DESCRIPTION:
"Shadows Of Evangeline" is the opening song from Tracy Grammer's "Flower Of Avalon" cd, her first release after the death of her partner and collaborator, Dave Carter (1952-2002). The recording features nine previously unrecorded songs of Dave's, plus a tenth 'traditional' song. The title of the album is the unrecorded 11th song, written by Dave Carter as a gift for Tracy Grammer on her 31st birthday. The song was played only once and was never recorded, so the melody is lost except for a snippet of the chorus, which Grammer has held onto for years:

"If I were a bumblin' bee
I'd ride that wish across the sea
And fetch for you
The fairest flower of Avalon..."

- Dave Carter, "Flower of Avalon"

As Grammer deliberated over a title for this new project, she found this chorus coming back to her, begging the question: "What was Dave Carter's intention, in my 31st year -- to sail across to what is commonly known as the Isle of the Dead, and return with a living gift for me, this flower?" She realized that this was exactly the mission she was on with this album: to shed forever the veil of sadness and return full-force from Avalon in joyful celebration of the living music Dave Carter left behind, and her own emerging musical voice.

SHADOWS OF EVANGELINE

it is rain, it is age, it is poison
supplication to family honor
little children with keys to the temple
red lights and silver dimes

it's waiting for a sun that punishes but seldom shines
living and dying in the shadow of evangeline

she is young, like her mother before her
put up tired at the end of her labors
true-believing and ever-desiring
quiz shows and checkout lines

in porchlight halo ringed about by moss and hanging vines
she casts the never changing shadow of evangeline

in the bang and the crash of the factory
in a hot, cutting season of metal
on the floor of an ocean of contracts
skin drums and shrunken heads

strange dances long undone go stamping in between the lines
old gods, incarnate in the shadow of evangeline

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