Empty Hats ~ "Dunnenkirk and the Gypsy" or "Dite Cizi" ~ 2010 Camelot Days Medieval Festival - Video
PUBLISHED:  Mar 20, 2011
DESCRIPTION:
Empty Hats perform the song "Dunnenkirk & the Gypsy" at the 2010 Camelot Days Medieval Festival at Topeekeegee Yugnee Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This performance features Carl Asch (aka Giacomo the Jester) on guitar with lead vocals, Vicki Scuteri (aka Lady Victoria) on violin with supporting vocals, Lynda Kavy (aka Looney Lucy) on bodhran with supporting vocals, and Gary Mazzu (aka Demitri) on guitar and supporting vocals.


This song was composed during the band's earlier incarnation as Double Indemnity, from a traditional melody with lyrics by Ciara Carinci and originally arranged by Brahm Stuart and Double Indemnity. This song appears on the Double Indemnity album "Cows in the Castle" and the Empty Hats album "Captured" and a live version on the album "Released".


This is personally one of my favorite songs by Empty Hats, and they kindly performed it here by request. A big "Thank You" from me to Carl, Lynda, Vicki, and Gary for this nice performance. I've wanted to get this on video for quite awhile now.


"Dite Citzi" supposedly translates to "Alien Child" in one of the Roma Gypsy dialects.

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Lyrics to "Dunnenkirk and the Gypsy"
(from www.theblackbird.net):


A grotesque babe was Dunnenkirk, a freak by nature's making
the priest pronounced him devil spawn, by his own he was forsaken
abandoned to a gypsy crone, never suckled by his mother
the old one fed him roots and bone, she loved him like no other

Dite cizi, I'll lie near you now, dite cizi I'll lie near you|
the world will know a noble soul when you have found your way through.

She taught him how to read the stars, how to minister to the broken
to tolerate the ways of all, and know what has been spoken
He closed her eyes the day she died, looked back to remember
then made their hut a funeral pyre...
Oh, heaven rained down embers.

Dite cizi I be with you still, dite cizi I'm still with you,
You'll speak the truth in common tongue though few will understand you.

He lived among the townsfolk then, barefoot and misshapen,
his wisdom fell on fallow ground, from him they kept their children hidden
he left them after seven years, wearied by their hatred,
Then he looked down from the highest cliff in seach of the exhaulted

A caravan of tangled bones lay tented in the distance
He heard the fates call out his name, from his soul came no resistence
The fringe folk and the wild seed, the freak with four arms flailing
welcomed him among their score like a tincture to their ailing

Dite cizi be you near them now, dite cizi be you near them
Let this be the work that sets their ancient gash to mending

They asked him how to heal their fears, he answered "Face the danger.
We'll build a stage up on the hill, we'll be the carnival of strangers.
Spectators gaze on oddity to be consoled that form is content,
but we were cast with beastly masks that we might learn the difference!"

Dite cizi you lie near them now, dite cizi you lie near them
They are all they need to be to satisfy their longing.

He traveled with them forty years, in his tent did they gather
To cry, to sing, to seek his words, for he loved them like no other
Late one night when the stage was bright and the blue moon met the bent tree,
they heard him call to the gypsy crone, "Come find me, I am ready!"

Dite cizi, go you from them now, dite cizi go you from them,
Their twisted limbs are now their wings, your carnival is legend.

Dite cizi come lie near me now, dite cizi come lie near me,
The life you lived as Dunnenkirk is the myth you leave to history.

Dite cizi I'll lie near you now, dite cizi I'll lie near you,
their world did know a noble soul...who helped them find their way through.
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