Osculate
Here's its most recent performance: https://youtu.be/OPgri7V7Vbw?t=615
See its premiere performance with the full loop build: https://youtu.be/9Xn8zznqbxE?t=1623

As we Osculate in the Bucolic Crepuscular Pulchritude
May it Vindicate so Phlegmatic and Stolid a Mansuetude
Are my Glabrous words in the Fuscus light an Incursion of Succour for the Recondite?
As we Osculate in the Bucolic Crepuscular Pulchritude

So foul and fair a phrase I have not seen nor had perchance to hear
Beauty lies in beholders' eye, as well as nose, touch, tongue and ear
Societal expectations, belied with false compare
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, I think my love as rare, as we Osculate...

But the patois of passion, the parlance of emotion
The eclectic dialects of desire and devotion
Aren't only written or spoken, they're conveyed just as much
In good deeds and the sharing of time, gifts and touch, as we Osculate...

Is the way that you show love, the way they know love?
Their own particular vernacular's the knack to articulate it spectacularly
Giving presents, being present, representing it in word
A helping hand, holding hands, hoping what's implied's inferred

As we Osculate... May it Vindicate... Are my Glabrous words...

May the Babelfish d’Amor, cure your cupid fear
When the moon hits your eye and the cat gets your tongue
Quickly stick it in your ear
Oh, the Babelfish d’Amor, comprende, por favor
Es ist Lingo von Liebe, Jargon genau so
Un petit murmure parle comme Cyrano

Kissing in the country sunset, diggin’ the gentle calm, you bet!
Smooth talkin’, dimly lit, give a little care when we're slim of wit

On the express train to expressing expressly, an expression's just a saying
When overlooking an oversight, over what are you surveying?
Extraordinary means exceptional, the exception being the more ordinary bit
To be in awe for some is awesome, but it's awful if you're already full of it

As we Osculate in the Bucolic Crepuscular Pulchritude (kissing in the country sunset)
May it Vindicate so Phlegmatic and Stolid a Mansuetude (diggin’ the gentle calm, you bet!)
Are my Glabrous words in the Fuscus light an Incursion of Succour for the recondite?
(Smooth talkin’, dimly lit, give a little care when we're slim of wit)
As we Osculate in the Bucolic Crepuscular Pulchritude


©Mal Webb 2021

This started as a collection of words that sound yucky but mean nice things*. Then having read Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages book, I thought I'd meld them somewhat. And the Babelfish is from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Musically, this is the fifth of my Malleable PolyPolyRhythm songs. It's in 12 against 17. More about that at my MPPR page!
And it draws on Jeff Pressing's paper, http://repmus.ircam.fr/_media/moreno/pressing_cognitive_isomorphisms_1983.pdf , which highlights the parallel between the spacing of the major scale 2212221 and the standard West African 12 beat bell pattern, 2212221. I start with a C pentatonic (reordered GECAD) on the rhythm 23223 (the Ashanti bell Akatape), then I add B and F# to make it G major (as GEBCADF#) in the rhythm 2212221. Then I add the remain 5 notes to make it a 12 tone row GEbEBbBCAbADbDFF#, with the Bb and F a 24th later (dotted per se) to allow the 17 pattern. But it's not an even 24 grid: The main accents lay somewhere between the 12 (23223) and the 17 (34334), so both grooves are equally (and hopefully imperceptibly) compromised.

*At a gig in Bath in 2024, after performing this song, 2 women came to me and said, "We love the song, but we're Italian, and Osculare, Bucolico, Crepuscolare and Pulcitudine... they're Italian words... they're not ugly at all!" I apologised and said, "Well, they're ugly the way that we say them in English, but sure, in Italian, they sound lovely!" And I promised I'd mention this when I introduce the song.