we were (2021) 10'

program note

we were is another in a series of pieces I have been writing over the past several years, in which I have applied different literary filters to the text of the biblical ‘Song of Songs.’ Together with for love is strong (2008), just (2014), let me come in (2021) and the sense of senses (2021), these works examine the text from different angles, in the hope that, taken together, they may eventually begin to reveal more of the text’s emotional and spiritual powers.

The intense sensuality of ‘Song of Songs’ makes it stand out from other Biblical texts, which has guaranteed that its position as a sacred book would be debated and theorized and challenged and justified, for millennia. One of these justifications that I have always been drawn to is that the text is supposed to give us a hint of what our lives would have been like if we had not been expelled from the Garden of Eden. The sensuousness, the calm, and the lushness of the text are all pointing us towards an alternate reality, in which beauty is all around us, and all we have to do is enjoy it. In this interpretation, the text is supposed to entice us with a vision of a life we might want, and to humble us with the knowledge of its loss.

The text supports this interpretation, with many detailed descriptions of the features of a garden — the vineyards, the walls, the rivers, the pomegranates. I have made a libretto out of all the garden features in the text, in the order that they are mentioned, and I have grouped them together with the preposition of where we are in relation to them—in the garden, by the streams, among the lilies, under the apple tree.

Libretto

we were
words by david lang
(after the song of songs)

we were
we were there
we were
together
there
we

we were, in the vineyards
in the vineyard
in the vineyards

we were there, on the green
we were, under the cedar
under the fir

together, by the rose
by the lily of the valleys
by the lily

there, among the thorns
we were, under the apple
there, among the trees
we were, under the fruit
under the apples

we, behind our wall
there, among the flowers
we were, under the fig tree
under the green figs
under the vines
under the tender grape

we were, in the secret places
we were, under the vines
under our vines
under the tender grapes

there, among the lilies
we were, under the wood
under the pomegranate

there, among the lilies
we were, in the garden
together, by the spring
by the fountain

there, among the plants
we were, in the orchard
we were, under the pomegranates
under the pleasant fruits

there, among the trees
together, by the fountain
we were, in the gardens
together, by the well of living waters
by the streams

we were, in the garden
in the garden

there, among the pleasant fruits
we were, in the garden
together, by the rivers
we were there, on the bed of spices
there, among the sweet flowers
among the lilies

we were, in the garden
in the garden

there, among the lilies
we were, in the garden
there, among the fruits of the valley

we were, under the vine
under the pomegranates
under the wheat

there, among the lilies
we were, under the palm tree
under the clusters of grapes
under the palm tree
under the boughs
under the clusters of the vine
under the apples

we were, in the vineyards
we were, under the vine
under the tender grape
under the pomegranates

there, among the mandrakes
among the pleasant fruits

we were, under the pomegranate
under the apple tree

together, by the waters
by the floods

we, behind the wall
we were, under the cedar
we, behind the wall
we were, in the vineyard
in the vineyard

we were, under the fruit
we were, in the vineyard
we were, under the fruit
we were, in the gardens