[intro - music box, humming] Bahhhh-yooouuuu... bahhhh-yooouu-shkeeee... bah-yoooooo... Dont, don't lie down - by the edge o' the bed Not an edge its a mouth, one mouth that must be fed, something grey starts counting your heads... [verse 1] White rode the morning and red rode the moon, black rode the rest of it, briddle and doom; Momma threw out every goal from the grate: "Go borrow a bone pit fire from the men by the gate." Kindle me, kindle me, brittle thick skin kindling's word for a kid this thin; Somethint wicked up my sleeve and a doll by your chest, feed her, she leads you. Forget her... might as well be a turkey dressed. [pre-chorus - whispered, staccato] Shuffle-shack on shank and shin, chicken-shanked and shingle-skinned, clucking clock and clicking lock, hickory, dickory, bone-leg dock, knock, knock (who's there?) trick (trick who?) trick or treat... and the treat is you. [chorus - children's choir, long held vowels] Bah-bah Yah-gaaaah... ohhhhhh no noooooo... bone in the leg and the leg in the egg, turn, little hut, on your drumstick pegs, face to the child and your back to the wood, fowl play, fowl play, and none of it good. Ooooh, goes the mortar... yummm goes the pestle... mortal and pestilent, cradle and kettle, she sculks through the night (skull) with an oar made of bone and sweeps up your footprints so no one knows you left home. [verse 2 - whispered] The fence is a sentence, each post was a head, each head is in the attick made into candles instead; Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack is a skull on a candlestick. No lid on the eyes and no lid on the pot, no lid on the box but the smells is mean, tot; her pupils stay up way long past the hour, she grades them by weight and she dusts them with flour (flower). The deadbolt is dead and the latch is a tooth, and the skeleton key is just a skeleton too. [vowel fence - no drums, each vowel held long] Beeeee... is for bones, where the marrow is sweet, Ayyyy... is for ate, and there's still more to eat, Beeeee... is for bed, where the little ones lie, Ayyyy... is for ashes that once answered I, Whyyyy... is for you... who was told not to cry, Ayyyy... is for asking... but don't ask her why, Geeee... is for gobble, for grind and for gnaw, Ayyyy... is for ahhhhh... as she opens her maw... B A B A Y A G A BABA YAGAHHHHHHHHH OH NO NOOOOOO [verse 3 - half-whispered, slowing] Enter the coven with an oven inside; Stir with the ladle, a lad burned boiled and died; open the cottage, theres a stained cot by the door; Reach for the broom, looks like shes got room for one more. an eight on the plate, and the weight, worth the wait. Open the hearth, there's a heart, there's an earth, there's an ear, Theres sweet fear and it hears what a whimper is worth. Open the slaughter, there's laughter, theres kin; open your skin, child, too thin, too thin. Open the mother, there's the other, the moth, the moth wants the candle, but the candle wants broth; open the brother... (broth...keetle...heat....broth...) Open the ashes... there's she. Hes not. Open the Hallow: hall... owe... wee... the hall owes a wee one, and the wee one she got [bridge - accelerating, breathless] This is the hut that Yaga built. This is the leg that walks the hut. This is the gate that ate the leg that walks the hut. This is the skull that lit the gate that ate the leg that walks the hut, this is the child who fed the skull that lit the gate that ate the leg that... twitch (witch), itch (witch), panic (pan), pantry (pant), pant, pant, pant... [clarinet solo - panic attack: frantic free-jazz bass clarinet, overblown honks, shrieking altissimo, gasping] [solo spirals, collapses into silence] [breakdown - whispered, hyperventilating] Breathe... (eat)... breathe... (eat)... She cant ignore the facts every breath has, "eat" in the middle, every heartbeat ends in "eat"... Eat [verse 4 - slow, exhausted] Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, top of the bunch, she needs me, she kneads me, she's eating me now for brunch; roll me like dough, run the rolling pin through, cough up the cinder that's coughing up you. Rough was the forest and thorough the night, though nought that I thought ever thought to take flight; when the bough finally breaks, the cradle falls into the flue, and the hearth has a heart, and it's eating for two. [final chorus - older, cracked] Bah-bah Yah-gaaaah... kos-tyah-naaah-yah no-gaaaah... turn, little hut, on your drumstick pegs, back to the child and your face to the wood, fowl play, fowl play, and all of it good. Ooooh, goes the mortar... ooooh, goes the pestle... I sculk through the night (skull) with an oar made of bone and I sweep up your footprints so no one knows you left home. [outro - counting game] One for the mortar, two for the pestle, three for the cradle, four for the kettle, five for the candle, six for the lid, for the doll, and the doll that it hid... eight... (ate)... and you're it. Bah bah yagaahhhhh oh no nooooooo [end]
