I think I prefer this version.
This is a love song for Meher Baba (1894-1969) . January 31 2026 is his 57th Amartithi (he 'died' on that date on 1969.) I wrote the words at the Meher Baba Pilgrim Centre in Meherabad, India in 1989. Aarti means devotional song and is derived from Sanskrit words for 'complete love'. Several beautiful Aartis are sung daily - an Australian Aarti; an American Aarti and a variety of Indian ones, the most beautiful of all the Gujarati aarti written and composed by Meher Baba himself. I wanted to write a British one, stuff upper lip and all that. I brought it home to Blighty and then forgot all about it.
I found the long forgotten lyric in a drawer of Baba papers last year and composed the music I had never been able to add in 1989 (Bob Brown explained how my original hummed effort was much too complicated) and accompanied myself on bass, singing low and then dubbing higher vocals, drums and harmonium.
Lyrics written in Merhabad India, 1989.
Music written last year.
I found the long forgotten lyric in a drawer of Baba papers last year and composed the music I had never been able to add in 1989 (Bob Brown explained how my original hummed effort was much too complicated) and accompanied myself on bass, singing low and then dubbing higher vocals, drums and harmonium.
Lyrics written in Merhabad India, 1989.
Music written last year.
lyrics
Chorus:
You tell me I please you
Because my heart's aching
To let your name Baba
Escape to my lips
Escape to my lips.
How is it you love me
So much for so little?
The bed of the valley
Is less stone than I.
No matter how far off
My life's stream meanders,
Your sea of compassion
Keeps drawing me hot.
Though gloomy impressions
Like mists would deny you,
Your sun's affirmation
Keeps making me sing.
Chorus:
You tell me I please you
Because my heart's aching
To let your name Baba
Escape to my lips
Escape to my lips.
Your beauty is blazing
Like mountain moons on me,
The snows of your silence
Wash all my dirt clean.
This forest so lonesome
I'm hacking to reach you,
Is full of birds singing
'He's closer than you!'
Ah why should I wonder
You give all for nothing?
Your glance is so lovely,
A steel heart would melt.
Chorus
My art is the craft of
A thundering river
Which acts to a pure sea
Of stillness, your name.
My heart I have mined for
Good words and intentions,
To burn off like incense
All faults in your flame.
Chorus.
You tell me I please you
Because my heart's aching
To let your name Baba
Escape to my lips
Escape to my lips.
How is it you love me
So much for so little?
The bed of the valley
Is less stone than I.
No matter how far off
My life's stream meanders,
Your sea of compassion
Keeps drawing me hot.
Though gloomy impressions
Like mists would deny you,
Your sun's affirmation
Keeps making me sing.
Chorus:
You tell me I please you
Because my heart's aching
To let your name Baba
Escape to my lips
Escape to my lips.
Your beauty is blazing
Like mountain moons on me,
The snows of your silence
Wash all my dirt clean.
This forest so lonesome
I'm hacking to reach you,
Is full of birds singing
'He's closer than you!'
Ah why should I wonder
You give all for nothing?
Your glance is so lovely,
A steel heart would melt.
Chorus
My art is the craft of
A thundering river
Which acts to a pure sea
Of stillness, your name.
My heart I have mined for
Good words and intentions,
To burn off like incense
All faults in your flame.
Chorus.
credits
released January 31, 2026
Ghaz - vocals, bass, drums, harmonium.
Lyric © Gareth Calway 1989
Photo is of Avatar Meher Baba
Ghaz - vocals, bass, drums, harmonium.
Lyric © Gareth Calway 1989
Photo is of Avatar Meher Baba
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