The Night Has Twenty-One Strings

Shadows stretch across the terracotta floor,
Midnight whispers softly through the wooden door.
The city sleeps, but the rhythm starts to breathe,
Unwinding all the secrets that the day leaves.
Calabash is speaking to the silver moon,
We are drifting slowly to a midnight tune.

Oh, let the Kora ring,
Hear the wooden angels sing.
In the cool and velvet night,
Strings of gold and fading light.
Pluck the sorrow, soothe the soul,
Midnight Kora takes control.

Smoke and amber glow in the basement bar,
We have travelled inward, though we didn't go far.
The fingers fly like rivers on the twenty-one strings,
Listen close and tell me what the silence brings.
It’s the pulse of Dakar, it’s the breath of the street,
Where jazz and the motherland’s heartbeat meet.

Oh, let the Kora ring,
Hear the wooden angels sing.
In the cool and velvet night,
Strings of gold and fading light.
Pluck the sorrow, soothe the soul,
Midnight Kora takes control.

From the banks of the Gambia,
To the smoky corners of Harlem...
Strings of calabash and cowhide,
Nowhere left to run or hide.
Just the vibration...
Pure liberation...

The clock strikes three, but time has lost its way,
We’re living in the space between the night and day.
Just the Kora and the ghost of a brass trombone,
In the midnight hour, you are never alone.

Let it ring...
Midnight Kora...
Just let it fade...
Into the shade.

-------
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/9acHcFcABCy9vA

Instrumental composition is available via this link:

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/JqbGlAXP5qv71A