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Song for Henri Rousseau

from The Simple Son by Chaim Bezalel

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about

The song is about the great French "primitive" painter. Two of his great works, The Sleeping Gypsy" and "The Dream" are in the Museum of Modern Art. I am also a primitive painter.

lyrics

He was an ordinary man
A customs clerk somewhere in France
Till he retired at forty-nine
He lived a life inside his mind

He never left his native land
To paint what he had never seen
The sleeping gypsy in the sand
The world suspended in a dream.

He holds a staff still in his hand
A lion sniffs around his head
Is he asleep or just pretend
His lute is silent as the dead

The moon is watching from the sky
The stars are peering through the dawn
The lion gazes with his eye
The gypsy sleeps until the morn.

And there is even more to tell
The mountains rising from the plain
They play their part they cast their spell
A world where nothing is mundane.

The coat he wears like Joseph's own
Also a dreamer he was called
Of many colors it was sewn
Will it be torn will he be mauled

They say that always in the dream
Each thing you see is only you
Things are not always what they seem
Or what at first we may construe

A nude reclining on a chair
Where jungle vegetation grows
The creatures deep within all stare
Regarding Henri Rousseau.

He was an ordinary man
A customs clerk somewhere in France
Till he retired at forty-nine
He lived a life inside his mind

credits

from The Simple Son, released December 8, 2020
music and lyrics by Chaim Bezalel
music and lyrics by Chaim Bezalel
guitar and vocals - Chaim Bezalel
accordion - Ron Zentner
voice - Yonnah Ben Levy
percussion - Clay M. Thompson

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about

Chaim Bezalel image

Chaim Bezalel Stanwood, Washington

My mother had a collection of 78 rpm records of folk music and I became a folk music lover from a young age. I attended festivals and concerts, sat with Libba Cotten when she sang Freight Train. I learned to pick sitting in Washington Square as a teenager. However, I did not begin writing songs until my 50's. I am also a poet and artist. I live in Wasnhington State and in Israel. ... more

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