26 May Two Hopeful Songs for Children’s Choir

Program Note: Two Hopeful Songs (2010) music by James Rolfe; words by Dennis Lee

Two Hopeful Songs (2010) were commissioned by Toronto’s Viva Youth Singers (Carol Ratzlaff, Artistic Director), and written to poems by Dennis Lee.

Song lyrics

The Moon (from Garbage Delight, 1977)

I see the moon

And the moon sees me

And nobody sees

As secretly

Unless there’s a kid

In Kalamazoo,

Or Mexico,

Or Timbuktu,

Who looks in the sky

At the end of the day,
And she thinks of me

In a friendly way —

‘Cause we both lie still

And we watch the moon;

And we haven’t met yet,

But we might do, soon.

Dopey (from Yesno, 2007)

Squeaks from the sisyphus chorus.

Hums from the crunch.

Dopey & grumpy & doc, just

truckin’ along —

here come chorale;

mind to the

grindstone, ear to the plough.

Hi-

hoein along with a song:

What home but here? Whose grubby hands but ours?