The Bells of St. Sebastian

I remember St. Sebastian with a memory most unkind

I can hear the bells I heard when I went there

Inside the church, inside my mind

The bells of St. Sebastian only ring once in your ears

But if you're very young when you hear them

Their sound can last a hundred years

But the music of the ringing

Was the music of our singing

When we were singing

Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

Each day at lunch

Each night at vespers

Every tower the hour would be tolled

For those of us at St. Sebastian

No longer young and not yet old

But why did you go to this woman?

To see what she was like

Each day at St. Sebastian in the classroom we would hear

That devils lurked behind every corner

If you tried to look, they would disappear

The nuns of St. Sebastian tried to teach the facts of life

Explaining there are two kinds of women

One was a whore, one was a wife

But the music of the ringing

Was a different world that all the crew was singing

When we were singing

Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

They rang at dawn

They rang at midnight

Tones well-rounded, they sounded down the nave

For all the souls of little boys at St. Sebastian

Too young to save

Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

You brought such shame on us

But Mama, I didn't know

For lunch at St. Sebastian

Country cheese and mustard bread

A prayer we never learned sung in Latin

Then a midday nap in a makeshift bed

Then the music of the ringing

Then the music of our singing

And we were singing

Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

We should have known

We should have warned us

At St. Sebastian

They never spread the good

But in the music of the bells at St. Sebastian

We looked for God