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Heaven Be Praised (Hotel Room in Venice)

from Barbarian Hymns by John Terlazzo & Voices in the Hall

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about

(My bent towards various mythologies leads me again & again toward the realization that our present-day culture is obviously deeply wounded. Most specifically, it is wounded in that we have completely violated & abused the Feminine (which in so doing, leaves the Masculine a pathetic monstrous version of itself)…

Many of my songs & poems, then, return to implore that we work diligently to restore a deep ethereal joining- to bring together the Feminine & Masculine energies in every aspect of our lives… This is true in every relationship – whether a man & a woman, or two women joined together, or two men, or any individual standing alone, just as it’s true for entire cultures… Returning to the awe & majesty of this Balance is essential to our survival.

Having said all that, I had a good time writing this song. We pull it out for concerts every now & then, & it’s always been well-received – most recently at Mulina & Emerson’s Mill (which led us to want to include it here)… I wrote the song on said angelic being’s birthday, in the old hotel room in Venice, Italy in 1985 – it all unfolded pretty much just as it’s spelled out in the spoken introduction).

lyrics

Heaven be Praised (Hotel Room in Venice)

When the sun comes up on the love-soaked bed
Wrapped around each other with visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads.
You will hear the beating of the angel’s wings,
As they smile down upon you & all creation sings:

HEAVEN BE PRAISED, HEAVEN BE PRAISED!
MAN LIES NAKED BEFORE HIS WOMAN!
HEAVEN BE PRAISED, HEAVEN BE PRAISED!
WOMAN LIES NAKED BEFORE HER MAN!

Clothed in these naked bodies, corporeal as they are
We are given the instruments of music, the milky-white moon & the shooting stars.
We have the hands of man, forever strumming the lute,
The ecstatic song of delirious woman as she again descends on the flute!

Whenever two tongues meet through the vessels of the open mouths,
A glorious moaning can be heard in the East, the West, & North & South.
And every pore of every creature grows moist & invites us in. And it’s a most holy thing,
This moaning, it isn’t advertising & it sure as hell isn’t sin!

As all the meteors fall from Heaven like white hot seeds
And the canals of Venice open wide & the volcano at Pompeii bleeds.
With every man & woman enraptured in this prayerful bequest,
Again & again & again, mouth to mouth, loin to loin & breast to breast!

When you think that you just can’t go on any longer
And all your lily-white lambs have gone to slaughter,
Seek refuge & solace, remember somewhere in some glowing room
The Holy Mystery of Man is coupled with the Holy Mystery of Woman!

credits

from Barbarian Hymns, released January 1, 2014

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John Terlazzo & Voices in the Hall York, Pennsylvania

Voices In The Hall: Songwriter / Poet John Terlazzo on vocals, guitar, Indian harmonium, Kristina Machusick on vocals, flute, recorders & Paul Wegmann on vocals, lead guitars. Together
they have become one moving, breathing creature, offering up a rich array of "Modern Surrealist Gypsy Folk", & described as "Marc Chagall gone aural" and "Leonard Cohen meets Rumi". ... more

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