Nur Ein IV: What Once Was Grand

[frankie big face]

What Once Was Grand - Frankie Big Face

Goodbye to you my dark and dusty friend.
You've shown yourself to be among the few
Who know that time will seldom give a cue
To those who don't know how to call an end
To all the songs, the poems, the words that rend
Our hearts to jelly, minds to clay, askew
With stirring pangs that make their prized debut
When all else fails and life seems like pretend.
The moment I began to feel was when
I heard you whisper strains of Chopin's 8th
Mazurka--Opus 29, I think.
Now with your soundboard cracked, your ivory spent,
Your hammers snapped, I toss away my faith
And cry; what once was grand is now extinct!

[Geoff WreckdoM]

What Once was Grand
by WreckdoM

I have at times fancied myself too plain
Confused by all the complex changing times
This cold and high tech life has grown so strange
It rattles up my ever hampered mind

And now I wander through these shining streets
Robotic permutations all around
A foreign tongue in every mouth I meet
Sleeping in our sterile rent controlled clouds

A salutation I can't comprehend
Gone are the handshake and pats on the back
A disconnected line to an old friend
I'm staring from outside through this world's cracks

A shard of mirror buried in the sand
A photograph of all that once was grand

[Paco Del Stinko]

What Once Was Grand - Paco del Stinko

When sun first shined upon your pale green eyes
Stopping of time became the normal way
Try as I may to find any small lie
Each solar ray scared off all ghosts of gray
The scent of air could now cover the earth
When people stared in their rapt disbelief
The summer bird flew in and took its perch
Offers of seed were then given to thee
Although your need was a long time fulfilled
The raining love that poured down over me
Fell from above as a fire that killed
We sat riverside still drunk on our love
Then started to cry as the hawks killed the dove

From the ashes of death we rose again
The lashes were breath that we brushed aside
How could this be that we were more than friends
Were we like a black cat with its nine lives
No matter as we restarted our stride
The chatter as strong as it was before
The barbs were less painful to leather hides
Our hearts found the key to open the door
But as often as not when less is more
You soften the lot by taking it all
You can still lose when your team gets the score
Don't stand to choose when you're ready to fall
As your green eyes look away to the past
My sad heart sighs as tomorrow comes fast

[Reist]

What once was grand - Andrew Reist

I never thought that you would cut me there
I reminisce and it all seems like a dream
I think of you and know that nothing is fair
But dream all you need dream all you need
I feel now like you were messing around
But I failed twice and I've got nothing to show
So I cried out while running back to my shroud
Free all you know free all you know
Leave me be
In this place where I once belonged
Set me free
When I say that I know I was wrong
But you should know you were my friend all hope was shed you were my friend
I remember it all this will end but you should know what once was grand

Notes/Disclaimers for the judges:
I use the cdcd twice - as the second and third verses. The gg lines are long, but they looked more proper on paper, believe me. And yes, I realize there is pretty much no iambic pentameter here. However, I have little doubt that the song would have felt wrong with it.

Also, the title isn't as tacked on as it may appear upon initial observation. The song is about the loss of a friendship, which is entirely inspired by the title.

With those notes in mind ... NUR EIN!

[Lunkhead]

"What Once Was Grand" by Tiny Robots

Well I'm not the type who's lucky in love
I don't believe someone will understand
Your cynical nature fits like a glove
I'm so relieved you are changing my plans

It scares me how much more that I need you
The look in my eyes must be obvious.
You're the kind of boy that's always so true
Your solemn ways make you easy to trust

What Once Was Grand has grown past colossal
what started as a crush is out of hand
This is like some kind of strange reversal
I'm flying high and I don't want to land

Now I have more than what I expected
Holding me so tight, safe and protected

[signboy]

Signboy- What Once Was Grand
the contested duality of memory's usefulness
inspired by, and borrowing lyrics from sonnet #144 by Shakespeare



what once was grand will surely carry you
through needless pain that causes you to grieve
of things that brought you joy when you were blue
the only truth you'll find is in the weave
the universe's rules down to the letter
give no regard to those that would explain
how what has passed makes what is here seem better
for each remembered moment shows quite plain
that everyone delights in your despair
you'll do yourself no favors to believe
that what you thought was cruel is truly fair
if you recall with open eyes you'll see
the bitter losses you were wrongly dealt
believe me now, what once was grand will melt

it's all I can do
to shut it all out
with angels and demons
and two sides of doubt
it's all I can do
to shut it all out
with angels and demons
at war all about

believe me now, what once was grand will melt
the bitter losses you were wrongly dealt
if you recall with open eyes you'll see
that what you thought was cruel is truly fair
you'll do yourself no favors to believe
that everyone delights in your despair
for each remembered moment shows quite plain
how what has passed makes what is here seem better
give no regard to those that would explain
the universe's rules down to the letter
the only truth you'll find is in the weave
of things that brought you joy when you were blue
through needless pain that causes you to grieve
what once was grand will surely carry you

it's all I can do
to shut it all out
with angels and demons
and two sides of doubt
it's all I can do
to shut it all out
with angels and demons
at war all about


~~~
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell*, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
~~~

it's all I can do
to shut it all out
with angels and demons
and two sides of doubt
it's all I can do
to shut it all out
with angels and demons
and angels and demons
around



* I'm not sure if anyone will notice, but the original sonnet was made to work with the lines in reverse order for the second verse. I'm kinda proud of that

[Ross]

What Once was Grand
by Ross Durand
*notes

What once was grand is merely shadow now
It fades as eyelids fall at three am
Till ne’er a trace remains, you wish somehow
That what was grand somehow would never end

It’s hard to watch while grandeur fades away
Sustaining pain and loss and drags it out
Its right there in your face day after day
Hard to recall what it was all about

Twas Beauty killed the beast who killed her back
A cycle never ending, always true
There’s no escaping from this one way track
The Beast that killed the beauty might be you

What once was grand is fucked beyond belief
And when it’s gone will pain turn to relief?


Twas Beauty killed the beast who killed her back
A cycle never ending, always true
There’s no escaping from this one way track
The Beast that killed the beauty might be you

What once was grand is fucked beyond repair
Don’t turn around again it won’t be there

* The First Fourteen lines comprise a sonnet.
* The last six lines are repeated, with an adjustment to the closing couplet.
* I used the Shakepeareaen rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter.
* I employed the turn concept for the last quatrain both lyrically and musically.
* While I generally try to avoid using the title as the opening lyrics in a song - the long tradition of identifying sonnets by their opening line led me to deliberately choose to use the title in that fashion.

[Henrietta]

What Once Was Grand by Nouveau Pauvre

Tonight I fell asleep inside the moon
My dreams echoed in spirals round my head
Perhaps I fell to Earth again too soon
For fear that I might never leave my bed

What strange and bitter taste left on my tongue
The truth I know I can't control the stars
Betrayal wove the tapestry I'd hung
Your anger stashed in tiny little jars

That heart so green in which I could confide
Has tanned and chapped and cracked a bitter end
What once was grand has now been tossed aside
That which entwined my heart was not my friend

What morning brings to change my bloodshot eyes
When moon and stars give way to sunshine skies

[JonPorobil]

What Once Was Grand
by Jon Eric

A Ceiba tree an office building's height
Is standing near some ruins in Belize
And though its branches reach out in the night
It's just the tallest of a trillion trees
A tourist poses for a photograph
And crinkles up her nose against the smell
Now something out of frame has made her laugh
Tonight, she will return to her hotel
Before long all this progress will be moot
These rooms will fall, and so will everything
The rubble will be strewn among the roots
The ceiba tree will grow another ring
..........So never trust the forward march of man
..........It only tears apart what once was grand

[swilington]

oops, didn't see this here.

first verse: pushkin

A love that never died or faded,
Embrace that never let me go,
Ecstatic, e’er in lust, elated,
The skin is hot, the hearts aglow.
Our souls, our bodies, held together,
We’re bound as if by rope and tether,
The singers sing for us alone,
And just for us, the poets moan.
The end of life: a new endeavor,
My love is here, she’s by my side.
We never feared, we never cried.
We never doubted this: “forever”.

So through this realm, and hand in hand,
We will be with what once was grand.

second verse (poetry slam): elizabethan

When she and I did form a couple then,
Was not too long 'til I became consumed
By love and passion for my Madeleine.
In turn, her love for me grew tall and bloomed.

We looked at one another tenderly
What flowed between us, indescribable.
A charge, a force, a drive too strong to speak.
What's next, well, only I am liable.

Somehow it all came down and fell apart
My mind got lost in things I do regret.
My darling girl, I know I broke your heart
Your tears upon my chest, I can't forget.

But if you let it go and take my hand,
Again we may obtain what once was grand.

[Todd McHatton]

What Once Was Grand
by Todd McHatton

We traced a million stars into pictures above
Neither one of us knowing who the other was
And all the space and time between us wasn't enough
To keep me from finding you and that's because
When you exhale on a wish then it takes your breath
Like a passenger aboard a soaring dream
Set sail on a search for a wordless yes
And other warm, familiar, unspoken things
The dandelions dreamers blow upon fill the sky
They dart and drift along in shallow loops
Like pieces of a puzzle drift between you and I
Drawing lines connecting stars that brought me to you
And all the things we said about what once was grand
Have come along even better then we'd planned