Get all 4 Barbara Hume releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Duets, A Concert of Prayers, Island in the Sound, and I Hear America Singing, Highlights from Volumes 1 - 5.
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Part One
A rose bud sways on a wind swept rise
Faint pink bud bending with cool breeze
Reaching towards the sun
Rising in the east
The rose beckoning me to shelter my sorrow.
All alone lost in the fog
Of my thoughts haunted by longing
Lovers wander torn forsaken
Wrestling a hollow dream
But today a fragrant whisper
"Over here..."
Part Two
What I see...a fading rose with falling leaves
Pink petals curling brown
But what I feel...
Rain rose perfume
Showers me to sleep.
Part Three
Aging flowers fade
Heart petals wane then fall
Decaying feeds saying...
New buds burst forth
The sprouting shoot commends my heart
Healing blossoms here.
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2. |
Dancer in the Wind
02:43
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The dancer feels the pulse
Momentum draws her
Lifting, lifted
Gravity succumbs
Daring to fall
The dancer suspends
Time, weight, mass
Swept away into oblivion.
Perspective changes
Shifting direction
The dancer glides
Carried by the wind
Suspended for a moment.
Time lands hard
The weight of endurance pressing
Muscles strain for relief.
Euphoria comes
Her breath expands
Her feet shoulder
The weight of knowing
And remembering once again
To abandon time
Swept away into oblivion.
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3. |
Beauty of Brokenness
05:12
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An ancient tribe betrayed a brother
That brother held a bleeding wound
His wound betrayed his better sense
To kill a kin, to start anew.
This wounded brother, age or'taken
Old and gray with bleeding heart
He stamps his seal of righteous anger
A cursed impress, his grace departs
The child he aims and shoots lies fallow
The youthful body wastes away
To cultivate her soul rich marrow
The hand of God rests on her grave.
Where is the beauty of the broken?
The majestic poise of those in pain
The emblem for tired and forgotten
The ministering doctor who knows no blame.
Dispel the angry fear of hate
Expose the deepest wound of sorrow
Hold the bleeding aged brother
So he can see this young girl's heart
This wounded brother age or'taken
Older now far from the start
His pain has settled quiet redemption
With mindfulness his hate departs.
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4. |
Rilke: Love Song
01:45
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Translated by A.Z. Foreman from German
How shall I hold my soul and yet not touch
It with your own? How shall I ever place
It clear of you on anything beyond?
Oh gladly I would stow it next to such
Things in the darkness as are never found
Down in an alien and silent space
That does not resonate when you resound.
But everything that touches me and you
Takes us together like a bow on two
Taut strings to stroke them to the voice of one.
What instrument have we been lain along?
Whose are the hands that play our unison?
Oh sweet song!
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5. |
Duet
03:12
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Not one, but two
A song for me and you
Rising melody
Taking turns first me then you
Searching for every tone
Ending unknown.
Once we were young
Never knew how to let our hearts sing
Let the song ring
Just listening.
Time passes
Measure follows measure
A harmony then rhapsody
Now the two become one
Hear our song
Here all along
Melody to harmony
Two voices into one
Now unison.
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6. |
Sacred Love
03:39
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Two girls, two girls discover,
Sacred secret of love divine
Two loves, from two different times,
Ancient tale of hope
One teenage fear
A secret from a virgin holy
The other secret adolescent dreams
Two loves found.
Virgin, immaculate
Conceives a child, a child divine
Teenage temptation
Her flesh or taken, her deepest longing.
Two women feel resisting desire
To love and whether they are worthy
Sacred love.
Two girls, two girls discover
Sacred secret of love divine
Two loves, from two different times
Both divine secrets, but never found.
A secret from a virgin holy
Another secret from a teenage dream
Sacred love.
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7. |
Twilight Whippoorwill
02:03
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Calling whippoorwill
Fly by whippoorwill now
Hear your sweet cry at twilight
Witch hunts down
Witch hunts down dirt roads
Signaled by your cry
Spirits of women silenced by fire.
For young girls and mothers
Wounded women
Longing for home.
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8. |
Birthday Poem
01:40
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Age is a glorious thing
Each year to learn what it means to begin..begin anew
Beautious birth long familiar
Sweet honeysuckle, red flowering current
Blooms are gifted
Not formed by us
A fragile beauty
Made strong with spreading roots
Secures the soil
Perseveres through brokenness
Offers itself a sacred altar
nurturing natures soul.
Ascend the body's decline
Engage the edge of death
A sentient vision
The botany of faith
Insure the resurrection.
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9. |
Ancient Sky
03:33
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The desert after dark beckons
a mysterious sound rifts through stone
a time-worn tale
a sacred longing
implies the cry of an ancient drone.
A constellation, motionless
yet moving through time
star clusters bound by gravity
flickering signals, magnetically bind.
The cornea discerns the shifting shapes
the altered refraction of sight
yet the eye holds fast to the present longing
drawn towards that pulse of light.
Ancient sky
To veer towards light in darkness
To seek this curious unknown
To bind oneself to another
To scribe the discovering alone
Ancient sky, Ancient sky
We join the hand of another
to ponder this cluster of light
we bind ourself to another
to sing our drone to the night.
The desert after dark beckons
a mysterious sound rifts through stone
a time-worn tale, a sacred longing
implies the cry of an ancient drone.
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Barbara Hume Seattle, Washington
Barbara Hume lives in the Seattle area where she has collaborated with composers for the past 20 years including David Paul Mesler, Bonnie Murphy, Paul Lewis and other northwest artists producing original music, set to a rich and varied canon of poetry. In these albums, the weaving of melody and imagery produce songs that unearth the raw senses that nurture the soul. ... more
Barbara Hume recommends:
Incredible orchestral arrangements, especially the "Cistern" album.
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You Think It's Like This... But Really It's Like This (20th Anniversary Reissue)
by Mirah
Mirah has collaborated with Jherek Bishoff who has created incredible arrangements to her lyric experiences. Favorite track "Light"
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The composer regularly blurs the lines between classical, jazz, and electronic music on his latest album.
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Green of Winter
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The tight-knight, insular saxophone ensemble move through harrowing passages with remarkable clarity and purpose.
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Going Home (Album)
by Tristan Eckerson
Completely improvised piano pieces that have a stunning warmth & beauty, as tender as a gentle embrace.
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A Closer Look Reveals
by Michael R. Oldham
Chicago composer & pianist Michael R. Oldham uncorks a dazzling album of piano compositions, bursting with warm, uplifting melodies.
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