The Animals
for baritone and piano
9. Coda
How extra-ordinary,
who walk or swim or fly,
all of us, glorious.
We peacocks do not lie.
Listen at dawn and dusk.
We, too, can speak. We can sing.
Like the whale,
like the chimp and the mynah,
like the rooster, like the buffalo,
like the horse, the stork, the camel,
like the high vultures you fear,
we are near. And we are talking, too.
We are talking, each of us talking, to you, to you.
Yes, we are talking to you.
We are talking, yes, we are talking to you.
To you, we are talking to you.
Written during the summer of 2009, The Animals is a cycle of nine songs written and dedicated to Stephen Swanson, who premiered them in
October of that year. Poet Marvin Bell created the texts specifically for this cycle. The work not only takes inspiration from the Ravel
and Poulenc animal songs, but is also rooted in the American tradition: Gershwin's Tin Pan Alley, and more recently the songs of
William Bolcom.