Hastings (Rollo's Blood)

Intro

(Hastings! Hastings!)

Rollo walked to Paris — I sailed to Pevensey...

(Hu-ha!) Seven hundred ships — October — the sea

Between two worlds closing — no residency

(Hastings!) The Viking became Norman became king — all three...

Verse 1 — William

Bastard they called me — mother a tanner's daughter —

Father Robert the Magnificent — the water

Between legitimacy and what I'd sought for

Didn't stop the coronet I thought for.

Harald Godwinson swore on holy relics —

Swore the English throne was mine — the metrics

Of an oath broken clean — the politics

Of a perjured king — my casus belli fix.

Seven hundred ships at Saint-Valery waiting —

Two weeks of wind — the Normans contemplating

Whether God was with the crossing — I was stating:

He is — we go — the Channel worth the taking.

Pevensey landed — built the castle — moved to Hastings —

Harald force-marched south from Stamford — no more restings

After Hardrada's death — the double tastings

Of two battles in three weeks — his army wastings.

Shield wall on the ridge — we broke it with the feinted

Retreat — they chased — the line thinned — I pointed

The cavalry back — the English slope anointed

With the last Saxon blood — the age disjointed.

Pre-Chorus — both

Matilda: I held Normandy while he crossed — that's the calculus (calculus)

William: she ran the duchy better than my apparatus —

(better than me...)

Both: the Viking blood through Rollo's line came back to face us —

Hastings closed the age the longships gave their status. (uh!)

Chorus — both

Seven hundred ships — October — the grey (the grey!)

Harald fell at Stamford — nineteen days (nineteen days!)

Shield wall broken — English throne — William's day (William's day!)

Rollo's blood wrote England — Hastings pays! (Hu-ha!)

Verse 2 — Matilda

They said I refused him — yes — the first approaching —

A bastard duke's proposal — the encroaching

Of ambition over lineage — the coaching

Of a Flemish count's daughter needed more coaxing.

He came back different — I don't tell the method —

What matters is I read him and I headed

Toward the only man whose drive embedded

Itself in every obstacle it shredded.

I governed Rouen while he crossed the water —

Signed the writs, held the vassals — every quarter

Of Normandy intact — the duchy's mortar

Was me while he was England's blood and slaughter.

I came to England after — saw the building —

Westminster rising — Domesday's gilding

Of every hide of land — the careful gilding

Of a Viking into kingship — no more shielding.

Rollo walked to Paris — that was Song forty-four —

I'm his blood five generations from that shore —

William's blood — same root — the Norman core —

The Viking never left — he just changed the door.

Pre-Chorus — both

Matilda: I held Normandy while he crossed — that's the calculus (calculus)

William: she ran the duchy better than my apparatus —

(better than me...)

Both: the Viking blood through Rollo's line came back to face us —

Hastings closed the age the longships gave their status. (uh!)

Chorus — both

Seven hundred ships — October — the grey (the grey!)

Harald fell at Stamford — nineteen days (nineteen days!)

Shield wall broken — English throne — William's day (William's day!)

Rollo's blood wrote England — Hastings pays! (Hu-ha!)

Bridge — trading

William: Harald Hardrada at Stamford — Norse blood north —

(Norse blood north...)

I crossed from the south — same autumn — same worth —

(Norse blood south...)

Two Viking lines ended the age — one earth —

England changed hands twice in nineteen days of worth.

Matilda: the Bayeux Tapestry records it all in thread —

(the thread holds...)

My women's hands may well have sewn the dead —

(sewn it clean...)

Two hundred thirty feet of linen spread —

(Skál to Hastings! Skál — the Viking age has fled!)

(Rollo's blood closed what Rollo's blood had bred!)

Drop — Instrumental

Chorus — both

Seven hundred ships — October — the grey (the grey!)

Harald fell at Stamford — nineteen days (nineteen days!)

Shield wall broken — English throne — William's day (William's day!)

Rollo's blood wrote England — Hastings pays! (Hu-ha!)

Outro

(Hastings! Hastings!)

October 14, 1066...

(Hu-ha!)

Harald Hardrada — September 25.

Nineteen days.

Two Norse bloodlines.

One English autumn.

The Viking Age

ended

the way it began —

with a ship

and a shore

and a name

nobody forgot.

(Rollo walked.

William sailed.

The longship

became

England.)