Under the Gripping Beast

                   Words and music by Cat Faber


For a Journal bound in leather fine, as soft as human skin,
A gripping beast embossed thereon and all the world therein,
I bargained with a Power; I need scarcely mention who,
And should I keep it till my death, the standard fee comes due.

CHORUS:

     Under the gripping beast is all the price I'll pay,
     For I'm quits of all my bargain, should I throw the book away.
     But for that pain of parting there can be no balm nor salve.
     For just an hour longer I will hold to what I have.

I sat there that first evening, the book upon my knee.
I opened it and held my breath, for fear of what I'd see:
The stuff of creativity, from hell and heaven wrung,
The ghosts of tales untested and of stories yet unsung.

As I read my breathing raced to meet my heart's demand,
For scraps of songs and stories there were written in my hand.
I turned to seize a pencil, and my eyes were fever-bright.
I slept but half an hour, but I wrote three songs that night!

My songs and stories brought me joy, honor they did win.
Without the book I still would be an orphan looking in.
The thought that I must lose it is the sum of all my fears.
"For just an hour longer" I have held it fifty years.

I've tasted of creation and the time draws near to rest,
But I haven't finished writing and the last must be the best.
I battle death by inches and too soon will know defeat,
But I won't discard the book before my swan-song is complete. . . .


Cat says, "While I was in Salt Lake City for Commencement, I got a
book with blank pages to write in.  It has a leather cover with
gripping beasts embossed on it (they look like some of the
decorations on the book of Kells), so of course the first song I
wrote in it was one I wrote for it."


Words and music copyright (c) 1994 by Catherine Faber
On UNDER THE GRIPPING BEAST CD, copyright (c) 1997 by Catherine
Faber