Let Me See If This Be Real

from New Mexico by Jacob Smigel

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Band Nerd Love, If I Were Me, The Carol Tapes, Hope This Passes The Secretary..., I Stayed Up All Night, New Mexico, Full Grown & Talking About Fountains, and Animal Diseases. , and , .

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about

"Let me see if this be real" was written while at the cabin in 2005. I was reading a book about the poetry of the Tewa Indians at the time and found that their poems spoke with an astonishing immediacy. I transferred some of their words to paper and did a quick "cut up," and then wrote the music in our apple orchard. The song was entirely recorded at my friend Lily Harizanova’s house in Las Vegas, using her piano, which resides in a spacious wooden study complete with bearskin rug. The “ringing” heard in the song was made by Joe Kendall using his KORG synthesizer.

lyrics

Let me see if this be real
(Lyrics adapted from Songs of the Tewa, as collected and translated by H. J. Spinden )

As my eyes trace the land,
I feel the summer in the spring,
And she pretends to be indifferent,
My true love my dear.

And people have a new custom,
They die at intervals now,
And the squirrel in his shirt,
Slender he stands up there.

And the squirrel in his shirt,
Slender he stands up there…

Let me see if this be real (x 3),
This life I am living (x 4).

There is dust from the whirlwind,
And the rocks they are a’ ringing,
They are ringing in the mountains.
And as my eyes trace the land,
I feel the summer in the spring.
And as my eyes trace the land,
I feel the summer in the spring…

Let me see if this be real (x 3),
This life I am living,
This life I am living…

credits

from New Mexico, released May 14, 2007

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Jacob Smigel Austin, Texas

When the house plants are doing well... I think that says more about me.

jacobsmigel.com

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