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On Death

from Lauren Oxford by Lauren Oxford

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

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    • the CD comes in a protective sleeve and has a four-panel gatefold case with a plastic tray for the disc & a pocket for the six-page lyric booklet
    • artwork, design, photography, hand lettering, and layout by Lauren Oxford (with help from Emma Oxford)

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about

This song was written in the back of a car and at a hotel following my Nana's funeral. I'd been to funerals before, but not for anyone as immediate to me. I was understandably in a morbid headspace where I couldn't stop thinking about how unsettling the entire thing was, and I thought really hard for the first time about what I wanted when I died. I'd also seen an ad at some point during this whole process for a burial tree pod of sorts, so this is the result of all those thoughts and feelings and questions tumbling around and clouded by grief.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

lyrics

my mother told me i didn’t have to look
as if she didn’t know that i had to look
the flowers on the casket were bold against the white
i stood there, stoic, silent, still, and paling at the sight

beneath her skin, the blood ran not, the toxins did their job:
with makeup and formaldehyde, time itself was stalled
i scoured for some traces of the nana that i knew
and willed my mind to overlook the fake, the waste, the skew

they painted on a face that i had never seen before
the fuchsia dress was something that she never would have worn
fake nails upon her fingers, pink rouge upon her cheek—
they tried their best, but Death had had her marked for o’er a week

when you leave the living, there’s nothing left to see
it does no good to hold onto a body ceased to be
for every other flying, swaying, swimming thing on earth,
death is just as natural as its close companion, birth

when my time has come to leave the ones i love behind
and carry nothing with me but the knowledge i was kind,
do not let this body fall into the hands of men
who’d try to make me look as if i were alive again

i refuse to leech into the soil and the stream
for purposes no grander than a money-sucking scheme
that tarnishes my memory, the image i now see
of her; i lie awake at night and wish it’d leave me be

so take me to the body farm and study how i go
or let me be a vessel for a cure, for life, for hope
if ashes go to ashes and dust blows back to dust
then bury not, but plant me, if to ground return i must

let me fuse with water clear, with dirt and seed and light
let me grow into a perch for weary birds in flight
and if you seek my presence, loved one, come sit here with me
and realize that this tree and you apart can never be

credits

from Lauren Oxford, released October 28, 2022
written June 2018

Lauren Oxford: lead vocals, banjo
Jen Midkiff: lever harp, harmony vocals
Sunnie Larsen: viola, harmony vocals
Betsy Tinney: cello
Cathy McManamon: bamboo flute

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about

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Lauren Oxford Sevierville, Tennessee

Lauren Oxford is a songwriter, folksinger, and filker who lives in the mountains of East Tennessee with her wife Emma & their three cats. Her debut album combines soul-bearing, heartfelt lyricism and lush, thoughtful orchestration, courtesy of some of her dearest friends.

She is also a member of folk “queertet” The Starlight Darlins, whose first EP is also available on Bandcamp. (see link below) ... more

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