Hopeful Assassins of Zeno | |
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Album |
Songs for Pierre Chuvin |
Released |
April 10, 2020 |
Length |
3:15 |
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Original lyric sheet for "Hopeful Assassins of Zeno," courtesy of Reddit.
Hopeful Assassins of Zeno is the seventh song on Songs for Pierre Chuvin.
Lyrics[]
Get tired of coming in from the mountains every year Find some place to set up shop around here Spread out a little, circulate A log that floats down river Will certainly take on weight Meet some people, make some friends How long till we get sent back to the mountains? It all depends On the hopeful And the cunning And the faithful The well-positioned Filthy but graceful Get familiar with affairs of state Foretell the future Get a pretty good success rate Notch some wins, take some losses Be nice to the guys who wear necklaces with crosses They will stab you in the back You gotta turn the other cheek You gotta learn to love Jesus, so to speak Like the hopeful And the cunning And the faithful The well-positioned Filthy but graceful Real filthy, think about getting clean Even hear the soldiers talk about it, down at the canteen Little kings keep coming, one another's head Which is exactly how the portents read Watch with wonder Fail to discern These people never learn How long until the snake devours its tail? Longer than we think Still it's gotta happen sometime Until then, raise a drink To the hopeful And the cunning And the faithful The well-positioned Filthy but graceful
Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]
- "This is a song about, um, not ancient Rome, ancient is, like, pre-zero, this is a little later than that. This is about a time when -- well. The young Church, which turns out to be the Catholic Church... didn't really have a name yet... The Christians are beginning to accumulate power and they're suppressing what we've now called the pagans, which is kind of not exactly a slur but it's not really a useful term, pagan, um, but uh, but all the people practiced whatever religion they were practicing before the Christians came around, right. And, uh, and they would show up in a country and say "well, the Christians are here, it's time for us all to be Christians." And, uh, but the people who they called pagans were not dumb, they would go, these guys have a lot of power... play it cool. And a number of them would do covert action, right. Show up at the church, believe, believe every word you say, absolutely. Plotting, plotting for the moment that like, that like, the actual emperor would leave, right, and now all that's left are his chumps and then we can kill these people and be rid of these nuisances, right. So this is uh, this is about, uh, one of these moments, and it's called 'Hopeful Assassins of Zeno'." -- 2022-08-19 - Brooklyn Arts Center - Wilmington, NC
Things Referenced in this Song[]
- See Pierre Chuvin, A Chronicle of the Last Pagans, pp. 95-98.
Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]
Videos of this Song[]
Songs for Pierre Chuvin |
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Track list: "Aulon Raid" • "Until Olympius Returns" • "Last Gasp at Calama" • "For the Snakes" • "The Wooded Hills Along the Black Sea" • "January 31, 438" • "Hopeful Assassins of Zeno" • "Their Gods Do Not Have Surgeons" • "Going to Lebanon 2" • "Exegetic Chains" |