“March 30th” is the third piece from the ongoing project spinning original songs out of Olivier Messiaen’s legendary 20th-century composition “Quartet for the End of Time.” All the songs in this project focus on the theme of Hope. In “March 30th,” this takes the form of a story from Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” A fellow concentration camp prisoner approached Viktor telling him of a dream he had about when the war would be over for him. The dream told him March 30th,1945. As the day approached, the news about the war made it clear there would be no liberation on March 30th. The man, for whom that date had been a source of optimism and vitality, lost consciousness on the 30th, dying on the 31st, apparently of typhus.
The lyrics are spoken by a witness to this man’s fate. They wrestle with the contradiction between a future event being both a focus of hope while at the same time a marker of despair and ultimately death if the promise isn’t fulfilled. Our singer struggles to understand and in the end resolves that such apparently pointless hope not only offers strength and endurance to it’s practitioners, but the promise of a deeper meaning to life’s struggles. It’s unclear whether our main character adopts such an outlook for themselves at the close of the song.
So it's come to shaking
Cold outside of holy spaces
It's fine to reach beyond
A cover covering our finely-tuned insides
It's for the honest dreamers
The ones who don't know better
Let them have their day.
Till it comes for
Till it comes for
Till it comes
Feel it come around
Feel it come around
Feel it come around
And go away again
Can they see the open gates?
Smell the soil that's ready for the thaw?
I swear, I envy them
They choose their body as their final clock
It's for the honest dreamers
The ones who don't know better
Let them have their day.
Till it comes for
Till it comes for
Till it comes
Feel it come around
Feel it come around
Feel it come around
Feel it come around
Feel it come around
Feel it come around
And go away again
released June 23, 2017
music and lyrics by Sophocles Papavasilopoulos
produced, mixed, and mastered by Sophocles Papavasilopoulos and Maxwell Gualtieri
drums recorded and mixed by Colin Woodford
Bobby Halvorsøn: vocals
Maxwell Gualtieri: guitars, piano
Sophocles: backing vocals, electronics
Colin Woodford: drums
Justin Asher: bass
Andrew Conrad: saxophones
Joe Santa Maria: saxophones
Sheila Callaghan: backing vocals
Brian Walsh: clarinet/bass-clarinet
photo credit: Photini