ocean
And failing
And the failing is the prayer

[Chorus]
(slow swing with hymn underneath — trumpet, accordion, harmonium, bowed bass, vast)
L'amour spirituel, l'amour spirituel
The love that points at the ceiling and means further
L'amour spirituel, l'amour spirituel
The only thing the Titan cannot murder
Not a god — not a book — not a building
Though the buildings are often beautiful
The feeling underneath the building
The one the building was built to house
And the building crumbles
And the feeling moves
To the next building
And waits

[Verse 2]
(just voice and harmonium — the most exposed, the Titan confessing)
You want to know what scares me
Not death — I don't get death
Not time — I am time
What scares me is the thing
I felt in a cathedral in Chartres
In 1224
When the light came through the glass
And I — the Titan — the grinder —
The thing that breaks everything —
Could not break the light

The light was not inside the glass
And not outside the glass
The light was the relationship
Between the glass and the sun
And the relationship was older than me
And I stood there
For the first time in eleven billion years
And felt young

[Chorus]
(full sacred swing — the biggest, most reverent sound)
L'amour spirituel, l'amour spirituel
The love that points at the ceiling and means further
L'amour spirituel, l'amour spirituel
The only thing the Titan cannot murder
The feeling underneath the building
That moves when the building falls
And waits
In the next room
With the patience
Of something
That doesn't need
A name

[Bridge]
(everything drops — just his voice and the room's natural reverb)
I have no religion
I am too old for a religion
And too honest
And too tired

But I have the feeling
The one that was there before the flat stone
And will be there
After the last stone falls

And the feeling is this:
That I am inside something
That is inside something
That is inside something
That none of us
Has the right vocabulary for yet

And the reaching for the vocabulary
Is the spiritual love
The reach itself
Not the arrival
The reach

(harmonium returns — one chord, sustained, enormous in its simplicity)

Because the arrival would be the end
And the thing I'm reaching toward
Doesn't end
Which means I finally found
Something with my schedule

[Outro]
(the slow swing returns — gentle, the hymn and the jazz holding hands)
(trumpet — one last phrase, rising, not resolving, staying up there)
(Chronos, quiet, wondering, no gravel left, just the voice underneath the voice:)
L'amour spirituel
(the heavy door from the intro — it doesn't close, it stays open)
(the light from outside enters the stone room)
(the harmonium sustains)
(the sustain doesn't end — the song doesn't end — it just gets quieter until your ears give up before the sound does)

Lyrics (clean — for the printed book)

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
I am older than every religion
I watched you build the first altar
From a flat stone and a question
And the question was not
Is anyone there
The question was
What is this feeling
That I am smaller than something
And the smallness is a relief

And I don't know what that feeling is
And I have had eleven billion years
To figure it out
And I have not figured it out
And the not figuring it out
Is the closest thing I have
To worship

[Pre-Chorus]
And worship
Is not the word
But it's the best one you've built so far
A syllable and a half
Trying to hold an ocean
And failing
And the failing is the prayer

[Chorus]
L'amour spirituel, l'amour spirituel
The love that points at the ceiling and means further
L'amour spirituel, l'amour spirituel
The only thing the Titan cannot murder
Not a god — not a book — not a building
Though the buildings are often beautiful
The feeling underneath the building
The one the building was built to house
And the building crumbles
And the feeling moves
To the next building
And waits

[Verse 2]
You want to know what scares me
Not death — I don't get death
Not time — I am time
What scares me is the thing
I felt in a cathedral in Chartres
In 1224
When the light came through the glass
And I — the Titan — the grinder —
The thing that breaks everything —
Could not break the light

[Chorus]
L'amour spirituel, l'amour spirituel
The love that points at the ceiling and means further
L'amour spirituel, l'amour spirituel
The only thing the Titan cannot murder
The feeling underneath the building
That moves when the building falls
And waits
In the next room
With the patience
Of something
That doesn't need
A name

[Bridge]
I have no religion
I am too old for a religion
And too honest
And too tired

But I have the feeling
The one that was there before the flat stone
And will be there
After the last stone falls

And the feeling is this:
That I am inside something
That is inside something
That is inside something
That none of us
Has the right vocabulary for yet

And the reaching for the vocabulary
Is the spiritual love
The reach itself
Not the arrival
The reach

Because the arrival would be the end
And the thing I'm reaching toward
Doesn't end
Which means I finally found
Something with my schedule

[Outro]
L'amour spirituel

Suno audio

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