Mark Rothko Song

(album: The Honesty Room - 1993)

The blue it speaks so full
It's like the beauty one can barely stand
Or too much things dropped in your hand
And there's a green like the peace
In your heart, sometimes
Painted underneath the sheets of ashy snow
And there's a blue like where the urban angels go, very bright
Now the Calder mobile tips a biomorphic sphere
Then it swings its dangling pieces 'round to other paintings here

Your behavior is so male
It's like you can't explain yourself to me
I think I'll ask Renoir to tea
For his flowers are as real as they are, all the time
And the sunlight sets the furniture aglow
It's a pleasant time as far as people go
How far do they go?
Well, his roses are perfect and his words have no wings
I know what he can give me and I like to know these things

I met her at the funeral
She said I don't know what he meant to me
I just know he affected me
An effect not unlike his art, I believe

The service starts and we are in the know
He had so much to say, but more to show
And ain't that true of life?
So we weep for a person who lived at great cost
And we barely knew his powers till we sensed that we had lost

A friend and I in a museum room
She says, "Look at Mark Rothko's side
Did you know about his suicide?
Some folks were born with a foot in the grave
But not me, of course"
And she smiles, as if to say we're in the know
Then she names a coffee place where we can go, uptown
Now the painting is desperate, but the crowds wash away
In a world of kind pedestrians who've seen enough today