A song by Seraphino Aurelius Belladonna
Three Beats Thou'rt Gone
A brisk indictment of the listener who abandons a crafted song before it has been allowed to become one.
- From the album
- As It Ought to Be
- Album sequence
- Track 2 of 14
- First released
- Running time
- 4:46
The matter at hand
What the song concerns
Seraphino addresses the impatient listener who grants a composition three beats before fleeing toward louder, sweeter, or more immediately familiar pleasures. The song turns attention itself into a contest: remaining becomes an act of taste, while departure supplies the prosecution with its evidence.
Lute and violin answer the complaint with increasingly elaborate proof. What begins as mockery of abbreviated attention becomes a defense of art that unfolds in time—and of the listener willing to meet it there.
In his own estimation
Seraphino, upon its composition
One is continually advised that the modern audience must be seized at once, lest it wander elsewhere in search of drums, shouting, or a face arranged attractively beside a chorus. I found this doctrine tiresome. A listener who departeth before a musical thought hath drawn breath is not difficult to lose; he was scarcely present.
Thus I made the impatience part of the entertainment. The count of ‘one—two—three’ is both accusation and invitation, whilst the instrumental passages reward those possessing the stamina to remain beyond it. I did not compose the piece to beg for attention. I composed it to determine who had brought any.
“Stay—if thou dare’st.”
The complete text
Lyrics
Stay, if thou hast the palate for it.
…Else run along to drums and shouting.
One—two—three! Away thou flee’st—
Back to thy sugar’d, witless feast!
To clash of shield and howling cry—
Or painted stars that croon and sigh.
Go, take thy fill of hollow cheer—
Then call it “great”? Not whilst I’m here.
Thou leav’st a crafted verse behind,
For battle-chants of baser kind,
Where every line doth sound the same—
Yet thou applaud’st it all the same.
Or turn’st instead to gilded tone—
A voice well-polish’d… hollow grown.
O choose thy path—loud noise, or gloss—
Yet both, I fear, are equal loss.
One—two—three! Away thou flee’st—
Back to thy sugar’d, witless feast!
To clash of shield and howling cry—
Or painted stars that croon and sigh.
Go, take thy fill of hollow cheer—
Then call it “great”? Not whilst I’m here.
—Stay.
Thou wouldst hear what craft may be?
Then listen well.
…And yet—
Thou wouldst trade that for noise?
One—two—three! Away thou flee’st—
Back to thy sugar’d, witless feast!
To clash of shield and howling cry—
Or painted stars that croon and sigh.
Stay—if thou dare’st! Defy thy breed—
Or prove me right with greater speed!
A trending tune, a borrowed face,
A fleeting king in borrowed place,
Thou crown’st them all with eager haste—
Then cast them off with equal waste.
No root, no weight, no lasting claim—
Yet still thou play’st the little game.
I’ve seen thee march to borrowed drums,
And swoon when hollow chorus comes,
I fault thee not—(well… somewhat so)—
For thou know’st not where else to go.
But shouldst thou stay—then mark this day—
Thy ear may yet be led astray… (to better things)
One—two—three!—yet here thou stand’st!
Against the tide of lesser bands!
Whilst others fled to hollow sound—
Thou hast where truer art is found!
No fleeting ear, no passing glance—
Thou gav’st the song its rightful chance!
So mark thee well this victory won—
Thou stayed’st where lesser souls would run!
Let shallow ears chase noise and show—
Thou heard’st what they shall never know!
—Thus ends the lesson.
And thou… hast passed.
Further evidence