Mark Rothko Song Lyrics - Dar Williams

The blue it speaks so full 

It's like the beauty, one can barely stand 

Or too much things dropped in your hand 

And there's a green like the peace in your heart sometimes 

Painted underneath the sheets of ashy snow 

And there's a blue like where the urban angels go, very bright 

Now the Calder mobile tips a biomorphic sphere 

Then it swings its dangling pieces, round to other paintings here 

Your behavior is so male 

It's like, you can't explain yourself to me 

I think, I'll ask Renoir to tea 

For his flowers are as real as they are all the time 

And the sunlight sets the furniture aglow 

It's a pleasant time as far as people go, how far do they go? 

Well his roses are perfect and his words have no wings 

I know what he can give me and I like to know these things 

I met her at the funeral 

She said, "I don't know what he meant to me 

I just know he affected me 

An effect not unlike his art, I believe" 

The service starts and we are in the know 

He had so much to say but more to show and ain't that true of life? 

So we weep for a person who lived at great cost 

Yet we barely knew his powers 'til we sensed that we had lost 

A friend and I in a museum room 

She says, "Look at Mark Rothko's side 

Did you know about his suicide?" 

Some folks were born with a foot in the grave but not me, of course 

And she smiles as if to say, we're in the know 

Then she names a coffee place where we can go, uptown 

Now the painting is desperate but the crowds wash away 

In a world of kind pedestrians who've seen enough today