Greeting

by Iron Wife

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about

There are lots of songs about crying and this is another one. "Greeting" is a Scottish word for crying. "Raxed" is a Scottish word for broken.

I say it's about crying, but on the face of it you could say it's either a song about someone helping out a heartbroken friend, or someone seducing a heartbroken person. Depends who you think might be singing it.

Either way, at the core of the song was the idea that when one or other parties to a relationship hasn't bothered to learn the vocabulary (literal or metaphorical I suppose) of the other, that might signal a deep dysfunction in the relationship and that relationship may very well be doomed.

DOOMED, I tell you.

lyrics

Greeting

He didn't know what "greeting" was
when I said you'd been at it again.
He scratched his beard, shifted his pointy shoes,
straightened the label of his Ralph Lauren.

And I said when her eyes look fresh-cut
and her skin is putty
and her cheeks are salt -
that's greeting,
she's been greeting again.

I said that you were through by
and he asked "Through where? By the what?"
And I had meant in the very next room.
He must have known that - how could he not?

And I said when her eyes look fresh-cut
and her skin is putty
and her face is a black hole
and her cheeks are salt -
that's greeting,
she's been greeting again.

He didn't know what "raxed" meant
when I mentioned the state of your love.
He didn't know I'd found you through by, greeting,
dried your tears, lifted you up.

And I said when her eyes look fresh-cut
and her skin is putty
and her heart is a black hole
and her cheeks are salt...

And I said when your eyes look fresh-cut
and your skin is putty
and your life is a black hole
and your cheeks are salt,
that's greeting,
you'll know greeting then.

credits

released March 9, 2017
Lyrics and music by Angela Cleland
Cover art by Alice Cleland

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about

Iron Wife UK

If you can see through moustaches, you might recognise me from one of my parallel identities - poet Angela Cleland, novelist Cleland Smith, or mother-of-two Angela Smith.

The name Iron Wife stems from a cover of an Iron Maiden song I recorded for my husband.

If my music sounds a little bit homemade, that's because it is. It's just up here to stop it cluttering up my brain. ... more