Artists
Musicians featured in this piece are:
Janice Pendarvis – lead vocals
Philip Glass Ensemble – performance
Michael Riesman – conductor
Strings, brass, and woodwinds: Sanford Allen, Carol Pool, Linda Quan, Elliot Rosoff, Richard Sortomme, Marti Sweet (violins); Paul Doktor, Jill Jaffe, Sol Greitzer (violas); Frederick Zlotkin (cello); John Beal (bass); Wilmer Wise, Stephen Burns, Philip Ruecktenwald (trumpets); James Pugh (trombone); Alan Raph (bass trombone)
Music by Philip Glass, lyrics by Suzanne Vega. Produced by Kurt Munkacsi, recorded at The Living Room, New York, and The Complex, Los Angeles, 1985–86. Released as the second track on Songs from Liquid Days (CBS Records, 1986).
“Lightning” is one of two songs on the album with lyrics contributed by Suzanne Vega, the other being “Freezing.” Vega has described her contribution as emerging from her own fascination with weather and natural imagery as metaphors for emotional states, fitting the album’s broader theme of reflections on nature and romantic connection.
Philip Glass – Lightning Lyrics
Lightning struck a while ago
Blazing much too fast
But give it rain of waiting time
And it will surely pass
And it will surely pass
Blow over
And it’s happening so quickly
And I feel the flaming time
And I grope about the embers
To release my stormy mind
To release my stormy mind
Blow over
Blow over
Shaken this has left me
And laughing and undone
With a blinding bolt of sleeplessness
That’s just begun
And a windy crazy running
Through the nights and through the days
And a crackling
Of the time burned away
Burned away
Burned away
Now I feel it in my blood
All hot and sharp and white
With a whip crack and thunder
And a flash of flooding light
A flash of flooding light
Oh, oh
But there’ll be a thick and smoky
Silence in the air
When the fire finally dies
Who’ll be left there?
Oh
In the ashes of time
Burned away
Burned away
To listen to other songs from the Teleskop 14 program and the full program, click here.