The Tenementals - The Owl of Minerva

Описание: From the forthcoming album, ‘Glasgow: A History (Vol. I of VI)', Strength In Numbers Records, 2024

The Tenementals - 'The Owl of Minerva'

Directed by David Archibald
Cinematography by Holger Mohaupt
Edited and animated by Simon Whittle
Stills photography by David Archibald and Simon Whittle

Music:
Bob Anderson - drums
David Archibald - vocals
Jessica Argo - cello
Sophie Askew - harp
Ronan Breslin - piano
Mark Ferrari - bass guitar
Olivia McLean - cello
Simon Whittle - guitar

Written by David Archibald and Simon Whittle

Track recorded at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow by Ronan Breslin, and mixed/mastered by Johnny Smillie

Single released on 25 October 2024 by Strength In Numbers Records - streaming everywhere

Thanks to Glasgow City Heritage Trust for their support in making this recording

Lyrics:
(vocal: David Archibald)

The Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk
From the Finnieston Crane she flies east
Agricola’s Clota, the half-light
Where the rapids of revolution
Give way to riverbanks of financialisation
Mungo’s children lie in slumber
In ballrooms of pleasure, in bars of L
Silent forges of production
She comes to settle on a red road in ruin
She ponders
What will rise from these broken bricks of Utopia?
New futures, new presents, or new pasts?

And still the river flows

The Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk
From the Finnieston Crane she flies west
Colonial gardens, bourgeois baths
Boulevards great and western
Four story - tenemental
Sandstones red and blonde
Georgian terraces, parks of circus
Kelvin bridges, The Three Judges
Stones of Arlington stitched by Polish tailors
In halls of oriental residence
She comes to settle on a flagpole of learning
She ponders
If the past is simply random, non-systematic motion
Why does it always settle into patterns
Of scarcity and oppression?

And still the river flows

The Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk
From the Finnieston Crane she flies south
Gorbals teens, Glasgow Greens
Housing schemes expansive
Citizens from Bengal, Donegal
Dip bread in the ghost of Viking cauldrons
Longships - long gone
But in the hour of the wolf, tramways transport
Third eyes to midsummer wakes on Cathkin Braes
Where Joyce’s donkey carnivals in Castlemilk
She comes to settle on a golden dome of worship
She ponders
What value the ragpicker who rakes through the
Dustbin of history, conjuring a constellation of possibility?

And still the river flows

The Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk
From the Finnieston Crane she flies north
Hills of hag, hills of lamb, canals Forth and Clyde
She surveys a slow-motion majestic panorama
Poor of coin but rich in gallus swagger
Beyond the black hills of Molendinar
Burn! A gallery of preachers on a highway of historical time
Proddy John - Commie John - Bible John
Christ - even Poppers John
She comes to settle, home, on her cantilevered roost
She ponders
She ponders...
If the past is just one thing after another
Perhaps interruption is the true revolutionary act

And still the river flows