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Barbarians

from People by The Burning Hell

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lyrics

In the age of the barbarians
When people met with scary ends
By bear bite or by battle axe
It was super-violent to the max
There lived a little Viking boy
He was his father’s pride and joy
His mother died in childbirth
And where her blood fell on the earth
There grew a tree with thorns as strong as Thor’s teeth
And tiny flowers with petals pink as boar’s meat
And the sages foretold a certain grisly destiny
To the one who should ever harm the tree
You know, the dad, he was mighty sad, oh
But he knew that something bad was being foreshadowed
So he packed up his newborn kid
Said “we’re getting out of here” and then that’s what they did
He wandered wastelands day and night
Axe in left hand, kid in right
Over desolate and frozen fjords
‘Til Loki said “I’m getting bored!”
He went to earth to fight the lonely Viking
The dad fell down, but he was only psyching
He played dead and then when Loki wasn’t ready
He slashed out with his axe and blood rained down like red confetti
Well Loki said “You got me bad.
I never thought I could get beaten by a single dad
But I’m a good sport and I’ll grant you this,
yes I’m going to grant you your most precious wish!”
Dad knew it was a toughie he was being asked
He thought of wishing for new bear-skins or a bigger axe
He thought of wishing for riches or enemies lying in the ditches
He even thought about the classic wish for a thousand wishes
Then he looked into the eyes of his mini-Viking son
Said “I know this wish is kind of weak but I think that it’s the one:
We’ve been wandering for ages and we’re frozen to the bone
It’s time we found a new place to call home.”
Well Loki laughed and said “OK -
There’s some houses there around the bay.
If you can fight their twenty strongest men
I think for sure they’ll let you in!”
Dad gave Loki a scowl and a frown
Picked up his kid from off of the ground
Then he set off around the bay
And when he got to the gates he shouted up “hey!
Hello you good people of this peaceful looking village
I’m not here to burn or burgle, I’m not hear to rape or pillage
I’m just a lonely single father with a little Viking toddler
I could fight all y’all with one hand but why go to all the bother?”
Well many years went by the way they do
The dad grew older and the kid did too
One day dad said “son, I think I’m deathly ill
You better put me on that burning boat, you know the drill.”
The kid was bummed out, but who wouldn’t be?
He let the fire and sent his dad up to his destiny
His friends all told him to get on with life
The best thing to do was to go take a wife
So he went out a-raiding, met a beautiful maiden
Told her “Trust me, it’s true love, though it seems like enslavement.”
Although privately, she disagreed,
She had no choice but to be his bride-to-be.
She came back to his Viking lair
Said “excuse my while I fix my hair”
And once inside the Viking sale-de-bain
She put a curse upon her husband’s name
Then she came out, said “this just won’t do
This place needs paint and renovations too
I must have the finest house in town
After all, you burned my old one down!”
He was all “baby, don’t worry!”, and he set off in a hurry
Said “with the sun as my judge and the stars as my jury
I won’t stop ‘til I’ve got the finest things to be got
My arms are strong, I can carry a lot!”
He wandered wastelands day and night
‘Til at last a village, it came in sight
There were no people to be found
So he stole the nicest stuff around
He felt the Viking word for cool
With his arms full of furs and fine jewels
But just as he was heading home
He felt a chill run through his bones
He turned and saw a thorny tree
With flowers pink as boar’s meat
He dropped his furs and jewels and said
“My wife must have these flowers for our wedding bed!”
But oh it all went so wrong, I know you knew all along
It was the same tree I mentioned at the start of the song
When he picked a single flower he unleashed an evil power
Its petals turned bloody and its fragrance turned sour
He was young but he could tell that this wouldn’t end well
So like a brave little Viking he didn’t cry or yell
He said “it’s ashes to ashes and it’s dust to dust
And if I must go, I must - it’s Valhalla or bust!”
So with a crack and a crash, he was gone in a flash
And all that was left was a pile of pink ash
To this day, believe me, if you look you will see
Two thorny trees growing where just one used to be.

credits

from People, released April 16, 2013

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The Burning Hell

The Burning Hell is the ongoing musical project of songwriter Mathias Kom and multi-instrumentalists Ariel Sharratt and Jake Nicoll, often including additional comrades and collaborators.

Their densely populated genre-shifting songs are packed with an abundance of literary, historical, cultural, and pop-cultural forebears, heroes and villains, subjects and objects, stories and hooks.
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