Fire of Life


The Lyrics were written during the winter of 1969-1970, at a time when I had immersed myself in reading selections from the Carmina Burana, a corpus of some three-hundred, satirical, drinking, gaming and crusading ballads from a thirteenth-century manuscript uncovered in a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria. During this same period I was studying Nietzsche’s commentaries on Dionysian vitalism and his great prose poem "Thus Spake Zarathustra". The music to which the lyrics were set, as well as Nicholas’ unique guitar style, evoke the Dionysian spirit in which the poem had been written.

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Can’t you see the world is burning?

Can’t you feel its fire burning?

Don’t you know we all are burning?

Fire of Life.


And the gates of death are closing.

Can’t you see them white and closing?

Don’t you know that life is smoldering?

Ashes to dust.
Let us dance our dance together,

Let our songs fill all of heaven,

Let our laughter linger ever,

For all of time.