Pharaoh’s Daughter

Daddy’s Pockets

Innova 701

Niggun

1. (3:29)
(wordless melody)

Traditional Hasidic Niggun,
and original composition.

Marakesh

2. (4:51)
Meet me on the terrace
At the Café du France
We’ll sip mint tea, Moroccon whisky
At the Djem el afna.

Inshaalah Marakesh Marakesh

All night the gaitas blow
The snakes are not too charmed
The soup is only a dirham
So I’m tempted to never go home.

In shaalah, Marakesh Marakesh

So Meet me on the terrace

(Inshaalah: “If G-d wills it” in Arabic)

Gypsy

3. (4:20)
Under the blue moon
where the mountains are see through
Dance gypsy, dance gypsy dance gypsy dance.
Nobody frees you and nobody pleases you,
Please won’t you dance with me, dance gypsy dance

I’m just a painter who paints what he sees,
as he leans on the park of a whistling tree.
You’re lazy and shifting with towering dreams
and a heard made of gold,
you’ve washed out in these streams.

Your face is the wind with the clouds hanging over
Your eyes that have filled up with space;
Your senses are scattered, like five fingers floating
in search of the palm of your hand that I’m holding...

Yay nay nay...

Under the blue moon
where the mountains are see through...

Nowhere’s your homeland your everyone’s guest
With the grace that just lasts you a week,
which is all that I have with my oil lamp and canvas
before I’m forever and ever asleep.

Now I’m just a painter who paints what he sees,
with my oil lamp and canvas and slow disease.
You’ll be twenty angels in flight in the breaze
As you circle my body that fades through these leaves.

Snowball

4. (3:10)
If you hold on, you’re really letting go
You turn a marble into a ball of snow,
Rolls down the mountain,
watch it grow and grow
Until it fades like,
what you think you know.

This moment is so crowded,
I can’t see you,
This moment is so crowded,
Ooh wa a ooh wa

So much tumbling in the wintertime,
so much crumbling in the summer time,
Weaving symbols into bells that dream
and toll the myth of a prince charming.

And if you hold on...

I’m in a fairy tale it’s not the one I wrote,
The one unraveling is going up in smoke.
Around a fire we’re singing wistful songs
It’s such a wacky world,
but I want to belong

This moment is so careless,
I want to share it,
This moment is so careless,
Ohh wah ah

In a box

6. (2:22)
You sleep in a rainy, you sleep in a cloudy
You sleep in a box, you sleep in a box
And you ask why, why, why won’t you look me in
The eye, why won’t you look me in,
the eye, why won’t you look me in
You sleep in the sunny, you sleep in the muddy
You sleep like a fox you sleep in a box
And you ask why

Co-written by Juan Carlos, age 7, as part of a writing assignment

Daddys Pockets
7. (2:50)
Down the streets we walked all Saturday
Walked to the synagogue our faces cold.
Down the streets we walked on Saturday
Singing in harmony about the soul.

But he said, “Don’t put your hands in daddy’s pockets
For daddy’s pockets you are getting old.”
Seven is a time for dreams, seven is a time to be
Seven is a time when your almost a woman

*Up up down and down
and right and left and all around
Here and there and everywhere
that’s where he can be found

*Excerpt from a Jewish children’s song

Nevermore

8. (3:47)
I had to hear it from a friend in a dream,
that you thought me absurd.
You weren’t in so I left on your machine
an indignant blizzard
Minutes go by, and I’m feeling high
until I read about them.
They have nothing but millions watching
and waiting for some consent.

I never thought I could get this rotten
alive and standing still
Everyone saving themselves a little
pie over the hill,
Where the thousands of silent lovers,
wash onto the shore,
It’s a shame it’s a crying shame
so we cry nevermore

I had to pick from debris in your mind,
a piece of your outlook
I ran away with the spoil of our war,
a guide to your handbook
There’s a roach now in my alarm clock
it’s getting time to condemb
And there’s been nothing in both our logic
that makes us wiser than them...

Everything

9. (4:46)
Here’s my promise I’ll see you tomorrow
and for the wine that will follow
I’ll give you everything and I won’t be holding back
I’ll give you everything cause I can’t hold it back.

Here’s my body, cradled in yours
and all our stories, opening doors
I’ll give you everything and I won’t be holding back
I’ll give you everything cause I can’t hold it back.

Here are our barriers, they’re breaking down
To all that raw skin we’ll be running around in
I’ll give you everything.

For the dreams we’ll live, and those we’ll forsake
and for the compromises, that we won’t want to make
I’ll give you everything and I won’t be holding back
forget the diamond ring, I’ll probably lose that.

For the little children, bruises on their knees
who will be growing up,
angsting about the birds and bees
I’ll give you everything

And for the end, that will surely come
and to one of us, who will be left alone
I’ll give you everything and I won’t be holding back
I’ll give you everything cause I can’t hold it back.

Mosquito

11. (3:41)
Out in the dunes, desert in the night
falling asleep, begging for your time,
begging for a sign, begging for a sign.
Is it that start, shooting into nothing,
is it your sleep, turned away from me,
twisting into dreams, twisting endlessly

You say the camels are gone,
won’t be back tomorrow,
won’t be back at all, what does that mean?
How should I feel, but lonely and revealed,
To the mosquito…

Out in the dunes desert in the night
falling inside, begging for your time,
begging for a sign, begging for a sign.

Tell me again walking through the sand
how we should be found,
buried holding hands, buried holding hands, buried holding hands.

There near the tree, can you see the water, water for our lips, where did it go?
Nothing but the mosquito.

Molilunky

12. (4:03)
“I wililish I walilus a molilunky
ililin, the place where I was born.
A molilunky kililissed me olilon
my childileek and say good by to me.”*

I’m a dreamer you’re the falling sky.
We met in the air on you
your way to somewhere dry.

Where the women are wet
and the jungles are so free, green lush, blue fire,
but meanwhile we mirror and like what we see
can you be my one true love.

And it’s so romantic here, don’t let this go,
and that molilunky kililissed me olilon my chilileek and say goodbye to me.

I’m a screamer and you are so sly.
To lead me to the clearing to a wide open sky
–where the sand is all wet and the shells are empty
the birds starve, the pen is raised,
the call to tell it all escapes, it doesn’t mean a thing.

And it’s so barren here, I see I must go,
so that molilunky kililissed me olilon
my chilileek and say good bye to me.

*Part of children’s rhyme.

Produced by
Richard Julian, Basya Schechter

Musicians
Basya Schechter: Guitar, vocals; Tracey Love: Flute, crumbhorn, vocals, zills, vocal intro;
Jen Gilleran: Tabla; Russ Riley: Drums, gong, darbuka; Adam Levy: Electric guitar;
Benoir: Electric guitar

Guests
Zarifah: Tambora; Michael Visceglia: Bass; Jim Allen: Low Nevermore

Recorded at
Shelter Island sound: Mark Hutchins; Dog Brain: Jay Ward; 1-800-Prime CD: David Seitz

Mixed by
Rob Friedman 1,4; Ray Martin, 3,7,8,9.12; David Seitz, 2,5,6,10,11

Mastered by
Eliot Fedderman at DSW; Edits by Mark Dann

Graphic design
Geoff Ledet of Letter 7

Special thanks to Nathan Elbogen for his art, support and advice. Many continuous thanks
to the musicians in the band who have stuck with me through all these years;
Richard Julian for production ideas; David Seitz for...; Michael & Brenda Visceglia;
Giti Koenig for friendship; Jack Hoppenstand for starting Temporarily Anonymous
with me (my first band); Andrew Vladek; Chanie Bodenstien; Jamie Jewett; Rob Freidman;
Noah Hoffeld; Dan Wise; Philip Rothman and Brotherhood Synagogue; Susan Winder;
Leslie Nuchow; Mark Dann; Jay ward; Tam Z; my mother and father; Yisroel; Avrohum;
the Schechter/Aboud gang; C.B.’s Gallery; Knitting Factory; Mercury Lounge; Fez;
and to all my friends who come and listen and support.

All music written by Basya Schechter; arranged by Pharaoh’s Daughter, 1999.

Supported in part by a grant from the New York State Music Fund, established
by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
innova is supported by an endowment from the McKnight Foundation.
Philip Blackburn, director; Chris Campbell, operations manager; www.innova.mu

PharaohsDaughter.com and MySpace.com/PharaohsDaughter