Uploaded December 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
From: Swans are Dead (1998)
Lyrics:
In separate sections, the bodies fall
The leaves are purple, the grass is red
I love your music, I love your style
The light inside you leaks through your eyes
Na, na, na, na
The golden liquid that washed your face
Contain my secrets and bitter taste
I love your music, I love your throat
The light inside me feeds like a golden rope
Na, na, na, na
And I alone
See through your eyes
And I alone
Will never die
And I alone
Can taste your hand
And I alone
Am sanctified
And I alone
Can smell your hair
And I alone
Feed you the air
And I alone
Can steal steal your breath
And I alone
Prevent your death
And I alone
Am not alone
And I alone
Am not alone
Na, na, na, na, na
It's the sun
Sh-sh-shining
In a newsletter posted to Swans' official website on November 14th, 1997, Michael Gira discussed this song:
"The next song was Not Alone, another thing I wrote just for the tour. It was written on acoustic 12-string guitar, and was initially quiet, sort of bluesy. Inevitably, it developed live into a 15 minute mutation, and ended up by about 5 or 6 minutes in being quite violent, and was a real joy to play. We orchestrated these erupting swells into the end-section, which were cued or guided by the movements of my body. I liked this section especially because the sound was so connected to the physical limits of our ability to play it, throwing our entire strength (individually and collectively) into each swell. If I’d had my way I would have used horns for this section too, i.e. trombones and trumpets, but obvious financial constraints limited us. As the tour developed, this piece mutated further. By the end we were using police whistles (generously lent us by Panasonic), and we even tried to incorporate Mika and Ilpo from Pan. letting loose these air-horns we bought somewhere in Norway. These are the kind of horns you hear at football matches etc, or like boat horns. We only did this for one show though, because it sounded ridiculous — comical, due to the fact there is no variance in tone on the horn and I also hate sports! We then thought it would be a good idea to have sirens wailing in this section, but we were never able to find time while on tour to do the searching necessary to buy a contraption like that, so we made due. The piece ends with Phil pounding randomly on his kettle drum, with long gaps of silence between each strike… Incidentally, the lyrics to this song grew out of this fantasy I developed while staring at a reproduction of Marcel Duchamp’s Etant Donnes, which I find to be incredibly erotic. The first product of this was the story MTV And The Cult Of The Body (which you can find elsewhere on this site, if you’re interested). The song Not Alone is written from the point of view of the predator-protagonist, when he finds the opalescent body in the reeds. Another song I wrote thinking about this scene is called The Garden Hides The Jewel, which is among the songs I’m going to start recording in Jan. for my new as yet untitled “band”. Not Alone will also appear, in acoustic form."
(Note: the acoustic “Not Alone” and “The Garden Hides The Jewel” that Gira mentions were later released on The Angels Of Light’s 1999 album New Mother. “MTV And The Cult Of The Body” was published as part of Three Stories By M. Gira in 1997 and re-released as part of Michael Gira: Eight Stories in 2012. A recording of this story was also released on Gira’s 1997 spoken-word album The Somniloquist.)
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
From: Swans are Dead (1998)
Lyrics:
In separate sections, the bodies fall
The leaves are purple, the grass is red
I love your music, I love your style
The light inside you leaks through your eyes
Na, na, na, na
The golden liquid that washed your face
Contain my secrets and bitter taste
I love your music, I love your throat
The light inside me feeds like a golden rope
Na, na, na, na
And I alone
See through your eyes
And I alone
Will never die
And I alone
Can taste your hand
And I alone
Am sanctified
And I alone
Can smell your hair
And I alone
Feed you the air
And I alone
Can steal steal your breath
And I alone
Prevent your death
And I alone
Am not alone
And I alone
Am not alone
Na, na, na, na, na
It's the sun
Sh-sh-shining
In a newsletter posted to Swans' official website on November 14th, 1997, Michael Gira discussed this song:
"The next song was Not Alone, another thing I wrote just for the tour. It was written on acoustic 12-string guitar, and was initially quiet, sort of bluesy. Inevitably, it developed live into a 15 minute mutation, and ended up by about 5 or 6 minutes in being quite violent, and was a real joy to play. We orchestrated these erupting swells into the end-section, which were cued or guided by the movements of my body. I liked this section especially because the sound was so connected to the physical limits of our ability to play it, throwing our entire strength (individually and collectively) into each swell. If I’d had my way I would have used horns for this section too, i.e. trombones and trumpets, but obvious financial constraints limited us. As the tour developed, this piece mutated further. By the end we were using police whistles (generously lent us by Panasonic), and we even tried to incorporate Mika and Ilpo from Pan. letting loose these air-horns we bought somewhere in Norway. These are the kind of horns you hear at football matches etc, or like boat horns. We only did this for one show though, because it sounded ridiculous — comical, due to the fact there is no variance in tone on the horn and I also hate sports! We then thought it would be a good idea to have sirens wailing in this section, but we were never able to find time while on tour to do the searching necessary to buy a contraption like that, so we made due. The piece ends with Phil pounding randomly on his kettle drum, with long gaps of silence between each strike… Incidentally, the lyrics to this song grew out of this fantasy I developed while staring at a reproduction of Marcel Duchamp’s Etant Donnes, which I find to be incredibly erotic. The first product of this was the story MTV And The Cult Of The Body (which you can find elsewhere on this site, if you’re interested). The song Not Alone is written from the point of view of the predator-protagonist, when he finds the opalescent body in the reeds. Another song I wrote thinking about this scene is called The Garden Hides The Jewel, which is among the songs I’m going to start recording in Jan. for my new as yet untitled “band”. Not Alone will also appear, in acoustic form."
(Note: the acoustic “Not Alone” and “The Garden Hides The Jewel” that Gira mentions were later released on The Angels Of Light’s 1999 album New Mother. “MTV And The Cult Of The Body” was published as part of Three Stories By M. Gira in 1997 and re-released as part of Michael Gira: Eight Stories in 2012. A recording of this story was also released on Gira’s 1997 spoken-word album The Somniloquist.)
