I couldn’t imagine ever living anywhere that did not have four clearly defined seasons. While I understand the desire of many fellow New Yorkers to want to flee south in the winter, I’m happy to stay put and be a part of my surroundings for as long as I am able.
Because I love to listen to what each season has to say.
This is the driving force behind springsong and three other songs that will follow throughout 2024. Bet you can’t guess what they’re about. …
As I wrote springsong, I started to more fully understand the way each season reveals its story in the annual cycle. And it’s not just about finding beauty in a raging lake effect storm or in vibrant autumnal colors. It’s about changing your speed and your consciousness to match the calendar, about leaning into what the season is telling you. We are so busy that we live our modern lives at the same breakneck pace 365 days a year, forgetting that each season has a rhythm, a meaning, a purpose that our agrarian ancestors understood all too well. Spring tells us to pay attention to our spiritual life and to marvel at the way the universe always tends toward life and regeneration.
springsong wasn’t the first song I wrote in the sequence, but like two of the other songs I’ll release later in the year, it began life on a 12-string guitar. I was striving for a hybrid of Trespass-era Genesis and Bruce Cockburn, two acts that have been inspirational to me throughout my life.
The lyrics are in three parts. The verses describe the way nature, creation, and the universe unfold their secrets in their own time and fashion; the repeated pre-choruses encourage engaging the senses to fully engage with the spiritual awakening that happens at this point in the year; and the choruses, in which I channel my inner Jon Anderson, attempt the impossible: to capture in words and music the transcendent wonder of creation and rebirth.
April wind blows where it will
scatter cloud revealing blue beyond
snowbank sinters in warming sun
songbird sings its ancient song
Smell of earth and touch of sun
sight of flower and sound of life
in the movement of the earth
to be reborn
in resurrection light
And spring will come when it will
light the green fuse creation spark
world revolves, world evolves
fear remove from winter’s dark
Smell of earth and touch of sun
sight of flower and sound of life
in the movement of the earth
to be reborn
in resurrection light
ceaseless constant changing moment
life ascends transcending time
mirror universal motion
echo mystic songs divine
And change has come as it will
like swollen streams sweep all away
making all things new in time
fulfill the promise of this day
Smell of earth and touch of sun
sight of flower and sound of life
in the movement of the earth
to be reborn
in resurrection light
ceaseless constant changing moment
life ascends transcending time
mirror universal motion
echo mystic songs divine
NOTES
April wind: We think of spring as beginning with the equinox in March. But April is the month of spring in literature. So, this opening line is a nod to Chaucer’s opening line to the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales (“Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote/The droghte of March hath perced to the roote/And bathed every veyne in swich licóur/Of which vertú engendred is the flour”). T. S. Eliot famously also borrowed from Chaucer for the opening of his landmark poem, The Wasteland (“April is the cruelest month, breeding/Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/Memory and desire, stirring/Dull roots with spring rain”).
in resurrection light: I didn’t intend for springsong to be a Christian song, though that interpretation is valid. But as I am steeped in the Episcopalian tradition, I couldn’t resist bringing in an Easter reference. I always loved this phrase, which comes from the old hymn “The Day of Resurrection”: “Our hearts be pure from evil,/that we may see aright/the Lord in rays eternal/of resurrection light.”
the green fuse comes from Dylan Thomas’ poem “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”
making all things new is a Biblical reference: “And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Revelation 21:5). Like so many New Testament passages, these words have an analog in Old Testament prophecy, specifically in the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, I am doing a new thing/now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?/I will make a way in the wilderness/and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19).
DOWNLOAD:
Bandcamp: https://brucepegg.bandcamp.com/track/springsong
iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/springsong/1735238945?i=1735238946
STREAM:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5oV15f1fMo7m1Efu7zvPIB?si=AkD0E501TMKm0KPxfdjd0A
Pandora: https://pandora.app.link/HMvjHrWYhIb
Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/3o2YgrvwyDbNq4HK7
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/springsong-single/1735238945
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=xs-OVSj3ziQ&si=gIHDupUzISOwHfTJ
Written in Cazenovia, NY, between March and May, 2023; recorded between November 2023 and March 2024. Released March 19, 2024.
Bruce Pegg (vocals, 12-string)
Mark Chatwin (keyboards)
Will Pegg (nylon string)
Tom Westcott (bass)
Mike Santiago (percussion)
Produced by Mark Chatwin with Bruce Pegg
Art by Ann Stevens
Bruce Pegg 