Alt-J (∆) - Taro

(...)

  Footage from "Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation(1988)"

  * " From what I managed to gather from the lyrics, this song is about Hungarian war-photographer Robert Capa, who died during the First Indochina War, more exactly in May of 1954 after jumping out of his jeep and running up the road to get a better photo of the troops advancing. In the process of doing so he stepped on a landmine and had his left leg blown to bits. "Taro" refers to Gerda Taro, his partner in love and war photography who was killed in 1937 while covering the Spanish civil war."

 ( Yuri Vandresen Pinto -YouTube)

Indochina, Capa jumps Jeep, two feet creep up the road
To photo, to record meat lumps and war,
They advance as does his chance -- very yellow white flash.
A violent wrench grips mass, rips light, tears limbs like rags,
Burst so high finally Capa lands,
Mine is a watery pit. Painless with immense distance
From medic from colleague, friend, enemy,
foe, him five yards from his leg, From you Taro.
Do not spray into eyes -- I have sprayed you into my eyes.
3:10 pm, Capa pends death, quivers, last rattles, last chokes
All colours and cares glaze to grey, shrivelled and stricken to dots,
Left hand grasps what the body grasps not -- le photographe est mort.
3.1415, alive no longer my amour, faded for home May of '54
Doors open like arms my love, Painless with a great closeness
To Capa, to Capa Capa dark after nothing,
re-united with his leg and with you, Taro.
Do not spray into eyes -- I have sprayed you into my eyes.
Hey Taro!