Irises

by Steev baker

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about

Steev baker: lyrics, singing, and banjo
Jesse Gyldenvaand: electric guitar
Emily Selk-Loper: cello
Derek Freund: drums

lyrics

1
Gertrude Stein fell in love with you
when you were the queen of France.
On your back in the sitting room
among the Cubist canvases.

And everybody wanted to be blind
and everybody wanted you to make up your mind
But I thought you were brave
And I heard you were kind
But you don’t owe me anything

2
She cleaned the blood deftly from your shoe
It was the perfect alibi.
Plucked the stone weeping from the wound
like a vase of wild irises.

They didn’t think the flowers were fair
how else did they expect for you to decorate your hair
But your joy was your own
and you just didn’t care
Cause you didn’t owe them anything

3
Now that you are gone you look just like you wanted to
in the kiss your lover promised you.
On the garden floor where the seeds you carried
fell and grew
In the shadow of the evening news.

The tales they told about you were lies
but the poetry still slipped from your dreaming eyes
Though it means that I am wrong
I know you are right
Yes it means that I’m wrong
To know you are right
If I have to be wrong
to know you are right
You don’t owe me anything

credits

released June 17, 2021
Recording, mixing, and mastering by Stephen McCabe at Big Garage Studios. Oshkosh, Wisconsin

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Cover art from La Photographie Transcendantale: Les Êtres Et Les Radiations De L'espace. Paris: Librairie Nationale, 1908.

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about

Steev baker Madison, Wisconsin

Steev baker is a lo-fi singer-songwriter from rural Wisconsin. He has spent time in the music scenes of Oshkosh, West Bend, Milwaukee, and Madison over the past 20 years playing songs about faith, doubt, anxiety, love, and the places we call home.

Recommendations

shows

Jul 20

The Bur Oak

Madison, WI

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