Jerusalem:

As we lay dying -

Just as I started to stir the pot on this show, Sinéad O’Connor died, an artist whose work affected me deeply when I was a young woman. Then Paul Reubens died, another artist I adored. Tony Bennett recently left the boards, Tina Turner, David Lynch, Roberta Flack, Gene Hackman, Marianne Faithfull, Treat Williams, Matthew Perry. The writer Cormac McCarthy has had his last word. So have world-stage-stealers Daniel Ellsberg, Silvio Berlusconi, Theodore Kaczynski and Henry Kissinger.

This show is for all those people, in all their idiosyncratic, human variety, It’s for my darling pa and ma. It’s for you, the living, and for our loved ones in the lost-and-found. It’s for our far-flung communities of the fading, the dying and the dead. 106 of us die every minute of every day. Across 2025, 56,000,000 will move ourselves along, one way or another. Which is to say, this song-cycle is for everyone.

And it’s for Jack. Last September, Jack came to me in a dream, wearing his favorite corduroy jacket of autumn gold. He walked through a multi-lighted door, a door famliar to me as my old dog’s eyes, warm and welcoming. We looked at one another, Jack and I. The dream ended. And he left me this song.

Photo by Tom Wyse & Vivek Anand

Jerusalem

written and performed by Amanda Moody

Raise your face to heaven -

can you smell the rain ?

Clouds are crowding up the ridge

Gonna flood the river vein.

You’ve been a long time coming

traveling in the sun

You feel the weather is changing

and your day has come undone

The wind is pushing at your back

your mind is full of why,

your heart is in the mystery,

your eyes are full of sky.

You’re heading for that home kingdom,

trying to beat the light,

rushing for that new country

where no one lands alive.

Go on, walk that valley

Go on, walk that hill

Go on, walk the ocean floor

The city street and field -

Walk on by Jerusalem,

the dark satanic mill -

There’s an angel walking next to you,

always has and always will.

Raise your face to heaven -

Can you smell the rain?

If the river runs away with you

the angel will remain

She’s gonna lay her hand upon your head

Gonna fit you with a crown

Gonna lay that crown upon your head

Gonna fly your glory down.

Cuz nothing compares to you, my love

Can you hear the thunder sound?

When the angel lays that crown upon your head,

gonna fly your glory down.

She’s gonna fly your glory down.

Gonna fly your glory down.

©2025 Amanda Moody, all rights reserved