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Single - The Lighthouse of Kyiv

by Smokestack Faerie

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about

This song was written to support Ukraine in their resistance against the Russian invasion. I’ve been watching the developments in Ukraine with a mix of strong emotions. It is an awful and terrifying war that keeps getting worse every day. People are dying — many of my friends have friends and family in Ukraine, and it is a frightening situation for them. It is heartbreaking to see. But for my Russian friends, too, the situation is suddenly terrifying. None of them support or want the war, either.

And even without such personal stories, the war is terrifying. There is war in Europe again, Russia has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, and NATO is as on edge as it’s ever been. Like in Ukraine, the border between Russia and Finland is also disturbingly long, and the two countries also share an uncomfortable history.

These stories have inspired me to also do what I can. And one part of that is making music. I have been struggling to work much on my second album ever since the invasion began, but I have diverted my creative energy elsewhere. Somewhere intended to help the people in Ukraine. All the proceeds of this song will go to various charities (primarily Red Cross, but I will investigate further and am open to suggestions) to help the victims of the war.

lyrics

A footprint in
The thinning snow
It was left not long ago
You walk along
The tarmac road
Past burnt-out corpses of crows

A painful whistling sending you
Behind a leafless tree
It passes by, it's nothing new
At home they were running free

The fading sun
Behind the haze
smoke-filled, choked, these days
A farmhouse stands
Abandoned now
Broken brick and ploughs

You ran from shrapnel in the hall
You closed the door without your coat
As windows that not long ago
You'd stared out in your teenage boredom

Were blown to smithereens
Your shattered TV screen
At home with your mum and sister
Fighting, laughing, playing board games
In the window sill, broken frames

So different now from how it's always been
So deafened now by the air-raid siren
So suddenly now not a drill but real
So silent now between the missile storms

They were raging, chasing you
Down the street, through the sleet
Seeing all the debris
Seeing all the graves

Look at this lighthouse
Don't ignore this lighthouse
Look at this lighthouse
Don't ignore this lighthouse

You're running up
The mountain pass
The groan of wheels on the grass
The hillside moves
A crumbled pile
Crushed beneath the chain track

Shouting men
You don't understand
Chase you up the road
A rifle shot
You don't feel shot
You dive behind a rock to hide your light

You're city walls, you're all of us
There's millions of us out here

And as we grew, as we discussed
As despots laughed at our growing fear
We hear them drink, they're shivering

Near your foot, a tattered teddy bear
Abandoned near a budding flower

Cause it's just a sunny day in February
You smell it on the breeze
The snowman you made last week melting
That's all your sister sees

You're waiting for
The monsters there
To leave, to shout, to scoff
The light fades
A branch is stained
You're thinking of your lighthouse, the light switched off

credits

released March 17, 2022

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about

Smokestack Faerie image

Smokestack Faerie Vaasa, Finland

A progressive rock project about love, loneliness and the world around us. Tim Reus is a Finland-based songwriter and bassist who loves odd time signatures and bombastic compositions with sparse, old-fashioned orchestration.

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