From Swallows’ In the Shadow of the Seven Stars
Grace
About Grace
DATE: Friday, April 24, 1891
LOCATION: Glenmore Hotel, Manhattan, New York City
SCENE: While staying at the Glenmore Hotel in Manhattan, the witness confronts what it means to no longer possess a soul. Yet, until he can live up to his end of the Faustian bargain he has made with Frances’ ghost, he lives as a man without a spirit – a man without grace. He feels unconstrained in his thoughts and actions and yet understands that he is terribly alone. He can no longer sense Frances’ presence near him. Without her guidance, his quest to revenge her death and save his own soul seems impossible to achieve. And yet, strangely, he feels free. Is what he feels a form of death or is it a kind of salvation?
A few blocks away, a prostitute named Carrie Brown has been brutally murdered in a rundown hotel room. After her lifeless body is discovered in the East River Hotel on the Manhattan waterfront, many begin to believe that Jack the Ripper has finally arrived in America.
Oh, it’s better when you’re gone
Oh, it’s better when you’re gone
Silence like a sickle
Reaps the coming dawn
Oh, it’s better when you’re gone
Oh, it’s better when you’re gone
Oh, it’s better when you’re gone
I lie awake and listen
For rumors of your song
Oh, it’s better when you’re gone
Rejoice
Rejoice
Oh, I’ll recant if you’re found
Oh, I’ll recant if you’re found
The walls recall your presence
They shudder and they moan
Oh, I’ll recant when you’re found
Rejoice
Rejoice
Oh, when you’re buried and you’re gone
Oh, when you’re buried and you’re gone
They’ll steal the shroud and burn it
Before the poet’s write your song
Oh, when you’re buried and you’re gone
Rejoice
Rejoice
Rejoice
Rejoice
© 2013 Crandall
Performers:
Aaron Kerr – Bass
Brett Hansen – Electric Guitar
Jeff Crandall – Vocals, Acoustic Guitars, Organs
Justin DeLeon – Drums
Toni Tinetti – Vocals
Tyson Allison – Electric Guitars