Without Us by Carla Kihlstedt | Long Beach Opera 2020 Songbook

Commissioned by Stephen & Evelyn Block/Raulee Marcus
Music and text by Carla Kihlstedt
Voice and violin: Carla Kihlstedt
Additional Vocals: Tallulah Lazlo Bossi, Lucia Gómez-Ibáñez, Samara Marie Leshin-Sell, Winter Muric, Evelyn Rain Schertzer
Videography: Michael Cestaro & Joseph Navas
Editing: Michael Cestaro
Recorded and Mixed by Jon Evans at Brick Hill, Orleans, MA
Program notes:
“Without Us” is a meditation on the many kinds of silence we’ve all been tangling with since Covid-19 hit the world. It is, in part, inspired by Alan Weisman’s book, The World Without Us, in which he describes how the natural world would reclaim our urban spaces were we all to simply disappear. I found it oddly comforting.
From Carla:
When I began to work on this song, I thought it would just be about the silence I experienced in those first weeks of our collective quarantine, when every car, truck, plane and motor turned off, allowing us the extraordinary experience of hearing what the world might be like without us. Seismologists reported a noticeable drop in vibrations in the planet’s crust. The coyotes sang every night up on the hill. The deer wandered into the yard as if it was theirs again. Even the ocean felt different on my morning walks. But silence is like snow - there are a million different kinds of silence, most of them teeming with activity, nuance and implication. There’s the silence of sleep, of listening, of boredom, of fear, of censorship, of restraint, of anticipation, of complicity... of death. Against the backdrop of our collectively hushed lives, the Black Lives Matter movement brought into focus a more complicated cultural conversation about silence. What I thought would be a calm and expansive song kept on veering into more angular and unpredictable territory.
Text:
It’s so quiet...
Unbelievable the sound of the world without us.
I hold my breath...
I can feel the stillness in my bones -
Awkward, peaceful, a comfort like death.
Build a cage for my lonely heart.
Will the rabbles rise?
The window always lies.
Will the scorched earth come to claim us?
Do no harm!
Hide away!
(Is it too late?)
Shapes abandoned, lost in the expanse.
My thoughts, they wander like ghosts come home to roost.
Familiar is this silence.
She hold me through my desperate rage.
It’s so quiet...
Unbelievable the sound of the world without us.
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[@dcodfert]

genius Carla !!!! Sleepytime and Book of knots .... amazing universe ...

[@michaelstonedrums6877]

Carla is a profoundly-emotive artist. When she sings and plays, I FEEL it in my heart.

[@AntiqueDeathcult]

A Sleepytime reunion would be great! But I love anything Carla does! This was magnificent!

[@LongBeachOpera]

That would be lovely!

[@michaelstonedrums6877]

It. Is. Happening.

[@metalpromo]

Amazing! We want Sleepytime Gorilla Museum reunion

[@ckihlstedt]

we're working on it... for real! stay tuned.

[@tooneatdeep]

thanks for being with us, Carla (remembering you, in Bourges - you drew a flower on the cd sleeve)

[@bannon315]

WOW

[@KDMQMusic]

absolutely stunning

[@joaopedroraldi]

Who knew that Isaac's mother sings so well?!

[@LongBeachOpera]

Thank you, we really appreciate you taking the time to express that!

[@ckihlstedt]

I love that that's what some people know me for best... 😆

[@joaopedroraldi]

​@@ckihlstedt lol hope you're okay with that you're a great musician =) Cheers from Brazil

[@SteveR63]

1

[@promostudio]

Awesome. We want Sleepytime Gorilla Museum reunion!

[@LongBeachOpera]

Agreed! A Sleepytime Gorilla Museum reunion would be ❤️🔥🎶