By Stuart Wicke Band · 2024 · Rock
Two sprawling prog-rock tracks inspired by historical poems. First, "Song on the End of the World" takes text from the poem of the same name by Czeslaw Milosz, bookended by apocalyptic verses inspired by William Blake's "America: a Prophecy." Blake's original 1793 poem praised the American Revolution for its rebuke of the tyrannical British crown. This song was conceived as an appendix, admonishing the modern USA for failing to live up to the future Blake had imagined for it. The second track is an adaptation of 12th century polymath Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, as translated by Edward FitzGerald. Here 24 of the original 75 stanzas were selected and arranged to complement the arc of the accompaniment. The artwork by Meg Wicke features images in the Rubaiyat, and was inspired by artwork contemporary to the time of the poem's first publication in English in 1859. Recorded, mixed at the Wicker House Mastered by Skyler Bready
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