7 Crows
(Based on Welsh Hymn Tune “Hyfrydol” by Rowland H. Prichard 1811-1887)
7 Crows
Times gone by before we were born here
Long before these old rivers flowed
Ancient lives that walked there before us
Watching and waiting here for 7 crows.
Chorus:
Mountains reach toward the sky
All the witnesses gone long ago.
Life evolves in silent splendor
Watching and waiting there for 7 crows.
Cold, dark nights the middle of winter
Snow and icicles through the window
Smell of coffee the scent of burning wood
Watching and waiting here for 7 crows
Chorus:
Love and comfort a future of fortune
Along beside these old rivers flow
Smell of coffee the scent of burning wood
Safe in the prophesy of 7 crows
On July 6, 2023 I woke up from a dream with a melody in my head. Normally I think I’ll remember something like that and go back to sleep (and promptly forget it), but this time I got up and went to my keyboard and recorded the melody (and stayed awake after that). I was certain that I’d come up with a very, very nice melody and that this song was going to be amazing. When I listened to it a few more times I thought, dang, this is actually a hymn from my youth that I’d heard in the Episcopal church my parents took me to. I thought it was “Faith of Our Fathers” but actually it was Hyfrydol, which several composers have used with different lyrics. The music was written by Rowland Prichard in about 1830. He published it in the composer’s handbook to a children’s songbook in 1844. Disappointed, I put this away, but a few months came back to it with the idea of trying to find a new melody from this progression. I ended up changing the melody and form of the original hymn and though I think anyone who hears my song will think it sounds like a hymn I really think it’s unrecognizable from Hyfrydol. I can’t remember where I heard the phrase “7 Crows”. It might have been while listening to KSUT at some point in late 2023. There’s a violist in California who uses that name for his project. As frequently happens, I was in our hot tub out on our deck and thought of some concepts for this song. Specifically, I was thinking that the mountains off in the distance have been there for millions and millions of years and don’t even notice me and my life. I’ll only live maybe 80 years, while the mountains and earth have been here millions of years. And then I thought all the life, whether human or animal, which might have lived right here where I was soaking in our hot tub has been gone a long, long time, but that they were here. So, it’s sort of the comparison of time in geologic time versus our lifetimes, and the struggle for life. Regardless, I wrote 2 verses and the first two lines of the chorus before taking it to Leslie for us to work on. I had to explain to her the concept of the term “7 Crows”. I had to look it up on the internet because when I wrote the first verse, I really didn’t understand it, I just liked how it fit. In my initial verse 7 Crows was a place but I changed it quickly. What I found out was in various ancient cultures, from Native American to Celtic, crows have significance beyond just being birds. Also, there’s an old nursery rhyme about magpies, with a line “7 for a secret, never to be told”. What I found other than the nursery rhyme is that 7 crows is a Celtic symbol that means “Divine Messenger”, like a spirit guide to watch over a person. I read that in Native American stories 7 crows can mean good fortune is coming, a harbinger of good things to come. Importantly, my internet research showed no footnotes from original sources, so I can’t say this is totally accurate. When Leslie and I started in on it she noticed that my first verse was in the present, and my second verse was in the past, so we switched those around. She thought we needed a verse about the future and she wrote all of that on the spot. For the chorus she cleaned up the first line, kept my second line, wrote the third line and we repeat the last line from each verse. These lyrics were written on December 27, 2023 after I’d recorded the other demos for this album. I emailed Scott and asked to come in a record this demo as the last song for the album. I really like playing this song on my Taylor and I’m still learning different ways to fingerpick it. I’m so happy we wrote this song.
