Passion World

Track Listing

• The Verse

  Music by John Clayton
  Lyric by Kurt Elling

  I always knew I’d fall for the girl next door.
  To stay at home with love would be my great reward.
  My sorrow came when she required more than the simple life.

  She wanted fashion and fame and money and speed.
  And I just wanted to love and to need her.

  So I guess it’s the road for me and my dream.
  The search for a new loving home will be my only theme.

• After the Door

  Music by Pat Metheny
  Lyric by Kurt Elling

  The road opens up tonight / now that I am free
  Colors flood my eyes / and I can see

  Home is just one scene / in a giant play
  In a book / only one page

  The songs I already know / lovely as they are
  Should grow / into something more.

  There’s a world / of / love / and / music / after the door

• Loch Tay Boat Song

  Traditional, Composed by Annie C. MacLeod
  Lyric by Sir Harold Boulton

  When I’ve done my work of day / And I row my boat away
  Down the waters o’ Loch Tay / As the evening light is fading

  And I look upon Ben Lawers / Where the after-glory glows
  And I think on two bright eyes / And the merry mouth below

  She’s my beauteous nighean ruadh* / She’s my joy and sorrow too
  And although she is untrue / Well, I cannot live without her

  For my heart’s a boat in tow / And I’d give the world to know
  Why she means to let me go / As I sing horee horo

  Nighean ruadh*, your lovely hair / Has more glamour I declare
  Than all the tresses rare / ‘tween Killin and Aberfeldy

  Be they lint white, brown or gold / Be they blacker than the sloe
  They are worth no more to me / Than the melting flake of snow

  Her eyes are like the gleam / O’ the sunlight on the stream
  And the songs the fairies sing / Seem like songs she sings at milking

  But my heart is full of woe / For last night she bade me go
  And the tears begin to flow / As I sing horee, horo

  (* “Nighean ruadh” is Scottish Gaelic for “red-haired girl”.)

• Si Te Contara

  Music and Lyric by Félix Reina Altuna

  Si tú supieras / mi sufrimiento
  Si te contara / la inmensa amargura

  Que llevo tan dentro / la triste historia
  Que noche tras noche / de dolor y pena

  Llena mi alma / surge en mi memoria
  como una condena / Si tú supieras

  Te importaría / Si te dijera
  Que en mí ya no queda / ni luz / ni alegría

  Que tu recuerdo / es el daño más fuerte
  Que me hago yo mismo / por seguir soñando

  Con que tú regreses / arrepentida

  If you knew my suffering . . .

  If I were to tell you of the immense bitterness I hold inside me;
  The sad story which haunts and invades my memory night after night

  And fills my soul with pain and sorrow . . .

  If you knew . . .
  You would have to care.

  If you knew that there was no light, no joy left in me . . .
  That the memory of you is a great pain I inflict upon myself
  In the hope that you will return

  You would return to me . . . And repent.

• La Vie En Rose

  Music and Lyric by Édith Giovanna Gassion and Louis Guglielmi
  Additional Lyric by Kurt Elling

  Quand tu me prends dans tes bras
  Tu me parles tout bas,
  Je vois la vie en rose.

  Tu me dis des mots d’amour,
  Des mots de tous les jours,
  Et ça me fait quelque chose.

  Tu es entrée dans mon cœur
  Une part de bonheur
  Dont je connais la cause.

  C’est toi pour moi, moi pour toi dans la vie,
  Tu me l’as dit, l’as juré pour la vie.

  Et dès que je t’aperçois
  Alors je sens en moi
  Mon cœur qui bat

  She’s a wonder to me / and
  when she comes over to me / moving lightly with the band

  I feel a need come on / I need to become her pawn
  And though I lead our turn around the dance floor

  She is an entreaty to me / mesmerizing and enticing me to see
  my partner as the queen of all my being

  I can’t resist / she’s a magnet that draws me / that thrills me and awes me
  Everything I hold dear is dancing right here beside me

  She’s like a wish I made that somehow comes true every morning
  And brightens up my way

  And there’s a shade of love in things that she’ll say
  The bloom is on the roses every day for my love and so for me

  The dance is like a dream / swaying and waving under golden stars
  The lights that sparkle in her eyes are emeralds and shiny diamonds

  Sparking up the night / A dance of dreaming never felt so right

  Life In A Rosy Hue

  When you take me in your arms
  You whisper to me
  I see life in a rosy hue
  You tell me words of love
  Everyday words
  It touches me

  You came into my heart
  A part of happiness grew
  and I know why

  It’s you for me, and me for you in this life
  We are sworn to each other for life

  And as soon as I see this truth,
  Then I feel within me
  the beating of my heart

  When I take her in my arms / She speaks softly to me

  And the world takes on a rosy hue
  She tells me love words / in everyday words that make me shiver
  She came into my heart / like a piece of happiness / Whose cause I know

  She’s mine and I’m hers for all of life
  She told me so / She swore it

  And since I first saw her
  I can feel my heart beating inside me

• Bonita Cuba

  Music by Arturo Sandoval
  Lyric by Kurt Elling and Phil Galdston

  Just ninety miles / over the sea
  Another life / is calling to me
  Another world / I lost to fire and to ashes
  The sky may grow light / but the smoke cloud never passes

  Mi madre died / longing for home
  But you can’t fly when you’re tied to a stone
  Mi padre died / and he lives now with Jesus
  Su corazón in a million pieces

  I cry for them / and for all my family
  The friendships of my youth / and for all my country

  If I could / I’d make a boat out of my heart
  And sail to my home / Bonita Cuba / in the dark

  I’d go insane / but I live in music
  I play through the pain / and pour songs on my bruises

  If I could / I’d make a boat out of my heart
  And sail to my home / Bonita Cuba / in the dark

• Where the Streets Have No Name
• The Tangled Road

  Music by Richard Galliano
  Lyric by Kurt Elling

  Tonight / tonight the moon is clean
  There’s nothing in between / the light that throws a sheen
  On everything we think we see / under the stars
  And neon of the bars / convincing us we are in love

  But any moment now / a cloud or two will frown above us
  For love is a fleeting thing / a lying and a cheating thing

  Most times it seems the road to love is a tangle
  Always an angle keeps me from finding love / in a maze of covering
  Love is just misleading me / a mistake / defeating me

  To me it feels like love is willful and confusing
  Always abusing / lovers like me who keep the flame
  Praying to meet another / who keeps the same
  Holding a heart unclaimed / more than another game

  Still I’ll go on searching / weaving and lurching
  Hoping one day / to see love clear

• Você Já Foi à Bahia?

  Music and Lyric by Dorival Caymmi

  Você já foi à Bahia, nêga?

  Não?
  Então vá!
  Quem vai ao “Bonfim”, minha nêga,
  Nunca mais quer voltar.
  Muita sorte teve,
  Muita sorte tem,
  Muita sorte terá
  Você já foi à Bahia, nêga?
  Não?
  Então vá!

  Lá tem vatapá
  Então vá!
  Lá tem caruru,
  Então vá!
  Lá tem munguzá,
  Então vá!
  Se “quiser sambar”
  Então vá!

  Nas sacadas dos sobrados
  Da velha São Salvador
  Há lembranças de donzelas,
  Do tempo do Imperador.
  Tudo, tudo na Bahia
  Faz a gente querer bem
  A Bahia tem um jeito,
  Que nenhuma terra tem!

  Have you been to Bahia?

  Have you been to Bahia, tan girl?
  No?
  Then go!
  Once you go, tan girl,
  you may never want to return.
  It’s a lucky place,
  It’s lucky now,
  It’ll be lucky in the future, for you!
  Have you been to Bahia, tan girl?
  No?
  Then go!
  There they have vatapá*
  So you should go!
  There has caruru**
  Then go!
  There has munguzá‡
  Then go!
  If want to dance the Samba
  Then go!

  The balconies of houses
  In old San Salvador
  Remind you of the glory and innocence
  Of the Emperor’s time.
  Everything, everything in Bahia
  Makes you feel great.
  Bahia has a style
  That no other land has!

  * Vatapá is a native dish from Brazil made from bread, shrimp, coconut milk, peanuts and palm oil.

  ** Caruru is a typical condiment in Bahia from okra, palm oil and nuts.

  ‡ Munguzá is a sweet corn and coconut pudding.

• Nicht Wandle, Mein Licht (Liebeslieder Walzer Op. 52, No. 17)

  Music by Johannes Brahms

  Nicht wandle / mein Licht,
  dort außen / Im Flurbereich!

  Die Füße würden dir / die zarten / zu naß / zu weich.

  All überströmt sind dort die Wege / die Stege dir;

  So überreichlich tränte dorten / das Auge mir.

  Don’t Wander, My Light

  Don’t wander, my light,
  Don’t go walking in the fields!
  Your lovely feet would get too wet; too soft.

  All the roads are flooded there,
  And all the paths too . . .

  So overwhelming have been the tears that flowed from my eyes.

• Who Is It (Carry My Joy On the Left, Carry My Pain On the Right)
• Where Love Is
• iTunes Bonus: Parisian Heartbreak

  Music by Richard Galliano
  Lyric by Kurt Elling

  Love / makes a drifting dream / of moonlight
  Love / can make a distant song / from starlight
  Love / creates new poetry / most every night
  You love – and then love delights.

  But time / has a way of dashing moonlight dreams
  And tides / create the waves that drown the starlight beams
  And poetry / can never be reality
  At least / that’s what seems to me to be

  For I dreamed of you / falling into love, with me
  And I wrote a song / and sang to you so tenderly
  But nothing in my poems wove into reality
  Instead / you just laughed at me.

  So now I trust nothing of what love eyes see / of stars / or of poetry
  That’s the way it has to be / now that love has laughed at me.

• iTunes Bonus: Me Jedyne Niebo

  Music by Pat Metheny
  Polish Lyric by Marcin Kydryński
  English Lyric by Kurt Elling

  Ja wiem, że zabraknie słów
  Ale mimo to chcę pożegnać się
  Pomyśl, że dana była nam
  Tkliwość, która trwa
  Dłużej niż jedno życie

  Choć nie obiecuję Ci
  Ze powrócę tu
  By znów
  Dotknąć Twoich ust
  Wiedz, że Ty to me jedyne Niebo
  Ty to me, Ty to me

  My Only Heaven

  I know there are no words left
  But still, I want to say goodbye.
  We were blessed with tenderness
  That transcends this one lifetime.
  Although I can’t promise to return
  and touch your lips again
  Know forever that you are my only heaven.
  You hold me.
  You carry me within your memory.