Monologue of a Soul
The Tavern Sessions
Theatre Tavern
The Songs· Act I· Vultures of Sorrow and Phantoms of Life
Act I · VI

Vultures of Sorrow
and Phantoms of Life

Told close, by candlelight.
A candle under a glass dome on a dark tavern table, shadows of vultures and phantom figures on the walls, black feathers scattered.

Some people do not think they are cruel. That may be the most frightening part. They have reasons. Systems. Contracts. Rules. Targets. Policies. They can explain every hard thing they do until it starts to sound almost clean. Almost reasonable. Almost necessary. But somewhere under all that language, a human being is still being crushed.

This song is about people who have learned how not to feel that. The ones who can make money from another person’s collapse and still sleep at night. The ones who stand behind procedure while someone else loses their home, their breath, their dignity, their last piece of hope. The ones who call it business, responsibility, consequence, discipline, justice — anything except what it is.

A world turned upside down. A world where money sits higher than mercy. Where control is called strength. Where indifference is called professionalism. Where people build armor so thick they stop hearing the sound of another soul breaking.

Vultures of Sorrow and Phantoms of Life is not only about obvious monsters. It is about the ordinary ones. The polite ones. The efficient ones. The ones with clean hands and dead eyes. They are not alive in the full sense. They function. They collect. They feed. They move through the world like phantoms wearing human shapes.

And still, the song does not end with them. Because somewhere in that room, under all the dust and pressure and fear, there is still a flicker. Something human. Something they could not buy, break, or bill into silence.

That is the part that rises.
Not with revenge. With light.

Listen · Tavern Sessions
What this song is really about

This song is about people who have lost contact with their own humanity. Not because they were born evil, necessarily. Maybe they adapted. Maybe they hardened. Maybe they told themselves the same story so many times that eventually the story became a shell around them. But the result is the same. They can watch someone suffer and feel nothing useful. They can profit from desperation. They can turn pain into paperwork.

That is what makes them vultures. Not because they look frightening. Because they feed where something is already wounded. And that is what makes them phantoms of life. They are moving, speaking, earning, functioning — but something essential has gone missing. The part that recognizes another person as more than debt, weakness, failure, or opportunity.

The Tavern version brings this down to the table. No abstract evil. No grand demon. Just people in a broken world, explaining their cruelty so well that they no longer recognize it.

And against that, one small impossible thing remains: a soul that still refuses to become like them. A light that survives the room. We are light.

Lyrics
Verse I
Let me tell you what haunts the blackest of nights—
The ones with no mercy, no meaning, no right.
Vultures of sorrow, they circle the cries,
Phantoms of life with the coldest blue eyes.
They built their own prisons, forgot they could feel,
Traded grace for control, called illusion “real.”
No love, no light—just the echo of pain,
Feeding off shadows, again and again.
Pre-Chorus
But in silence, a spark starts to rise,
Cracks the steel in the soul they confined.
Chorus
And the vultures fall, the phantoms break—
Light cuts through what fear once made.
From the shadows, the soul takes flight,
Claiming back its birthright: light.
Let them crawl to the corners of night—
We weren’t born of fire, we were born of light.
Verse II
They smiled with no meaning, just echoes and dust,
Turned hearts into stone and love into rust.
Wandered the jungles of madness and lies,
Drunk on control, deaf to the cries.
But one storm-kissed morning—or a midnight unseen,
A flicker breaks in, fierce and clean.
Straight to the core, it tears down the lies—
That flicker’s a rebel, a blaze in disguise.
Pre-Chorus
And what was once chained starts to rise,
A soul reawakened with radiant light.
Chorus
Yeah, the vultures fall, the phantoms flee—
Truth dismantles their fantasy.
From the silence, we shine so bright,
Not with rage, but sacred light.
Let ’em fade in the echo of fright—
We are not fire. We are light.
Bridge
Raise your glow, little flicker of soul,
You were born to restore what they stole.
They can’t dim what was made to ignite—
You are healing. You are hope. You are light.
Final Chorus — Full Power
Now the vultures fall, and the phantoms flee,
Truth explodes through eternity.
From the ruins, we rise in grace—
Not to destroy, but to reclaim space.
Let the night remember this fight:
We are light. We are light. We. Are. Light.
Final Verse — Whispered, Stripped Back
And there—
In the stillness, in breath barely heard,
A second light flickers, no need for a word.
Two souls once broken, now softly ignite,
No longer alone—
They carry the night…
with light.
‹ Previous Ice of Love Next › Act II — coming soon
Within the Journey The close of Act I — the circling grief, and the light that survives the room. The same reckoning the Theatre raises into myth, here brought down to the table.
We are light.