The Garden of Forking Paths

This Borges-inspired track appears on the new Steve Goldberg and the Arch Enemies EP, Labyrinths, available now for streaming and download. The demo was posted here.

You were a friend and I was an enemy
I was a ghost or a trick of your memory
I was a scholar and I was a spy
I saved your life and I left you to die
There is no future and there is no past
here in the garden of forking paths

I've been a soldier and I've been a priest
I've seen the bombers, the blood in the street
I've slept under awnings in Argentine slums
steeling my soul for the judgment to come
The killing is slow but the dying is fast
here in the garden of forking paths

Billions of lives
the earth, the sea, the sky
and all their fates decided by
the wings of a butterfly

I'll pull the trigger and I'll feel the wound
I'll lay the bricks and I'll lay in the tomb
I'll be the jury, I'll be the accused
I'll look at you like there's nothing to lose
I've searched for so long but I found you at last
here in the garden of forking paths

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posted by ludwig_van (7 comments total)

Mmmmm, those horns are delicious. The mix sounds great. I particularly like the breakdown, and the unwinding guitar leading into it, and the -- guitar? Mandolin? -- solo that starts around 3:25.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 4:16 AM on January 7, 2010

Thanks! That is indeed a mandolin solo at the end.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:18 AM on January 7, 2010

At first the almost rhymes put me off a bit, but they're so consistently... slanted that I guess I can forgive them. This is good stuff. Definitely not enough Borges-inspired music out there.
posted by ErWenn at 9:04 PM on January 7, 2010

Is the whole EP Borges-inspired?
posted by ErWenn at 9:05 PM on January 7, 2010

Thanks ErWenn. It is all Borgres-inspired, hence Labyrinths, but none of it so directly as this one. You can hear the other tunes at the link in the post.
posted by ludwig_van at 6:31 AM on January 8, 2010

This and the rest of your EP are fantastic. The only thing you're missing from my list of "instruments I fucking love to hear in rock music" is accordion. Thanks for sharing this here.
posted by Caduceus at 10:47 AM on January 10, 2010

Oh, great version. Writing songs about JLB's stories alone should earn you a nobiliary title here. This is very nice, as your songs tend to be.
posted by micayetoca at 10:49 AM on February 16, 2010