Book Of Life | Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier

"... What holds you here? Family, religion, community, ambition, greed? From a scientific, atheistic viewpoint nothing matters. What we are, what we believe is an accident of birth. Ultimately in our scientific, godless universe, nothing can matter since the universe is amoral. Not even the existence of the Earth itself matters.

To a mere mortal this is terrifying; only a god can have the luxury of having a scientific, atheistic view of life.

What holds you here?

While writing our record a few people we knew, sadly decided that not much held them to this earthly existence. Just another death, the universe went on, but a terrible hole in our lives.

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah is a time to blow the Shofar, a ram’s horn, and celebrate with apple and honey for a sweet New Year. Ten days later the sombre day of atonement, Yom Kippur, is a day of fasting and repenting for your sins of the previous year.

On Rosh Hashanah you will be inscribed in the book of life and on Yom Kippur you will be

sealed. Your fate for the next 12 months is written. “... who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by upheaval, who by plague, who by strangling, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.”

We tried a number of versions of this song, James Black played a beautiful piano part, but ultimately the song needed to sound like a solitary prayer. May you be written into the book of life."

Source: Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier