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 Phoenix's Last Song

by Sami El-Enany

supported by
cloudbusting
cloudbusting thumbnail
cinnaron
cinnaron thumbnail
dorkacsora
dorkacsora thumbnail
/

  • Streaming + Download

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

      £1 GBP  or more

     

about

My musical setting to Dorine Van Meel's 'The Phoenix's Last Song', a room filling poem-installation.

In The Phoenix’s Last Song the viewer is presented with the legend of the paradisiacal bird who descends to earth in order to die. Whilst the sun sets fire to the pyre of twigs on which she lays, the phoenix sings a song to the child that will be born from her ashes. Her words are a call to think and live against the patriarchal, capitalist and colonial power structures that define the world as we know it. The text draws on the work of feminist thinkers like Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Simone de Beauvoir en Emma Goldman, who each look at the ways in which institutions like the bourgeois family, state education, the legal apparatus inscribe the child within these power structures. Against this background, The Phoenix’s Last Song opens up a space to imagine how a new world may arise out of a burning of the old.

lyrics

Curled upon the pyre of twigs, she has laid, her body –
swanlike.
Crimson in colour, she breathes –
heavily.
Out of paradise she flew,
her final flight,
into the land of men.
With eyes that witnessed otherwise,
a vision unobscured.
Her long neck tilted backwards,
her feathers, sweet with moisture.
Warmed up by the rising sun,
she looks down,
opens her beak.
The phoenix,
sings.
And her words they travel widely,
over forests burned and oceans smeared,
faint yet clear they travel,
only barely to be discerned.


My child, my child,
you will be born,
out of the powder that is my ashes.
And you shall be,
child of your mother,
you will not turn away your face.
I will teach you how to smile,
but not in service of men.
Show you to be strong,
but not in order to dominate.
And if you play the trumpet,
it will not be for the battlefield.
You see, your heart I fashioned from a bit of mine,
for indifference it has no place.
Your wings I moulded with the greatest care,
they might hold, but never take.
Because the dreams I will instill,
do not speak of conquest.
And if you love, it will not be,
in order to possess.
Let your tenderness not be mistaken,
for obedience.
Let your voice not be silenced,
and your rage not be dismissed.
Because for every child trampled upon,
yes for every child lost,
your heart will die,
a little too.
For you do not belong to me –
alone...
You should not be held by me –
alone...


And the sun, rising above,
sets fire to the twigs.
Feathers they rustle,
words, fade out.
The old world,
burning.
The phoenix,
dying.

credits

released May 25, 2020
Music: Sami El-Enany
Text and image: Dorine van Meel
Voice: Emma Bennett.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Sami El-Enany image

Sami El-Enany London, UK

Sami El-Enany is a composer and producer working in music, film, radio and games.

contact / help

Contact Sami El-Enany

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Sami El-Enany, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featured guests are the golden-voiced Baby Rose and psyche soulsters Brainstory.
listen now