Death Does Not Come Humble

Death Does Not Come Humble
The singer has an epiphany in this song – where he feared death all his life, he comes to see it as an enhancing event at the end, comparable to a lion who comes to whisk him to a better state of being. He realizes he should mount the back of this graceful, forgiving beast, and learns he himself is the ‘greatest’ entity in his own life, but conversely also the ‘least’ entity in the panorama of the universe.

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Death Does Not Come Humble
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)


Death does not come humble, it arises,
a lion, unsettles air, a condor,
it springs from the ocean, canonizes,
like a dolphin cutting the sea’s top door.

Mount the back of this graceful, forgiving beast,
for you are the greatest,
for you are the least.

Do not lay in fear, the Receptor, you can’t deny it,
of this last expression of the breathing.
Death does not come forward to humble you,
It arises, an animal, freeing.

Mount the back of this graceful, forgiving beast,
for you are the greatest,
for you are the least.

Guitar solo

Humble is not the stance for you to take,
in front of this animal of great hope,
only a lack of understanding makes
you hesitate, a need to interlope.

Mount the back of this graceful, forgiving beast,
for you are the greatest,
for you are the least.

Mount the back of this graceful, forgiving beast,
for you are the greatest,
for you are the least.


Artist’s note
George Inness (1825-1894), American landscape painter, was largely responsible for introducing the French Barbizon style in the United States. The victim of epilepsy, he was also given to eccentric behavior and possessed a mystical personality. His son reported his father died viewing a particularly exquisite sunset; though weakened from his final illness, Inness threw his hands in the air while exclaiming, “My God! Ah, how beautiful!” then fell to the ground, dead.