Far back, the Cambrian flooded earth with form,
each one a gamble and a bridge to something more,
or a dead end. Vinyl, tape, CD—you’ve heard
revolution surge a few times, but most change threads
like a river pulling sediment toward an unseen dam,
blade-spun turbines revolving magnets within
copper coils, its electrons stirred by an invisible force.
Anyway, anyway, anyway
Anyway, anyway, anyway
We’ve tried to feed a million roots with concrete
from an empty pool. We’ve sailed above this
dusty womb winged by Bonapart’s gull and lost our way.
We’re here to refuse a poison future
and its shallow truth, to wash our faces
in wind that stirs the spent lake’s bloom,
to burn our eyes and open them anyway.
Anyway, anyway, anyway
Anyway, anyway, anyway
Where will you land, friend?
Are you fishing for today’s squall or yesterday’s
eternal spring, when goldeneye knit a seam
between white pockets of foam and black-necked
stilts flocked the shore. Are you willing to stand
on dawn-pink legs again, nimble as a flame
to burn your eyes and open them anyway?
Anyway, anyway, anyway
Anyway, anyway, anyway
We’ve tried to feed a million roots with concrete
from an empty pool, drained the salt-plump succulents and shade-
scale buds who claim we’re likewise spun.
We’ll live and die within this dusty womb,
animal, vegetable, and mineral
swirled into the same deep fund in any and all ways.
“Anyway” is a collaborative poem-song born from shared reverence for the Great Salt Lake and the tangled systems that sustain it. We wanted to explore how change unfolds: sometimes as revolution, sometimes as slow sedimentation, sometimes as forgetting. Musically, this piece weaves together guitar, ambient sound, and lyrical repetition to capture the convergence of ecology and the human voice. The lyrics draw on ancient origins and contemporary uncertainties, moving across eras and elements to reflect the shifting material and emotional terrain we inhabit. The refrain “anyway” becomes a kind of mantra—one part lament, one part incantation. By naming the form a poem-song we hoped to blur the lines between genres, much like the Great Salt Lake itself resists fixed categories. Ours is a collaboration of language and music, water and mudflat, anguish and beauty.
