The first verse was not written by an unknown torture victim from Argentine, but by Danish poet/writer Halfdan Rasmussen! This page tells the story for the first time.
Before performing the song for the first time Roger Waters explained some of the background to an impatient audience. The inspiration to the lyrics came from different sources. The following information is a quote from the official Roger Waters
A few years ago, an Italian journalist from a Florentine newspaper, involved in the Iniziativa contro la tortura, which is the initiative against torture in Northern Italy, sent some lyrics written by a South American man who had been tortured. The English translation (which represents the first stanza of the song) proved to be very moving, and was set to music. The words remained untouched.. Until Kosovo.
The London Times had a piece which told the story of a Serbian soldier who saw an Albanian woman lying wounded in a burned-out building. He left his platoon, went over and helped her, and then joined his men and marched off. There was sense in that image. The rest of the song is about that.
Roger Waters
and Halfdan Rasmussen did not know each other, but human rights issues
were important to both of them. Halfdan Rasmussen were born in Copenhagen,
Denmark January 29, 1915. He was a resistance fighter during the German
occupation of Denmark in W.W.II and became a well known poet often writing
about social issues and human rights. Halfdan Rasmussen was also loved for
his nonsense verses written for children. Halfdan Rasmussen almost became
a national-poet of Denmark. He died in 87 years old on 2nd March
2002.
In 1979 Amnesty International (Denmark) published a small book with poems about Human Rights (ISBN: 87-980852-2-0). Among the best were a small poem from Halfdan Rasmussen titled "Ikke Bødlen". The original text of "Ikke Bødlen" is printed below. You will find that my direct English translation almost to the word matches the first verse of Each Small Candle (further down the page).
|
Ikke bødlen gør mig bange. |
Not the torturer will scare me |
|
ikke hadet og torturen, |
Nor the hate and the torture |
|
ikke dødens riffelgange eller skyggerne på muren. |
Nor the barrels of death's rifles nor the shadows on the wall |
|
Ikke nætterne, |
Nor the nights |
|
når smertens sidste stjerne styrter ned, |
When the last star of pain is falling to the ground |
|
men den nådesløse verdens blinde ligegyldighed. |
But the blind indifference of the merciless world |
The history of the song goes back to July 22 1999 when Roger Waters was heard to play a new acoustic song during tour-rehearsals in Milwaukee (WI). The song was finally performed on the last gig of the tour in Kemper Arena, Kansas, August 28 1999. It has been played all through the second leg of Roger Waters' US-tour in 2000 and appears on the live album< and DVD. On the 2002 world tour the last encore is either Each Small Candle or Flickering Flame. Each Small Candle can also be heard on the recent release from Roger Waters: Flickering Flame - The Solo Years vol.1.
Not the torturer will scare me
Nor the body's final
fall
Nor the barrels of death's rifles
Nor the shadows on the
wall
Nor the night when to the ground
The last dim star of pain, is
held
But the blind indifference
Of a merciless unfeeling
world
Lying in the burnt out shell
Of some Albanian farm
An
old Babushka
Holds a crying baby in her arms
A soldier from the
other side
A man of heart and pride
Breaks ranks, lays down his
rifle
And kneels by her side
He binds her wounds
He gives her
food
And calms the crying child
She gives him absolution
then
Across the great divide
He picks his way back through the
broken
China of her life
And there at the kerb
The Samaritan Serb
turns..
Turns and waves.. goodbye
And each small
candle
Each
small candle
Lights a corner of the
dark...
Lights
a corner of the dark
Each small
candle
Each
small candle
Lights a corner of the
dark
Lights
a corner of the
dark
Each
small candle lights a corner of the dark
When the wheel of pain stops
turning
And
the branding iron stops burning
When the children can be
children
When
the desperadoes weaken
When the sea rolls into greet
them
When
the natural law of science
Greets the humble and the
mighty
And
the billion candles burning
Lights the dark side of every human
mind
And each small candle
Lights a corner of the dark...
Lyrics: ©1999 Roger Waters Music Overseas Limited
Administered by
Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc.
Lyrics by Roger Waters, 1968
The song 'Incarceration of a Flower Child' is an old Pink Floyd song demoed in 1968, but never recorded by Pink Floyd. The song is written by Roger Waters and recently dusted off for Marianne Faithfull, for her 1999 album. Waters also plays the bass on the song. Faithfull co-performed in the Berlin show of The Wall and she has also been singing a duet with Ismael Lo written by Roger Waters.Do you remember me ? How we used to be helpless and happy
and blind ?
Sunk without hope in a haze of good dope and cheap wine
?
Laying on the living-room floor on those Indian tapestry cushions you
made
Thinking of calling our first born Jasmine or Jade.
Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it to me,
Don't
think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think
about what it might be,
Don't get up to open the door, just stay with
me here on the floor,
It's gonna get cold in the 1970's.
You wouldn't listen, you thought you knew better, you just
to had to speak to that man.
Please believe me, I'll visit whenever I
can.
Laying in your little white room with no windows and three square
sedations a day,
You plead with the doctor who's running the
show,
"Please don't take Jasmine away and leave me alone."
Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it to
me,
Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it,
don't think about what it might be,
Don't get up to open the door, just
stay with me here on the floor,
It's gonna get cold in the 1970's.
Do you remember me ? How we used to be helpless and happy
and blind ?
Sunk without hope in a haze of good dope and cheap wine
?
Now in your little white room with no windows and three square
sedations a day
You plead with the doctor who's running the
show,
"Please don't take Jasmine away and leave me alone."
|
When my neurons conspire to distract my
thoughts
Like Geronimo
And when the bell sounds for that final
round On the open road in a bar room When a new song hits the right note Like Geronimo They're the same beyond the next plain On an African Plain by a thorn tree Que se passe Que se passe In a pied
'a' terre (love nest, where French men take their
mistresses, a second home in the city) the angel in me by Roger
Waters |
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