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Patron of the Arts

from Vagarys by Kyla Tilley

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about

This came from a monthly songwriting prompt to write about what you’d do if you were rich and famous. Me and my husband are constantly joking about the ridiculous things we would do if we were despots, much of which involves hiring other artist to do stuff for us. Lately I’ve been trying to remember to run an experiment in which I vacuum every day to see if that has any effect on the amount of very long hair that gets attached to, well, everything, but I keep forgetting to do it. A day or two before I got the new prompt, my husband suggested that the best way to remember to vacuum would be to hire actors to come and mime vacuuming, and then I’d see them, and remember to do it! So with that fresh in my mind, it wasn’t too hard to remember other things we’d thought of, (like a string quartet alarm clock) and of course new silly notions came along.

lyrics

Hello Rolling Stone
Welcome to my island lair
I built it round a hot spring
Please hang your own coat
Hiring servants just seemed too weird
Apart from two ladies in waiting
To help me brush my hair
And I hope you'll excuse the mess
I'm a little absent minded
I hire a pantomime group
To re-enact the house work
So I remember to do it
But it's their week off

The food here's nothing grand
My cooking skills are basic at best
Though I employ several painters
Two come every day
Capture lunch and dinner in oil
And on Sundays it's a sculptor
You'll see last week at the louvre
Ah you're wondering about the dance troupe
Well I don't always find it easy
To get my point across so the dancers will interpret
My mood and then express it
That way, things are clear

And I hope you enjoy your time here
And I hope you put me in a good light
I'm the wealthiest the strangest indeed the most infamous
Patron of the arts

I see you'd like to know
All about my daily routing
How I begin every morning
Each day starts at 6
A string quartet sits next to my bed
And plays some Shostakovitch
To remind me life is good
Then it's down to my gym to work-out
No there's no personal trainer
Just a roster of heavy metal bands
Various sub-genres
Depending on the work-out
Then shower, breakfast, work

Then, after lunch
It's time to deal with e-mail and calls
And all communication
Now on the pay roll
I've got the perfect trio to help
A composer and a poet
And a lieder soprano
So I let them take care of all that
While I go about my dailies
What's that? Yes, it's a fact
I did make all this money
Writing silly folk songs
What makes you question that?

I hope you'll enjoy your time here
And I hope you put me in a good light
I'm the wealthiest the strangest indeed the most infamous
Patron of the arts

I can tell you're confused
That's the Greek chorus I hire
To keep me on the straight and narrow
I don't know what I did
Before I had them follow me round
Now I remember what I'm doing
When I move from room to room
That's all the time we have today
You can see yourself out
Head through the menagerie
There you'll find the boat man
He'll take you to the city
Yeah I know he's a bit creepy
That's what I pay him for

I hope you enjoyed your time here
And I hope you put me in a good light
I'm the wealthiest the strangest most selfish and outrageous
Patron of the arts

credits

from Vagarys, released December 11, 2020
Kyla Tilley: steel-string guitar, vocals, bass
Julian Squires: drums

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Kyla Tilley Newfoundland and Labrador

Kyla Tilley plays guitar, wears high heels, and writes sometimes sad, often funny, occasionally disconcerting, story-telling songs which rarely rhyme.

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