Earthworms
By Andrea Bunch
About the song:
Early one morning, my dad awoke to dogs breaking one of my best friends in two. In the same spot where my feline friend was killed, I was planting bushes for my mom and noticed I was cutting into earthworms and bugs with my shovel. So, they're all broken. Somehow for me, their deaths broke the dream that humans top the hierarchy of species. Their deaths broke the dream that a hierarchy of species exists at all. Each earthworm I sliced in two can regenerate half of its body. Every species on earth executes its survival with grace and unique intelligence. We can't live without killing, but no life is worthless, human or otherwise.
– Andrea Bunch
Lyrics
We are earthworms. Soaking in the waking soul of March. I am a shovel, pounding down breaking through bodies and bones and homes.
It's just landscaping. Don't be so overdramatic. But all the same I am killing where you were killed.
(Chorus) Thrashing between the machine and the iris. I heard you scream from beneath my bedroom window. I didn't know what was happening, I didn't know.
They came teeth and roar. Doberman and Greyhound running at you across my backyard.
You never did anything but kill a few hundred birds. I never did anything but stamp my shovel through the soft bodies of earthworms.
Chorus
I am reminded that 'human' comes from 'humus' which is Latin for soil. An earthworm can grow back its tail half grow it right on back. But not you and I; getting cut in half is it for us. But we learn that we're higher up cause we're more complex. But I am humbled, somehow I've been humbled.
Thrashing between the machine and the iris. I heard you scream from beneath my bedroom window. Out of heavy dream I flew down to hammer them away, just to pick you up in two. Thrashing between the machine and the iris. I heard you scream from beneath my bedroom window. Out of heavy dream I am waking, waking into the soil.
I have been humbled.