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.)
