by Kaitie Ty Warren
©2017
Additional lyrics by Nik Warren
©2024

Teaching page made 4/2018

Follow Kaitie: Patreon.com/KaitieTy
Follow Nik: PathlessWorld.org

In 2024, Kaitie and her dad, poet Nik Warren, collaborated to make a new set of lyrics from two of Nik’s poems.

Nik’s notes: the line The Great Fish glides over me invokes a feeling of being underwater; the next line says I feed on lichen. Lichen is dry; it grows on trees. This is an intentional contradiction.

The Chant:
Low:
O Water, O Water
Middle and High:
Water, O Water

The Poem:
Many years ago, the Sea sang to you
A lullaby of waves, rolling across stone
How bright the afternoon, how bright your own brightness
Enjoy this life that now is your own
The Great Fish now glides over me
I feed on lichen; your stones drop through me
You who come, yes, drink from me
Your life is now your own, you are free
Your life is now your own, you are free…

JUST THE CHANT:

LOW:

MIDDLE:

HIGH:

The History:

This song dropped in as a chant driving home from an acupuncture appointment in which I’d been given a Water Treatment to cool the Fire in my system. Thinking about the quiet power of water and the respect I have for her, I sang this all the way home. It was only later when I recorded it that I discovered that the 4 parts did indeed fit together – and that the top line wanted more words. The first and last verse of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Poem fit beautifully.

The “O Water” part of the chant can be a soundscape for vocal improvisation to happen over. We have had some lovely improvised renditions on hot days when choir met outdoors, splash pad or wading pool cooling our feet.

Kaitie (left) and her dad Nik, circa 1983

Previous Lyrics:
Words from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Poem The Ocean:
The Ocean has its silent caves,
Deep, quiet, and alone;
Though there be fury on the waves,
Beneath them there is none.
The earth has guilt, the earth has care,
Unquiet are its graves;
But peaceful sleep is ever there,
Beneath the dark blue waves.

Previous lyrics: