Rapture of the Deep
Words and music by Jim Gilkeson
©Copyright, 2019, by Jim Gilkeson. All rights reserved.
Lyrics:
Mercedes Bends is a hundred and five / The light of a star/Is what keeps her alive / Her name is a mystery to even her friends / But no one does mystery/Like Mercedes Bends
She outlived her husband / Her daughters and son / She watched her best friends / All die one by one / She lives in the deep / Blue tide in her head / Swimming in place / In a hospital bed
Mercedes bends in the Rapture of the Deep / A cup of black coffee /Puts her to sleep / Mercedes bends / And she bends in the wind / ’Til the Rapture of the Deep / Begins again
Time is slipping ,/Releasing her bones / She's light as a feather now, / She's going home . . .
This kiss is just a kiss,isn't it? / It’s lips upon lips, nothing more . . . / No, this kiss is a rhyme / in the poetry of time / For Mercedes Bends / When she walks through that door
Mercedes bends in the Rapture of the Deep / A cup of black coffee / Puts her to sleep / Mercedes bends / And she bends in the wind /’ Til the Rapture of the Deep / Begins again
For better or for worse, wordplay runs deep in me. The entanglement of “Mercedes Benz” and “Rapture of the Deep” (the bends) has been with me since high school, where I hung out with a pretty nerdy crowd. Add to that something a Basque woman, also named Mercedes, once told me, namely that women in the Basque Country react to caffeine by falling asleep. I know you’re thinking there’s just got to be a song in there somewhere. And there is. This one is about an elderly woman.
Jim: vocals, ac. guitar
Reed: drums
Uffe: lead guitar and bass
Ria: vocals