Artist: Mount Eerie
Song: Soria Moria
Album: A Crow Looked at Me (2017)
Beautiful song off of the new album by Mount Eerie.
Be sure to listen to the song for correct picking.
For the interlude part in between each verse,
slide up and strum for each chord. Listen to
how it's done on the recording for reference.
[Chords]
Bm G Em F#m
[Refrain Chords]
Bm A G Em
The refrain starts on the seventh fret for Bm, down
to the fifth for A, third for G, then to regular Em.
In between verses: Bm G Em F#m G A C#m F#m
On Bm, use your third finger to hammer the A string
into the G.
[Refrain]
Bm A
Slow pulsing red tower lights
G Em
Across a distance, refuge in the dust
[Verse 1]
Bm G
All my life I can remember longing
Em F#m
Looking across the water and seeing lights
Bm G
When I was five or six, we were camping in the islands in July
Em F#m
The tall yellow grass and the rose hips fragrant
Bm G
After sunset, island beyond island
Em F#m
Undulating and familiar, not far from home
Bm G Em
With my fragrant, whittled, cedared drift wood dagger in the mildew canvas tent
F#m Bm
I saw fireworks many miles away but didn't hear them
G Em
And I felt a longing, a childish melancholy
F#m
And then I went to sleep
Bm G Em F#m
And the aching was buried, dreaming, aging, reaching for an idea of somewhere other than this place
Bm G
That could fold me in clouded yearning
Em F#m
For nowhere actually reachable, the distance was the point
[Instrumental]
Bm G Em F#m G A C#m F#m
[Verse 2]
Bm
And then when I was twenty-four
G Em F#m
I followed this ache to an Arctic Norwegian cabin
Bm G
Where I said "fuck the world" in a finally satisfying way
Em F#m
I stayed through the winter and emerged as an adult
Bm G
Holding a letter from you, an invitation
Em
So I flew back and drove back
F#m Bm G
And when we met in person it was instant
Em F#m
It didn't matter where we lived as long as we were together
Bm G
And that was really true for thirteen years
Em F#m
And the whole time still
Bm
[Refrain]
G
Slow pulsing red tower lights
G Em Bm
Across a distance, refuge in the dust
[Verse 3]
Bm G
In January, you were alive still
Em F#m Bm
But chemo had ravaged and transformed your porcelain into some other thing
G
Something jaundiced and fucked
Em F#m
They put you in the hospital in Everett
Bm G Em
So I gave the baby away and drove up and down I-5 every night
F#m Bm
Like a satellite bringing you food that you wanted
G Em F#m
Returning at night to sleep in our bed, cold
Bm G
I went back to feel alone there
Em F#m
All past selves and future possibilities on hold
Bm G
Well I tore through the dark on the freeway
Em F#m Bm
The old yearning burning in me
Bm G
I knew exactly where the road bent around
Em F#m
Where the trees opened up and I could see
Bm G Bm G
Way above the horizon, beyond innumerable islands
Bm G Em F#m
The towers on top of the mountain lit up slowly, silently beaconing
Bm G Em
As if to say "just keep going
F#m Bm G
There is a place where a wind could erase this for you
Em F#m Bm
And the branches could white noise you back awake"
G Em F#m
So I went back to feel alone there but cradled you in me
[Instrumental]
Bm G Em F#m G A C#m F#m
[Verse 4]
Bm G
In the National Gallery in Oslo
Em F#m
There's a painting called Soria Moria
Bm G Em F#m Bm G Em F#m G C#m F#m
A kid looks across a deep canyon of fog at a lit up inhuman castle or something
Bm G Em F#m
I have not stopped looking across the water from the few difficult spots where you can see
Bm G Em F#m Bm G
That the distance from this haunted house where I lived to Soria Moria is a real traversable space
Em F#m
I'm an arrow now
Bm G
Mid-air
Bm
[Refrain]
G
Slow pulsing red tower lights
G Em
Across a distance, refuge in the dust
