I Feel No Sorrow
This song is a true story. I'd been having lots of nightmares in the weeks prior to it happening, allow me to narrate one of them.
I was wandering through the cerrado at night, and no dream had ever felt so physical and real. I was walking into the deeper woods, with thick bushes and tall, crooked trees. You could smell the metal on the red soil and hear the multitude of insects screeching from their hideaways. The air was dry and cold, the darkness was almost a physical barrier between my eyes and the world.
Walking into a dark spot under the trees, I was face to face with a horrible, grotesque monster. It had huge, piercing, electric blue eyes, bloodshot; and an enormous mouth that smiled — two features very human in their form, but terribly off in size and intensity, in an inhuman way. Its skin was dark red like clotted blood, with a nauseating iridescent sheen, and it had scales like a snake, or the rough skin of the cerrado fruits. I was powerless, I couldn’t run or even look away. I didn’t know if those eyes had spotted me or not at first, for they were so grotesque I couldn’t even tell if they were capable of sight, but once I understood they were, and had seen me, I felt my blood run like ice. The creature turned to me, with the sort of slow, stalled motion that transpires the ability to move absurdly faster should the desire be there to do so.
Suddenly, I heard a strong, smooth voice, one that I was quite familiar with. He told me that was the Devil, using an ancient name for him that people use in the deep Brazilian countryside, which I’d read in a book many years before and had seldom thought about until then. He calmly told me to back away and keep a safe distance, like a calm narrator in a nature documentary. I stepped back slowly, and the beast didn’t follow me, but it looked on piercingly until I was far enough away that its interest was lost. The voice, my protector, guided me away to somewhere safe.
I’d met the Devil before in my dreams, and though he’d always taken a different form, none had been so grotesque. In fact, all the other times, he’d been very charming in an intimidating way, fearsome in the way you fear the very powerful. My faceless protector with the strong, calming voice was nearly always there to get me away from him. Only once or twice he didn’t appear, and I had to force myself awake, screaming, wondering what I’d done to be abandoned to my own devices like that. Sleeping was difficult for the weeks following such dreams.
That is not the story this song is about, but the following is.
A few nights later, I was fast asleep again, dreaming. Just as the tide of the sunny dream I was having started to turn into something more sinister, and the Devil waited to unveil himself to me in perhaps an even more grotesque and dangerous shape, I heard a voice calling me, one that I’d never heard before. It was sweet and gentle, and it talked in a not really female, but feminine tone. Not a mother, but a friend. She took me to a sunny hill with soft grass, and talked to me, calming me down until I could rest among the tiny flowers that bloomed on that beautiful place. This is, nearly word for word, what she said to me.
I feel no sorrow
And I, I feel no pain
There is no explaining
No pain, no longing
No why
Lie on the grass
Hear all the voices that call you
(I’m always with you)
Tonight we can talk
Now that you’re finally asleep
I’ll be your friend in here
So you don’t get too lonely
It can get quite lonely in your dreams
Sleep well, good night
Dream on, my child
So, there’ll be no sorrow
And so there’ll be no pain
There is you and me
I believe your story
Believe mine
I won’t be the voice
To pull you out of a nightmare
I’ll just do my best
To stop you from having to hear it
Keep your thoughts nice
Keep your fingers crossed
Dream as wild as you like
But never get lost
Oh, life is good
Said ah, life is good
There is no one else
But yourself, no question
No why
