DESCRIPTION:
In Memoriam
Ingvald Bjorndal and his comrade

Text by Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957)
Music by Malcolm Sailor

(Translation of a letter written somewhere in the North Atlantic and sent to the Government of Canada by Inspector Ovide Hubert of Cap-aux-Meules, Magdalen Islands. The letter was written in Norwegian and had been found in a bottle by the sea near l'Étang du Nord by Hubert Duclos, a fisherman, on 25 November 1940. The letter was addressed to Lovise Stigen, Kalandeendet [?] Fana.)

While we sail and laugh, joke and fight, comes death
And it is the end. A man toils on board;
His life drifts away like a puff of breath;
Who will know his dreams now when the sea roared?
I loved you, my dear, but now I am dead,
So take somebody else and forget me.
My brothers, I was foolish, as you said:
So are most who place their fate in the sea.
Many tears have you shed for me in vain.
Take my pay, Mother, Father, I have come
A long way to die in the blood and rain.
Buy me some earth in the graveyard at home.
Goodbye. Please remember me with these words
To the green meadows and the blue fjords.

Performed live at La Plante April 27th 2013