 MARIA KASSTAN |
Sounds Like
Bob Snider meets Joan Baez
Bio
Now known to many as a bee expert, gardener or Granny, Kasstan longs her late pair bond partner Jim. She pines still for the 25 years she lived and loved and squabbled and gardened and walked about a thousand miles a year. He died in 2004, from a heart attack right in front of police headquarters. That there was no first aid administered throughout the medical emergency, for the presumed street person haunts the artist and informs the work. Check out the all important 911 Call, Track 11.
 |
| photo by Graham Kennedy |
Discography Gamma Knife Independent 2011 Release Produced by Bob Wiseman currently available in digital format 1. 4:18 Act of Love 2. 3:03 Mother's Lament 3. 4:04 Market Day 4. 4:25 Beets in the Cellar 5. 2:21 Those Who With 6. 4:05 Saint Jude 7. 3:54 Didn't Wait For The Moon 8. 3:48 Changeling Lover 9. 4:00 Phantom Fantino 10. 5:45 Rogue Theology 11. 911 Call 12. 4:19 Inquest 2006, LP, Songs for the Homeless Guy, for Jim Calvert Independent release 1976, LP, Maria Kasstan The Boot Label (original songs) Contact Information www.myspace.com/mariakasstan See video at: Thestar.com - VideoZone maria kasstan 'vigil for jim' 01/10/09 |
| * |
Gamma Knife, Independent 2011 Release
Produced by Bob Wiseman
currently available in digital format
She deserves to be heard, you owe it to yourself to hear her.
1. 4:18 Act of Love
Sexuality is under observation.
We’ve got porn on the internet, and test tube fertilization
But flowers and bees enjoy tender relations.
Nature must have felt romantic when she thought up pollination.
Chorus: Every seed is an act of love,
Every little seed is an act of love,
‘Cause she was feelin’ so romantic when she thought up pollination,
Every little seed is an act of love.
Some flowers make love with the help of the bees,
Other spread their pollen on the scented breeze.
Cupids darts tryin’ to find their way home
Or to the bees pantry in the honeycomb.
Chorus:
“Bridge” Don’t lay them blossoms between the sheets!
They get their thrills from pollinator feets.
Oh, they may blush, but they’re easy to please
With the good vibrations from the bumblebees
Chorus:
Those choices they give us can make you queasy.
Gotta live like a monk or they’ll say you’re cheap and sleazy.
Don’t Mother Earth and Father Sky make it look easy,
Rubbin’ bellies together when they’re feeling frisky?
2. 3:03 Mother's Lament
Jenny! Where'd you put your apron?
Jenny! Where'd you get that gown?
Oh, Mama! I been goin' to see a rich man.
He's got the biggest house in town.
Jenny, does he keep religion?
Does he keep the Sabbath day?
Oh, Mama, I don't care if he keeps religion.
He says he's gonna take me away.
Jenny, did he ask you to marry?
Will he take you for his wife?
Well, he never specified to marry,
But he said he'd love me the rest of his life.
Oh, darlin' Jenny, darlin' Jenny,
Lord knows, I feel it is a sin,
But you are all grown up and wild now
And I cannot keep you in.
Jenny left us like she told us.
Been seven years since she's been gone.
An old friend saw her in the city;
Said that she was all alone.
Darlin' Jenny, darlin' Jenny,
We're growin' old and Death will win
But even though you're rich and stylish,
Lord knows I wish I'd kept you in.
3. 4:04 Market Day
I'll be up by dawn with my bundle packed and my basket full of cherries.
I will trade my flints for cowrie shells and my seeds for roots and berries.
I will spread some news and glean some truths as I go on my way,
And if I catch the eye of that Neanderthal guy, we'll keep each other company until next market day.
I'll be up with the sun with my donkey laden with jars of oil and honey,
And since coin is not invented yet, I may use my songs for money.
I will strike a deal for the very first wheel so I can build a dray,
And if I win the hand of that iron age man, we'll keep each other warm until next market day.
In time we learn there is little that cannot be had for payment.
The jugglers, fools and acrobats provide our entertainment.
The fortune teller fears it may be thousand of years before our votes hold sway,
So the women are declaring democracy because we want a say... by the very next market day.
Dispite the famines, wars and plagues, the market days have lasted,
And mighty towns have risen round the places we first gathered.
As the eons pass I'm still the self-same lass, though I've learned a thing or two in my day,
And if I marry off my girl to a feudal earl, she'll be doing lots more shopping on the very next market day.
One day they'll trade their souls for gold and their gold for stocks on Wall Street,
But for some of us, the wealth we know is corn and beans and buckwheat.
The bear is in the forest and the bull is in the field: the beasts have gone astray,
But we'll all gather here again to trade our wares on the very next market day... on the very next market day.
4. 4:25 Beets in the Cellar
Saw him digging in the spring
Little birdies on the wing
Came and pecked the soil that he was turning over.
Saw him hoeing in the summer
When the days were getting warmer
And I thought that I would take him for my lover.
Saw him working in the fall.
I was resting on the wall
And admiring his hair so fine and yeller.
What a noble sight he was
Stained with labour from the cause
Of digging up beets for the cellar.
When a man works hard
In the field and in the yard
Turning compost and piling up the boulders,
He'll be strong as an ox
And lithe as a fox
And building up the muscles in his shoulders.
Comin' home from the park
In the early dark,
I scarcely could see my handsome feller
As he carried those potaters
We'd be tuckin' into later
With some others we'd be puttin' in the cellar.
We will keep a bushel raw
To make borsht and pink cole slaw
And we'll pickle many more in jars with spice.
If you thinkall beets are red
Well, some are white or gold instead
And those candy striped chioggas sure are nice.
Carrots can be very fine,
Parsnips give us parsnip wine,
And those yams and taters each can fill a need.
Turnips, sunchokes, parsley root
And celeriac to boot
Piled on plates beside the beets is all you need. [ Will sate your greed.]
Except the ones that we will need
To overwinter and set seed,
We will dig them up, the red, the white, the yeller.
By the time it's Halloween
The fields will be picked clean
And we'll have pumpkins and beets in the cellar.
When the February sun
Through the window pane is spun
Bringing springtime's promise to the larder,
Beets upon the windowsill
Will sprout greens, our bowls to fill.
Winter's not so bad [long] with beets in the cellar.
The Earth gave birth
For all that she was worth
And now she must recover,
By the time it's November
We'll be settled in for winter
And we'll have beets in the cellar.
When the days grow short
And the nights grow long
And the sky is wild and storming
We'll have a roll in the hay
At the ending of the day
And we'll sleep like the dead until the morning.
5. 2:21 Those Who With
Those who would true wisdom seek, let them come hither.
The tree from which our branch has sprung, how can you let it wither?
Beware the pride before the fall!
The web of life, it binds us all.
All creatures, great and small,
We share one mother.
Tell the ones who hold the power that you see through their lies.
All the trinkets they extol aren't worth pure water or clear skies.
They'd sell your mother down the sewer.
It's so easy when you violate the poor.
You don't have to buy it anymore.
Cut the bonds and break the ties.
Join your voices now with ours, show the world a better way
Than set the poor against the poor and give the wealthy all the say.
There is one Earth and one alone.
By greed and terror she is torn.
Generations unborn
Will remember one day.
6. 4:05 Saint Jude
St. Jude rode the trolly out to Parkdale one morning
Where folks lay like leaves, crumpled up on the ground.
He offered them painkillers out of compassion
To ease their transition from this world to yon.
Chorus:
Slow down to the Tantric, slip into the zone.
Suddenly, you’re making love and not feeling alone.
I know life may seem hopeless, the spirits may call.
Hold me steady while we’re waiting for the axe to fall.
St. Jude found the babies asleep in the gutter,
He saw the young hookers in fishnets and scowls,
And the lepers, and the lover who grieve by the Wall,
But he ached for the hypocrites deepest of all.
Chorus
St. Jude passed the prison on the Tooker express,
Rode straight to Queen’s Park to remark on the mess
About the fat cats and the bureaucrats who basked in the light
Of the scapegoats they burned in their spite.
Chorus
Slow down to the Tantric, slip into the zone.
Suddenly, we’re making love and not feeling alone.
If I tremble or sway, the axeman may stall.....
So hold me steady while we’re waiting for the axe to fall.
7. 3:54 Didn't Wait For The Moon
We didn’t wait for the moon, we made love in the afternoon,
And it ended much too soon when day was over.
To wander in the field, and to that warmth to yield,
All the wounds of life are healed among the clover.
Chorus:
He would meet me in the valley, put his shoulder to the load,
Meeting him was finding I’d come home, anywhere along the road.
When the morning came again, it was cold, and there was rain,
And I tried through all that pain to find my lover.
He was taken from my side, and carried by the tide
To that distant shore I’ve spied across the water.
Chorus:
Now I live in Gormenghast, the present buried in the past.
I lie beside the mummified, ah, it’s awful, but it’s all I can abide.
When this ruin’s fallen in, light will find its way back in’
And there won’t be anywhere to hide.
Chorus:
Repeat 1st verse......
8. 3:48 Changeling Lover
I met him at the station, where the trains pull in.
He was suckin’ on that bottle of rotgut gin.
I tried to find a sanctuary, just to ease my pain.
Now I wish I never had to leave this room again.
Chorus:
Changeling Lover, salt in my wound, and the dog to lick it clean,
He tears at my scabs until they bleed again, and where I’m goin’, that’s where I’ve been.
Who’d have thought that you’d have disappeared and turned up dead?
Left me with a changeling lover lyin’ in my bed.
His coat hangs in the kitchen, his boots wait in the hall,
I wake up with a stranger when I wake up at all.
Chorus:
I met him by the harbour where the ships arrive.
He was soaked in rum and turpentine but he was still alive.
He acted like a sailor, I acted like a whore and
We fornicated like the crew before they sail that aircraft carrier off to war.
Chorus:
9. 4:00 Phantom Fantino
Chorus] Fanthom Fantino, behind this cover up, Phanthom Phantino,
This kind of thing has got to stop….this kind of thing has got to stop!
Oh, Julian, what happened to my man?
I’ve tried to understand the best I can.
Oh, Julian, your face is like a stone. [My hope is almost gone]
Cold as that metal slab they laid his body on.
When the days were fine, on the bench beneath your shrine,
We sipped coffee in the shelter of the thin blue line.
Now I drown in widow’s tears bitter as the parting years
And search the horizon for a sign.
[Chorus, if and when required….]
Oh Julian, you could’ve tried to ease the pain.
Tried to make sure this didn’t happen again.
Oh Julian, it’s funny but it’s true,
I wouldn’t even wish this hell on you.
He’s not your sacrifice to burn, that bench is not your altar,
We will not be scapegoats when tin pot tyrants falter.
The corridors of power may spread their legs for you….
But I wouldn’t trust you with a paper route, you and your pirate crew.
[Chorus]
10. 5:45 Rogue Theology
I will build my love a fortress on the stormy coast
To shelter from the raging of the gale.
I will keep him safe and sacred where the mountains crowd the sky
Waiting only till my Mother tells the tale.
I’ve got to admit you have my respect
For keeping all those balls up in the air,
So I’ll join my light in gratitude with countless other kinds
To do my part for you, seems only fair.
I will braid my love a garland from those rugged flowers
That flourish by the lighthouse on the shore.
We will step out of the shadows, drop our clothes upon the sand;
I guess that we won’t need them anymore.
Hey! Come here, you tired old god,
Let me mop the sweat of labour from your brow!
Lay your weary head upon my shoulder for a while.
Haven’t you done enough for good and ill for now?
[musical “bridge”]
I will bear my love a baby, time will hold its breath
Waiting to hear that baby cry.
We will send it on a journey, turn the wheel of life again,
Give conciousness another window on the sky.
All living things, all quantum strings
Are reference points in space and time for god.
Galaxies, biology, soap-operatic lives
To tempt the Old One from its onanistic fog.
So I’ll build my love a temple on the windy coast
Where the eagle dips her talons into the sea,
And I’ll build my love an altar standing open to the sky
And nobody will worship there but me.
11. 911 Call
Produced by Bob Wiseman
currently available in digital format
She deserves to be heard, you owe it to yourself to hear her.
1. 4:18 Act of Love
Sexuality is under observation.
We’ve got porn on the internet, and test tube fertilization
But flowers and bees enjoy tender relations.
Nature must have felt romantic when she thought up pollination.
Chorus: Every seed is an act of love,
Every little seed is an act of love,
‘Cause she was feelin’ so romantic when she thought up pollination,
Every little seed is an act of love.
Some flowers make love with the help of the bees,
Other spread their pollen on the scented breeze.
Cupids darts tryin’ to find their way home
Or to the bees pantry in the honeycomb.
Chorus:
“Bridge” Don’t lay them blossoms between the sheets!
They get their thrills from pollinator feets.
Oh, they may blush, but they’re easy to please
With the good vibrations from the bumblebees
Chorus:
Those choices they give us can make you queasy.
Gotta live like a monk or they’ll say you’re cheap and sleazy.
Don’t Mother Earth and Father Sky make it look easy,
Rubbin’ bellies together when they’re feeling frisky?
2. 3:03 Mother's Lament
Jenny! Where'd you put your apron?
Jenny! Where'd you get that gown?
Oh, Mama! I been goin' to see a rich man.
He's got the biggest house in town.
Jenny, does he keep religion?
Does he keep the Sabbath day?
Oh, Mama, I don't care if he keeps religion.
He says he's gonna take me away.
Jenny, did he ask you to marry?
Will he take you for his wife?
Well, he never specified to marry,
But he said he'd love me the rest of his life.
Oh, darlin' Jenny, darlin' Jenny,
Lord knows, I feel it is a sin,
But you are all grown up and wild now
And I cannot keep you in.
Jenny left us like she told us.
Been seven years since she's been gone.
An old friend saw her in the city;
Said that she was all alone.
Darlin' Jenny, darlin' Jenny,
We're growin' old and Death will win
But even though you're rich and stylish,
Lord knows I wish I'd kept you in.
3. 4:04 Market Day
I'll be up by dawn with my bundle packed and my basket full of cherries.
I will trade my flints for cowrie shells and my seeds for roots and berries.
I will spread some news and glean some truths as I go on my way,
And if I catch the eye of that Neanderthal guy, we'll keep each other company until next market day.
I'll be up with the sun with my donkey laden with jars of oil and honey,
And since coin is not invented yet, I may use my songs for money.
I will strike a deal for the very first wheel so I can build a dray,
And if I win the hand of that iron age man, we'll keep each other warm until next market day.
In time we learn there is little that cannot be had for payment.
The jugglers, fools and acrobats provide our entertainment.
The fortune teller fears it may be thousand of years before our votes hold sway,
So the women are declaring democracy because we want a say... by the very next market day.
Dispite the famines, wars and plagues, the market days have lasted,
And mighty towns have risen round the places we first gathered.
As the eons pass I'm still the self-same lass, though I've learned a thing or two in my day,
And if I marry off my girl to a feudal earl, she'll be doing lots more shopping on the very next market day.
One day they'll trade their souls for gold and their gold for stocks on Wall Street,
But for some of us, the wealth we know is corn and beans and buckwheat.
The bear is in the forest and the bull is in the field: the beasts have gone astray,
But we'll all gather here again to trade our wares on the very next market day... on the very next market day.
4. 4:25 Beets in the Cellar
Saw him digging in the spring
Little birdies on the wing
Came and pecked the soil that he was turning over.
Saw him hoeing in the summer
When the days were getting warmer
And I thought that I would take him for my lover.
Saw him working in the fall.
I was resting on the wall
And admiring his hair so fine and yeller.
What a noble sight he was
Stained with labour from the cause
Of digging up beets for the cellar.
When a man works hard
In the field and in the yard
Turning compost and piling up the boulders,
He'll be strong as an ox
And lithe as a fox
And building up the muscles in his shoulders.
Comin' home from the park
In the early dark,
I scarcely could see my handsome feller
As he carried those potaters
We'd be tuckin' into later
With some others we'd be puttin' in the cellar.
We will keep a bushel raw
To make borsht and pink cole slaw
And we'll pickle many more in jars with spice.
If you thinkall beets are red
Well, some are white or gold instead
And those candy striped chioggas sure are nice.
Carrots can be very fine,
Parsnips give us parsnip wine,
And those yams and taters each can fill a need.
Turnips, sunchokes, parsley root
And celeriac to boot
Piled on plates beside the beets is all you need. [ Will sate your greed.]
Except the ones that we will need
To overwinter and set seed,
We will dig them up, the red, the white, the yeller.
By the time it's Halloween
The fields will be picked clean
And we'll have pumpkins and beets in the cellar.
When the February sun
Through the window pane is spun
Bringing springtime's promise to the larder,
Beets upon the windowsill
Will sprout greens, our bowls to fill.
Winter's not so bad [long] with beets in the cellar.
The Earth gave birth
For all that she was worth
And now she must recover,
By the time it's November
We'll be settled in for winter
And we'll have beets in the cellar.
When the days grow short
And the nights grow long
And the sky is wild and storming
We'll have a roll in the hay
At the ending of the day
And we'll sleep like the dead until the morning.
5. 2:21 Those Who With
Those who would true wisdom seek, let them come hither.
The tree from which our branch has sprung, how can you let it wither?
Beware the pride before the fall!
The web of life, it binds us all.
All creatures, great and small,
We share one mother.
Tell the ones who hold the power that you see through their lies.
All the trinkets they extol aren't worth pure water or clear skies.
They'd sell your mother down the sewer.
It's so easy when you violate the poor.
You don't have to buy it anymore.
Cut the bonds and break the ties.
Join your voices now with ours, show the world a better way
Than set the poor against the poor and give the wealthy all the say.
There is one Earth and one alone.
By greed and terror she is torn.
Generations unborn
Will remember one day.
6. 4:05 Saint Jude
St. Jude rode the trolly out to Parkdale one morning
Where folks lay like leaves, crumpled up on the ground.
He offered them painkillers out of compassion
To ease their transition from this world to yon.
Chorus:
Slow down to the Tantric, slip into the zone.
Suddenly, you’re making love and not feeling alone.
I know life may seem hopeless, the spirits may call.
Hold me steady while we’re waiting for the axe to fall.
St. Jude found the babies asleep in the gutter,
He saw the young hookers in fishnets and scowls,
And the lepers, and the lover who grieve by the Wall,
But he ached for the hypocrites deepest of all.
Chorus
St. Jude passed the prison on the Tooker express,
Rode straight to Queen’s Park to remark on the mess
About the fat cats and the bureaucrats who basked in the light
Of the scapegoats they burned in their spite.
Chorus
Slow down to the Tantric, slip into the zone.
Suddenly, we’re making love and not feeling alone.
If I tremble or sway, the axeman may stall.....
So hold me steady while we’re waiting for the axe to fall.
7. 3:54 Didn't Wait For The Moon
We didn’t wait for the moon, we made love in the afternoon,
And it ended much too soon when day was over.
To wander in the field, and to that warmth to yield,
All the wounds of life are healed among the clover.
Chorus:
He would meet me in the valley, put his shoulder to the load,
Meeting him was finding I’d come home, anywhere along the road.
When the morning came again, it was cold, and there was rain,
And I tried through all that pain to find my lover.
He was taken from my side, and carried by the tide
To that distant shore I’ve spied across the water.
Chorus:
Now I live in Gormenghast, the present buried in the past.
I lie beside the mummified, ah, it’s awful, but it’s all I can abide.
When this ruin’s fallen in, light will find its way back in’
And there won’t be anywhere to hide.
Chorus:
Repeat 1st verse......
8. 3:48 Changeling Lover
I met him at the station, where the trains pull in.
He was suckin’ on that bottle of rotgut gin.
I tried to find a sanctuary, just to ease my pain.
Now I wish I never had to leave this room again.
Chorus:
Changeling Lover, salt in my wound, and the dog to lick it clean,
He tears at my scabs until they bleed again, and where I’m goin’, that’s where I’ve been.
Who’d have thought that you’d have disappeared and turned up dead?
Left me with a changeling lover lyin’ in my bed.
His coat hangs in the kitchen, his boots wait in the hall,
I wake up with a stranger when I wake up at all.
Chorus:
I met him by the harbour where the ships arrive.
He was soaked in rum and turpentine but he was still alive.
He acted like a sailor, I acted like a whore and
We fornicated like the crew before they sail that aircraft carrier off to war.
Chorus:
9. 4:00 Phantom Fantino
Chorus] Fanthom Fantino, behind this cover up, Phanthom Phantino,
This kind of thing has got to stop….this kind of thing has got to stop!
Oh, Julian, what happened to my man?
I’ve tried to understand the best I can.
Oh, Julian, your face is like a stone. [My hope is almost gone]
Cold as that metal slab they laid his body on.
When the days were fine, on the bench beneath your shrine,
We sipped coffee in the shelter of the thin blue line.
Now I drown in widow’s tears bitter as the parting years
And search the horizon for a sign.
[Chorus, if and when required….]
Oh Julian, you could’ve tried to ease the pain.
Tried to make sure this didn’t happen again.
Oh Julian, it’s funny but it’s true,
I wouldn’t even wish this hell on you.
He’s not your sacrifice to burn, that bench is not your altar,
We will not be scapegoats when tin pot tyrants falter.
The corridors of power may spread their legs for you….
But I wouldn’t trust you with a paper route, you and your pirate crew.
[Chorus]
10. 5:45 Rogue Theology
I will build my love a fortress on the stormy coast
To shelter from the raging of the gale.
I will keep him safe and sacred where the mountains crowd the sky
Waiting only till my Mother tells the tale.
I’ve got to admit you have my respect
For keeping all those balls up in the air,
So I’ll join my light in gratitude with countless other kinds
To do my part for you, seems only fair.
I will braid my love a garland from those rugged flowers
That flourish by the lighthouse on the shore.
We will step out of the shadows, drop our clothes upon the sand;
I guess that we won’t need them anymore.
Hey! Come here, you tired old god,
Let me mop the sweat of labour from your brow!
Lay your weary head upon my shoulder for a while.
Haven’t you done enough for good and ill for now?
[musical “bridge”]
I will bear my love a baby, time will hold its breath
Waiting to hear that baby cry.
We will send it on a journey, turn the wheel of life again,
Give conciousness another window on the sky.
All living things, all quantum strings
Are reference points in space and time for god.
Galaxies, biology, soap-operatic lives
To tempt the Old One from its onanistic fog.
So I’ll build my love a temple on the windy coast
Where the eagle dips her talons into the sea,
And I’ll build my love an altar standing open to the sky
And nobody will worship there but me.
11. 911 Call
12. 4:19 Inquest, copyright 2006
Chorus
Out of sight now but never out of mind,
Catch the tender wisps of truth and see the tale unwind.
Some might hope for resolution of a sterner kind,
But for many it's the only justice they can hope to find.
You cannot change what you don't acknowlege,
You cannot heal the festering sore,
And if you mask your sins with pride
They will shame you all the more.
You can't deny the paths you've taken,
You cannot lie about the dead,
For they will surely find their voices
Though their eulogies are read.
Chorus repeat
All your rules and your regulations,
May they guide you on your way,
But don't weave them into smokescreens
That obscure the light of day.
All your power and connections,
Confidence and certainty
Cannot guarantee your honour
Or assure your dignity.
Chorus repeat
There are lessons to be learned now
From the errors you have made,
But you can't change what you don't acknowlege
Though you spin the facts because you are afraid.
Let this life not have been wasted!
Let this death not be in vain!
We can but hope the truth can heal us
And assuage our bitter pain.
Chorus repeat
Out of sight now but never out of mind,
Catch the tender wisps of truth and see the tale unwind.
Some might hope for resolution of a sterner kind,
But for many it's the only justice they can hope to find.
You cannot change what you don't acknowlege,
You cannot heal the festering sore,
And if you mask your sins with pride
They will shame you all the more.
You can't deny the paths you've taken,
You cannot lie about the dead,
For they will surely find their voices
Though their eulogies are read.
Chorus repeat
All your rules and your regulations,
May they guide you on your way,
But don't weave them into smokescreens
That obscure the light of day.
All your power and connections,
Confidence and certainty
Cannot guarantee your honour
Or assure your dignity.
Chorus repeat
There are lessons to be learned now
From the errors you have made,
But you can't change what you don't acknowlege
Though you spin the facts because you are afraid.
Let this life not have been wasted!
Let this death not be in vain!
We can but hope the truth can heal us
And assuage our bitter pain.
Chorus repeat
| Hear the tale unwind... |
for many its the only justice
they can hope to find.
they can hope to find.
0 comments:
Post a Comment