"The Devil's Regret" - A Robert Dada Picture

"The Devil's Regret" - A Robert Dada Picture

An AAP Illusions Story Time exclusive featuring Penelope Gal-Ahh on spoken word!
====================================Lyrics
The Devil’s Regret

[Introduction]
Upon creation of Reason’s flame to illuminate the way
A tribe resembling man emerged who were compelled to say
While it is imperative to extinguish ignorance with light
We ignore at our peril the darkest secrecies of the night

[Part 1]
We thought we spotted a light at the edge of the universe
Adherence to theory but maybe it’s a hubris quite perverse
Instead, I contemplate a vastness perhaps far greater in size
The velvet black expanse that unfolds when I close my eyes

Within it I see a nothing-like endless expanse of serenity
Which might frighten some but for some odd reason, never once me
I love being lost in that limitless existential notion
Of being wonderfully alone in a vast bottomless ocean

[Break to Chorus]

So please believe me when I tell you,

Ignored in the unwanted inclusion, I make it all up to myself
Treating myself to stories that I keep in volumes on a tiny bookshelf
And there is one allegory written a long time ago but I still reach for to this day
It isn’t very long at all but it did have one very inciteful thing to say:

Grandma got down, way on down to a twisted, craggy bent knee
All the way down to my hesitant, timorous, twitching eye level was she
She had but one question in return when asked, “Grandma, is it just me?” (and it was)
“Do you really think the Devil regrets being the Devil, sweetie?”
 
[Part 2]
Early on in school they spotted in me some very creative notions
Thinking I must be under the spell of some tempting heretic potions
Affiliates of the tribe thankfully appeared to assure my progress
Enabling my dark creativity without having to ever acquiesce

In my seventh came an instructive presence I will always remember
Who encouraged me to never extinguish my creative ember
Some lessons here she said will poise you for financial success
But my lessons I promise will enable all of your dreams to coalesce

[Chorus]

[Part 3]
Clerics and acolytes tried to convince that acting a certain way
Would guarantee my happiness for eternity and a day
But I was never the one to adopt that thinly disguised platitude
Instead cultivating a dark yet somehow still peaceful attitude

These ones migrate you through prayer and ritual
That you just know are make believe but they make it habitual
Every action is geared along lines of guilt and contrition
But I won’t condemn myself through my very own volition

[Chorus]

[Part 4]
Practitioners have isolated all of our bleak emotional defects
Aligning everything into neat little causes and effects
Herding the population into yet another sterile paradigm
The destruction of the creative spirit being the one true crime

They failed miserably to teach us to live within our own skin
Instead we got religion and other worthless things to believe in
But if ever I engage in any efforts to heal myself
I will not accept homogenized solutions from off the shelf

[Chorus]

[Part 5]
Seemingly in a flash we each arrive at our destinations
And expect to receive our God-given standing ovations
But all I see standing at attention in long rows well ahead of me
Are the latest promoted Admirals in charge on the high Hypocri-Sea

For them it’s a kind of moral performance evaluation
Illusions constructed in order to avoid some eternal damnation
When we refuse to acknowledge all aspects of our very being
It is only the easy side we permit ourselves to be truly seeing

[Chorus]

[Part 6]
It strikes me as odd that a person would spend a lifetime
Engaged in an endless and pointless pantomime
All while in the service of a self-imposed crime
Which result in consequences seldom sublime

But one thing I’ve learned to always be true
Is your other self in the mirror is just a repeated image of you
In my darker side I have no problem respecting
But then again, maybe that’s just me reflecting

[Chorus]

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Words, Music & Video ©2023 Robert Dada
Spoken Word by Penelope Gal-Ahh
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