Here is a sample of one of the new songs from Palace of Tears which will be out later in the year.

Click here to hear Tears of Isis

Tears Of Isis is a song about my ancestors. I called it Tears Of Isis after the Egyptian myth.

Isis was the great mother Goddess, the Goddess of the moon, the night and mother of the king. Her cult and her image spread though out Egypt and then to Rome and to much of Europe. Some historians now think that her image with the baby Horus was the precursor to the early Byzantine images of Mary with Christ. In the old story she cried when her brother was killed and her tears formed the River Nile.

So much of our culture in Europe goes back to Rome, Greece, and ultimately to Egypt whose great river made civilisation possible.

I think of the generations as a great river, that we are all part of. Have you ever tried to follow a river to it’s source? There is not much to see, I walked the whole length of the Thames once, it just seems to disappear into a field.

On this recording I played cello, kantele, guitar and harmonium. Gustav Anderson played piano, the part of Isis was played by the lovely Rowan Godel and it was recorded, like the rest of the album, in a log cabin in Sweden.

The Tears Of Isis

Like the drawings, the  drawings of dreams
So incomplete, like the unseen
I dreamed a dream, I thought we had spoken
You smiled so sadly, that was enough
Never nearer, than the shadow,
Maybe that’s all, we need to know

I’d like to meet all my mothers and fathers
All the way back through the shadows of time
I’d like to tell them, tell them they did so well
Just to survive, and I will survive

And all the tears of Isis
All the waters of the Nile
They bring me their blessings
I am their orphan child

I went down, down to the river
I felt the waters touch my skin
I let my fingers break the tension
Between the seen and the unseen
Never nearer than the shadow,
Maybe that’s all……

And I carry, carry that river
I feel it flowing in my veins
And I’m riding, riding these rapids
And I don’t know where it will end

And all the tears of Isis
All the waters of the Nile
Bring me bring me their blessings
I am their orphan child

Never nearer than the shadows
Maybe that’s all that is revealed
Like finding the source of a great river
Is just a muddy field

I’ll raise a stone in bonny Scotland
I’ll splash whiskey on the ground
I’d like to do my very best for you
And never let you down
But I’m never nearer than the shadow

But all the tears of Isis
All the waters of the Nile
They bring me bring me their blessings
I am their orphan child

Never nearer than the shadows
Maybe that’s all that is revealed
Like finding the source of a great river
Is just a muddy field

R Cooper