The Naked Troubadour

Subterranean Berth [new song video]

Posted on Aug 14, 2020 Updated on Aug 14, 2020

LIVING-ROOM VIDEO #56: “Subterranean Berth”. Another new song in unplugged format. It’s about what I call “the paradox of down” — the way that in order to be closest to the Lord of the Universe and Master over all, one has to be stripped of everything unnecessary for essential survival. Hard, hard lesson. And just when you think that you’re as down as you can be, you discover that there is even further down to go. But, in spiritual terms, down = up 😉 I hope that the song resonates with you. Here are the lyrics:

My dear Lord of the universe
and Master over all…
I’m here filled up with gratitude
and on you now I call.
For all my earthly anchors
have been just about removed,
and I know that stripped-down humans
are by your reigning Light approved.

I didn’t think the room could get
as bare as it’s become;
now I’ll start to burn the floorboards,
while with lovingness I strum
the guitar which I first married
on a warm Swiss April day,
that will be prised from out my fingers
on the deathbed where I’ll lay.

[Refrain]
When I reach what appears to be the bottom,
then You’re closer to me than when at the top.
It’s not that You about me have forgotten,
but at Your open door I’d failed to knock.

At least the room has windows
with a picture postcard view.
But the vista is all misty
with the windows steamed up too.
So I lay down on those floorboards;
soon I’ll lay me on the earth.
I can’t get further down than this;
it’s my subterranean berth.

But I’ve learned the vital lesson
about the paradox of ‘down’:
when sufficiently experienced
one receives a golden crown!
These are mysteries that I speak of
which take years to comprehend.
When assimilated wholly,
then all ‘downness’ one transcends.

[Refrain]
When I reach what appears to be the bottom,
then You’re closer to me than when at the top.
It’s not that You about me have forgotten,
but at Your open door I’d failed to knock.

Let me say here with some gusto:
“May Your will now be done”,
and I know that it will anyway,
for that’s how this world is run.
So I ask a final question
which I hope You’ll kindly hear,
from this somewhat battered,
burned-out, but intrepid mountaineer.

How come each time I reach a summit
and ascend a lofty peak,
there’s another even higher
and which even looks more bleak?
“It’s to train you for the next one,
and to help you to be whole.
That’s the only way you’ll follow Me
while you exercise your soul”.

[Refrain]
When I reach what appears to be the bottom,
then You’re closer to me than when at the top.
It’s not that You about me have forgotten,
but at Your open door I’d failed to knock.

© Alan Morrison, 2020