Unknown Purpose

 

Unknown purpose is a pure life attitude piece.  The harmonies underneath become increasingly complex verse by verse, so while it seems to have the structure of a simple soloist singing over the voices of backup singers, the background arrangement is actually very challenging.

Composer’s Comment: This is my oldest piece, the first song I ever formally wrote down.  Once I went to college, and saw how all the a cappella groups (except the Renaissance choir) gave all the interesting parts to a handful of soloists while everyone else went “ooh” all the time, I became dissatisfied with the original harmonies, and later went back and added the current more complicated ones.

Lyrics

Saw a red umbrella walking down the street,
a nameless body to her shoeless feet,
water dripped from the red to her faceless head
as she shielded her title-less book
to an unknown purpose to an unknown purpose.

And I felt the need as I watched her recede to follow the path that she took,
and finally when I found her, then I longed to know the name of her book
and her unknown purpose and her unknown purpose

So I shouted:
What is your name?
What is your face?
Why such a far off look?
Where do you go? Why do you go?
What’s the name of your title-less book?
And your unknown purpose and your unknown purpose?

As she turned to me, no face did I see, my tired body shook
and yet I stayed, not a step my feet strayed, for such was the call of her book
and her unknown purpose and her unknown purpose

And she answered:
Life is my name.
Yours in my face.
I to your future look.
I travel on as you travel on.
The Past is the name of my book.
And I seek my purpose and I seek my purpose.

My feet are bare in penance for where my children their own lives took
My cloth is red with the blood of wretched dead, there deaths stand black in my book
For they had no purpose for they had no purpose.

Life is my name.
Yours in my face.
I to your future look.
I travel on as you travel on.
So forever study my book
’til you find my purpose ’til you find my purpose.

And when I turned all the things that I’d learned my hearts foundations shook,
and since that time this life of mine has found its place in her book,
and it’s to find her purpose and it’s to find her purpose.

And she answered:
Life is my name.
Yours in my face.
I to your future look.
I travel on as you travel on.
So forever study my book
’til you find my purpose ’til you find my purpose.