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songs & lyrics

Land Of The Shadow (This Side of Paradise, 2001)

This was a song I began writing around the time of Israel's mid-1998 50th anniversary celebrations, and after living for three years in the Palestinian West Bank, whose newly-arrived Palestinian leaders seemed not to have learned from half a century of military occupation of their homeland that torture and arbitrary detention were, in fact, a bad idea. It was written about the whole Middle East.


Final version of lyrics: Saturday, August 15th, 1998


Land Of The Shadow (This Side of Paradise, 2001)

they arrested the dawn and are interrogating the day (for whom they say) hope is almost gone
morning wanders lost in the wastelands of south lebanon
evening is in hiding, afternoon's corspe lies on the ground still warm
meanwhile night prepares to hunt down and kill your firstborn
land of the shadow
nation of the valley wall
teaching all that can't be killed
the tendency to crawl
ra'id walks the path of shame and discontent
expecting no relief from his cia-trained puppet government
he told me how he cried the last time he visited his father and his mother
when asked the reason for his generation's paralysis by his youngest brother

They're arresting the panthers, the eagles and the hawks
they're marching out at gunpoint all those that can walk
those that can't are left behind to face the brightness in her eyes
a glow they've toiled and strived for fifty years to hide

sometimes it feels like it's all just skimming stones on the water
peoples colliding and colliding with reality before sinking without trace
and should the children ever dare to ask the man the question
the answer for their searching eyes is federal laboratories mace

hold it down, hold it down, make sure you tie it well
'cause you wouldn't want what's inside to disturb you in your hell
do your eyes everywhere really not tell you what they see?
or has the deity of calculation blinded you to be the


26 September 1997, Ramallah, Palestinian West Bank;
15 August 1998, Minneapolis, Minnesota.



THIS SIDE OF PARADISE by NIGEL PARRY

This Side Of Paradise album cover"...a disc whose recommendation is its deftly managed intensity"

-- New Internationalist, August 2001


"Deeply moving songs... With quiet intensity, Parry gives voice to this
'invisible people' living under siege."


-- Lydia Howell, KFAI Radio,
90.3/106.7FM, Twin Cities, MN.


DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE ALBUM FOR FREE ON THIS SITE!
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• First Dream (Unreleased)

• Graveyard Of Forgotten Souls (Unreleased)

• Christmas Fire (Unreleased)

• The Color Of Life (Unreleased)

• Peacemakers (Unreleased)

• All Of This (Unreleased)

• Whirlpools (Unreleased)

• Forget (This Side of Paradise, 2001)

• Too Many Thoughts (This Side of Paradise, 2001)

• Land Of The Shadow (This Side of Paradise, 2001)

• See How Both Of You Will Fly (This Side of Paradise, 2001)

• The Fire This Time (Mizna, Issue 1, Volume 3, 2001)

• I Need You (Unreleased)

• Him (Unreleased)

• Elapse (This Side of Paradise, 2001)


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