Description
Voice one solos with the guitar for the first verse and Voice 2 joins in for the second verse.
It is based on a song for 2 altos and guitar that I wrote over 4 decades ago – based on discussions with Jean Sarocchi (The Camus expert based at that time at Strasbourg University) as we waited for better weather in the Vosges mountains after a choir trip there.
This personal exploration with a friend was very deep; we were
philosophising mainly on society’s reactions to LGBTQ minority groups and the psychology behind it.
We considered ourselves to be in a sort of nomansland sociologically, each for different reasons, but the Vosges valleys provided the most beautiful “nomansland” imaginable for our discussions.
This all took place in 1977, while we stayed in the Vosges, after the choir that we were singing with had returned to Strasbourg.
(They were fleeing the bad weather – but it turned out quite nice up in the mountains after all, so we were glad that we had stayed…).
This song is the slightly mystical, and somewhat understated, memory of those days:
The words were as follows:
Here in nomansland
where all had fled the weather
we waited patiently
and enjoyed God’s sun together
Here in nomansland
a grandson of Adam
residing in his earthly grandfather’s home
the woods and sun presiding
Here in nomansland
Hermes’ and Aphrodite’s son
sings cuckoo to the ill-shorn mountain top
and then is gone
Here in nomansland we sing
to the other’s consolation
whilst peaceful dog and cows look on
at our natural,
perchance divine, oration
© D W Solomons 1977