Tolstoy

Bob Hillman - Tolstoy

Inspired by Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace

Listen to the Track:

Notes:
The song depicts an intimate personal relationship using Tolstoy's works as the context and backdrop.

"I've never heard of this Mr. Bob Hillman," Susan Stamberg said in an NPR story about the SIBL Project, "but that song about Tolstoy is enough to make you want to pick up War And Peace and start reading it."

Lyrics to the song:
Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy knew everything there is to know about you
Emotional makeup, political views
Everything there is to know about you
Down to the quivering lip and the look in your eye
When your father died
And you couldn’t quite say what you wanted to say
But you touched his hand and he knew you were there

Like epic poetry, old folk songs
Gargantuan themes, impossibly long
War and peace and right and wrong
Gargantuan themes, impossibly long
Anna Karenina the ill-starred lover speaks to me
She draws a breath and whispers my name
I’m exactly the same as a Russian count in 1823
And he’s exactly like me

Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy knows everything about last night I suppose
The open hearts and the words we chose
Everything about last night I suppose
First five years of circumstances loosen their grip
Foreign words on your lips
My lips on your words
Definitions blur and we’re something else
Maybe destined to be
We were destined to be

© Bob Hillman