Hansel & Gretel

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a music-box and low woodwinds, a nursery tune gone thin with hunger)

[Verse 1]
The famine came and the cupboard went, and the wife looked at the two
and said, "there's food enough for none, so here's what we will do."
Twice into the wood they marched us, twice we found our way —
white stones by the moon the first time, but breadcrumbs don't stay.

[Chorus]
Hansel, hold my hand, the birds have eaten the trail —
the brain that's counting calories learns to sharpen and to scale.
There's a house of sugar in the dark and a smiling open door —
but the hindbrain in a hungry child knows a trap from a store.

[Verse 2]
She fattened him behind a cage, she made me sweep and boil,
felt for a finger every dawn — I gave her a bone to foil.
"Climb in and check the oven, girl" — "I don't know how," I lied,
and when she leaned to show me... the little door swung wide.

[Bridge]
(soft, cold)
Fear is just a starving thing that learned to stay awake —
we crossed the water on a duck's white back, for a full life's sake.

[Outro]
Home again with our pockets of pearls and the stepmother dead of her spite...
some children walk out of the woods, and they never sleep light.