Have you ever walked across a bridge and found that a pair of lovers have engraved their names onto a padlock and fastened it onto the fence surrounding the walkway, as a symbol of their everlasting love?

I see this regularly whilst commuting by foot across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

It’s all well and good that they do this… but have they ever stopped to think about what will happen the day the council worker comes along with a set of boltcutters and snaps away at their love?

A young man
His sleeve without a guard
Validating all he’s ever known

A young girl
She waves a kindred arm
Letters on the lock she draws

The young man
Strengthening their source
Couples firm their talismanic crown

The young girl
Her cheek a crimson rose
Pressed against his supple jaw

 

I’m a boltsnapper
Yeah, a boltsnapper


The young man
Aware not of the part
To tackle, crash and leave a foolish boy

The young girl
Survival in this picture perfect world
Will last not long

 

I’m a boltsnapper
Yeah, a boltsnapper


Glisten in the wildest faces
Nonbelievers, fight the tension…

Don’t snap that bolt

Glisten in the wildest faces
Nonbeliever’s intervention…

Don’t snap that bolt

 

 


*you can download a demo recording of this song here

Lay me down in fields of green
The summer sun, it tastes as sweet as you

Fruits and flowers surround our dream
Our wish for native beauty has come true

Grounded now I heard you spoke
Your burrowed seeds, your barren throat
Godforsaken tears, they choke from you

Our undergrowth is drying up
And I’ve had enough of this
Photosynthetic mindfuck

Burn it down, the branches wasting
Ashen ground incineration
Leaves of brown reciprocating
Resin from our hearts

Wrath of life reduced to stumps
A hand for hand, a trunk for trunk
It’s killing me, this tree that took my love

Developmental antidote
Emerges from a heartfelt note to you

A final chance to cast my vote
Of grafting and of germinating too

I’ll rub the stem, create the spark
You skin my name, I’ll ring your bark
Seeds the girdling end of fertile hope

Burn it down, the branches wasting
Ashen ground of expiration
Leaves of brown reciprocating
Resin from our hearts

The rising flame my only hope
A sacrificial fire of growth
It’s killing me, this tree that took my love

The tree that took my love
The tree that took my love
The tree that took my love…

Clotted cells my heart will pump
Heavy swell, my sap will clump
If the canopy is free I’m jumping down

Burn it down, the branches wasting
Ashen ground incineration
Leaves of brown reciprocating
Resin from our hearts

Wrath of life reduced to stumps
A hand for hand, a trunk for trunk
It’s killing me, this tree that took my love

The tree that took my love
The tree that took my love
The tree that took my love…


…wrath of life reduced to stumps…

…a hand for hand, a trunk for trunk…

…it’s killing me…

…THIS TREE THAT TOOK MY LOVE…

© 2008 Daniel Schaumann