Lyrics: Robert Severin and Csilla Toldy
Music: Robert Severin
Portrait of Katalin Karády: Adrián Lips

Verse 1
Broken piano keeps her company
While her broken body tries to heal
Through the window
Of her ruined paradise
Shadows of children
Walking in their sleep

Chorus 1
This Diva’s star has fallen back to earth
The stage is set in flames
For a deadly curtain call
Her bravest
Her finest
Her greatest curtain call of all

Verse 2
Filling her pockets with gold and blazing gems
Jewels she had collected and concealed
To the Danube
Crack of guns and drifting ice
Two rows of children
Waking from their sleep

Chorus 2
This diva's star...

Bridge (Children's Choir/Gyermek Kórus)
A néni földig érő kabátban
Zsebében arany és drágakő
“Szezám tárulj” szól az angyal
Hangja csodával bíró erő
Gyilkos szemek ámulatban
Elárvult életünket menti meg
Megment minket a fagyhaláltól
Búgó hangján oda súgja: hívjatok Kati néninek

Bridge (English Translation)
A lady in floor-length coat
With pockets full of gold and precious stones
“Open Sesame!” cries the angel
Her voice works miracles
And mesmerises the killers
She saves us orphans from freezing death
And whispers in a soothing voice: 
“Please call me Auntie Kati”.

Chorus 3
This diva's star...

Curtain Call

AMBER
A poem by George Szirtes
Music by Robert Severin

Under the desk-light
the world contracts to a bowl
of amber, a warm

wash of silence. Sheets
of paper form a pale bed
on which light may sleep.

Faint notes of winter
music creep through late autumn,
soft as fallen leaves,

sullen in amber.



Photo by Robert Severin

Amber

Evenings, Midnights

A poem by George Szirtes
Music by Robert Severin


Those empty evenings
when time sits on its bare hands
and closes its mouth.

Those evenings waiting
for a midnight that never
arrives. Those evenings 

when world holds its breath
hoping history turns up
with gifts of kindness

so long overdue.

Evenings, Midnights

A poem by George Szirtes
Set to music by Robert Severin

Night in Budapest
in a quiet district past
midnight. The sleepless

turn in silent beds,
listening to their own thoughts,
neighbours in courtyards

locked on to their lives.
Where would night be without them?
Where are the bright moons

of their faint breathing?

Budapest, éjfél után*

* Hungarian lyric added by Robert Severin
Trans. 'Budapest, past midnight'

Night In Budapest

A poem by George Szirtes set to music by Robert Severin

EVENSONG

Now the light goes out
but slowly, a child falling
asleep, the evening

entering a dream
that is not quite possible
and yet convincing.

Could this all be true?
These clouds? These birds closing down?
Where might they go next?

Should there be a night?

Evensong

THE DOOR
A poem by George Szirtes
Set to music by Robert Severin

How quickly the doors
of the past close behind you.
Are they firmly shut?

Do you have a key
to come and go with? Is there
no way to slip through

the window? You can see
the shadows of furniture
and figures moving

like ghosts to the door.


The Door

I found postcard in a second hand bookshop in Budapest some years ago. It was written in English by a young Hungarian woman, Julia Spitzer,  from Budapest, to her gentleman friend, Morris Levison, in England, dated 12th December 1936. She never sent it. A solitary word in Hungarian, in the bottom left hand corner of the postcard asks: 'Do you love me?' I searched for traces of Julia, online and in the Budapest city archives, but the trail ran cold in 1944. It is probable that she was killed at an execution site, near her home, on the Danube by the fascist Arrow Cross. Lyrics below:

December frost on the cobblestones
Bridges cast in monochrome
Naked trees on the boulevards
Your words take me back in time

Ice drifting through the city’s heart
Floating islands of my thoughts 
About the heartbreak you revealed
On a fragment of your past 

Was there ice that December
When the eagle rode the flames
Could you see the storm coming
Did you face it on your own

Julia, I’ve been looking for you
I want to know 
You found a love that was true
Julia, I’ll keep looking for you
I won’t forget 
The red shades of blue

I wonder if you found out why 
His replies never came
He was used to his liberty
While yours was stolen day by day 

Echoes from the courtyard
Shadows in the stairwell
Did you find salvation
From hell’s carousel

Julia, I’ve been looking for you
I want to know 
You found a love that was true
Julia, I’ll keep looking for you
I won’t forget 
The red shades of blue 

Julia, I’ve been looking for you
I want to know 
You found a love that was true
Julia, I’ll keep looking for you
I won’t forget 
The red shades of blue 
Red shades of blue

Words and Music: Robert Severin

Strings:
Seonaid Aitken - Violin 1
Innes Watson - Violin 2
Patsy Reid - Viola
Alice Allen - Cello
Arranged by Innes Watson

Postcard from Budapest

Red Shades of Blue

Red Shades Of Blue

A song about my aunt who, as a young woman, turned down an opportunity of a lifetime in order to spare her parents hardship. Lyrics below:

She opened the letter from home 
While coffee was starting to brew
Her mother’s neat hand on rough squared paper
Just like when she was at school
Are you eating enough
Do you miss my baking
The city is so far away

She turned down the flame on the stove
And stood by the window to read
Her father’s cold voice called out from the page
She felt the need to sit down
Times have been hard
There’s work to be done
Your place is back on the farm

She dared raise her eyes 
From the millstone to the stars
To a life to be lived
To love and be loved

Burnt coffee splattered the stove
Ink ran wild in her teardrops
She pulled on her shoes, ran over the cobbles
To the castle walls
Farewell to the city 
Her river and bridges
Their sorrow and beauty
And to her dreams

She dared raise her eyes 
From the millstone to the stars
To a life to be lived
To love and be loved
She dared raise her eyes 
From the millstone to the stars
To a life to be lived
To love and be loved 

Years go by
Some things never change
Life goes on 
Heartbreak remains

She dared raise her eyes 
From the millstone to the stars
To a life to be lived
To love and be loved 
She dared raise her eyes 
From the millstone to the stars
To a life to be lived
To love and be loved 

A life to be lived
To love and be loved

Letter from Home

Letter From Home

The most celebrated wartime diva from Budapest, Katalin Karády, reflecting on her haunting experiences at the hands of the Gestapo, forty years later, as she adds the finishing touches to a hat for one of her regular clients, Nancy Reagan, in her milliner's salon in Manhattan. Lyrics below:

She works behind the curtain 
In her salon late at night
The milliner to the stars 
Holds the pillbox to the light
She smoothes the chiffon ribbon
Under feathers and the lace
A confection in scarlet 
For the First Lady’s date

It brings to mind one she wore
In a film about doomed love
Made in black and white
But she called for matching gloves
Shown back home again
After thirty years taboo
Her hits on shortwave
It feels sweet but bitter too

Time heals
But the healed heart still hurts
They say time heals
But the healed heart still hurts
  
She yearns to see the Danube
But fears she can’t go back
Her sleep is often broken
By ghosts of men in black
Nearly killed for being human
Her light refused to die
Home is now Manhattan
Her client’s due at nine

Time heals
But the healed heart still hurts
They say time heals
But the healed heart still hurts

Actress by accident
Diva by design
Voice of a dying age
Chanteuse of the lost

They say time heals
But the healed heart still hurts
Time heals
But the healed heart still hurts

Words and Music by Robert Severin

Time Heals (But the Healed Heart Still Hurts)

Time Heals (But The Healed Heart Still Hurts)

I'm a songwriter, singer, guitarist and also play the clarinet. My album, 'Postcard from Budapest' is a collection of stories and personal reflection drawn from episodes of Hungary's 20th century history. I am engaged in a number of diverse collaborations with other songwriters, poets and writers from around the world. One of these projects resulted in a Nashville release in January '23. .

Robert Severin

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