STORY

‘Mandeleine’ isn’t based on an old folk tale, but it’s supposed to feel like one. The poor woman at the center of the story is so beautiful that the moon gets jealous & steals her away into the sky.

I was living in a house in Seattle with a ‘modern ancient’ band called Devachan, featuring members of Candlebox & Princess Pang. Remember Scott Mercado from the song ‘Jarawa’? He wrote Mandeleine with me. They had written this song on hammered dulcimer, but never finished it: there was just a vocal melody without lyrics. So I sat down & listened to the vowels & consonants that were sung, turned them into words…& ‘Mandeleine’ was born.

We added harpsichord, hurdy-gurdy & taiko drum to the track…& then I flew the brilliant violinist/violist Meredith Yayanos out from NYC to add a wall of wailing, crying strings over the top.

Years later, a fan - a phenomenal graphic artist named Rebecca D. George - reached out to me to let me know that she had been drawing & painting to my music. She sent me sketches & paintings of the poor girl Mandeleine being swept up among the stars by a jealous moon.

 LYRICS

Through the tall pines and trellis vines
to this room where our love lay entwined oh
Mandeleine for you
All the stars have come down down
from the fire-flung heavens high
To our house on this spindrifted lane
came down down

Mandeleine Mandeleine Mandeleine Mandeleine
So fair and so still you lay
To your dark hair the stars came to play
Fleeing the cold night above
Now you sleep unaware in the lee of their light love

Mandeleine Mandeleine
Your glory outshines the moon
Who now hangs jealous marooned in her empty sky
and she rages the dark

Without a sound
the moon came for you in your evening gown
Now I drift and drown
'til the dusk when your lights come down
Then you breathe the wreath of sky
Then all the world dreams beneath your eyes love
I bloom in your boundless embrace
and wither here when you leave me to face
the mounting dawn alone