[Intro — pale drone, bowed strings, no percussion] [spoken, flat, male, close] Karelia. May, nineteen forty-two. A siding on the railway. Five women and one sergeant-major. We were sent after two of them. There were more than two. [Verse 1 — layered female voices] In May the light does not go out. It only turns the colour of tin. We walked on moss that was not ground. Liza went first, and the moss let her in. [Chorus — five voices, unison then splitting] The dawns here are quiet, and the water is quiet, and the road behind us is quiet too. Sing, so the morning knows we were here. [Verse 2] Sonya went back for a pouch of tobacco. Four minutes. She did not call out. Zhenya stood where they would have to see her and walked the other way from us. [Chorus] The dawns here are quiet, and the water is quiet, and the road behind us is quiet too. Sing, so the morning knows we were here. [Verse 3] Galya was nineteen and could not stop running. Rita lay in the grass and would not be carried. She asked him to leave her. He left her. When he came back, the shot had already been fired. [Outro — voices thinning to one, then drone] [spoken, flat, male, close] Five. All five. The dawns here are quiet.
