Dalai

[Instrumental intro only - no vocals of any kind - clean electric guitar and morin khuur trading long notes alone, free time, at least 12 bars before any voice enters]

[Verse 1 - Zsorayii, plain English, soft]

I brought you here to see the place I call home,

one side of the sky is burning, the other stays calm.

War has passed through here before,

children cry, mothers cry,

tears filled the ground until it became a river,

the river filled until it became the sea.

Yanlei liu cheng he, he liu cheng hai.

You asked me, is this water made of tears?

I couldn't lie about this one question.

[Throat singing - present, wordless, weaving under the last line]

[Chorus 1]

Dalai remembers,

the water holds everything we can't hold.

Dalai remembers,

mei yi di lei, hai dou ji de.

[Throat singing, sustained through the chorus]

[Verse 2 - Chinese man, independent witness, Mandarin into Pidgin]

Wo kanjian tamen wa kai da di,

na chulai de dongxi, ben gai shi mianbao,

tamen que ba ta zao cheng liu xue de xingzhuang,

mo liang ta, gua zai bozi shang, xiang zhubao yiyang xiao.

Wo kanjian yi jian fangzi li shiwu duo de zhuang bu xia,

menwai de haizi jintian hai mei chi guo yi ci.

I no understand, why abundance and hunger

dey stand for the same street.

[Throat singing - present under the build]

[Build - African percussion enters, morin khuur rising, throat singing heavier]

[Chorus 2 - bigger, both leads]

Dalai remembers,

the water holds everything we can't hold.

Dalai remembers,

mei yi di lei, hai dou ji de.

[Throat singing, woven throughout]

[Instrumental Break - 16 bars, full collision, punk guitar and Nigerian percussion explode, morin khuur cuts through, throat singing fully integrated in the rhythm]

[The crossing - climax moment]

Wei shenme women hai zai pa?

You carry weapon? I no carry.

For where I come from, we don't need one,

love is what we lead with, first.

[Zsorayii, narrating, soft]

He asked me one day why I was chasing one small ball

with everyone else, all wanting the same thing.

I told him it was a game.

He asked, was the war a game too?

I opened my mouth and nothing sensible came out.

[Bridge - clean guitar, heartbeat drum, low chant, close and quiet]

He asked me one day why I was so afraid,

I asked him back, don't you carry a weapon?

He just looked at me, he didn't understand the question,

he said where he's from, they don't need one,

he said love is the only thing they carry first.

Ta shuo, ai shi tamen wei yi de wuqi.

[Silence - one beat]

Maybe I never asked myself why,

maybe fear is the first thing I carry

before I carry anything else.

[Final Convergence - full return, maximum energy, throat singing sustained throughout]

Dalai remembers,

the water holds everything we can't hold.

Dalai remembers,

mei yi di lei, hai dou ji de.

[Outro - strips to guitar, morin khuur, and throat singing alone]

He asked me what the sea was.

I said... we cry to feed the fish.

[Throat singing, fading last]

[Single guitar chord]