Lunacy Album

In 1990, Sparky and Greg released an album of Pagan a cappella music named after their band, Lunacy.

Track List

She’s Been Waiting
I Am Here
Come Brothers Come
Demeter’s Song
Boys Burned Too
The Moon Song
Barge of Heaven
Aphrodite’s Song
Purple God
Drumming & Whistling
Kali Ma
Round & Round

Listen and download anywhere you listen to music.

The Moon Song

Liner Notes

A Voice was Following Me

Missouri, 1986. There I was, strolling down a path at Cam Pin Oak in the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks State Park. It was a mild summer night at the Midwest Men’s Festival; I was singing “The Moon Song” as I ambled (track #6 on this album) — and I gradually realized there was someone I couldn’t see down the road behind me, singing along. Remarkably quick, whoever he was; this had to be the first time he was hearing the song. The voice got closer and closer. Eventually he caught up with me, but neither of us stopped; we just kept on walking, now side by side, and singing. We arrived at the dining hall, the song came to its end, and we introduced ourselves. That’s how I met Greg Johnson, the other half of Lunacy.

Greg and I became fast friends, held together by a love of music, witchcraft, and faggotry. We became a band at the next MMF in 1987, while singing together in a communal cabin shower with our friend Beal Stafford. (The answer to your question is: because the big cabin showers had great reverb.) (Oh, and wet, naked men.) We later gave our first public concert at that same festival – outside the shower this time – and continued performing at various gatherings for the next few years.

Then in February 1989, at a weekend intensive with Starhawk where I’d agreed to sing, I was given a long list of attendees who wanted my music on tape – and were willing to pay for it. I decided then and there to tell Greg it was time for us to record that album we’d been talking about. I arrived home to find a letter from Greg saying it was time for us to record that album we’d been talking about. Ah, the ways of Wyrd.

Singing in the Darkness

This album was originally recorded and released back in 1990. Our second effort, Hand of Desire, came out in 1992 both were released as cassettes. It’s taken a very, very long time for them to be made into CDs, but here they are at last – hooray!

I must thank four men in particular for their help with this project; it would not have happened without them: Dave VanDerKamp, who remastered the original DAT recordings into CD format, and did many other things (that I don’t know the names of) to make the music sound as good as it does; and Keith Ward, who generously contributed his wonderful artistic sense and prodigious skills to the new look of both recordings. They are true magicians. Thanks is also due to Steven Posch, who answered each and every one of my grammar and composition questions with patience and grace; and finally, huge thanks to my husband, Ray Bayley, who showed me how to use his Mac – over and over and over and over again.

Greg and I went our separate ways a few years after making our second recording together. He has my undying gratitude for his astounding talent and contributions to this treasure. I’m very glad it’s still around to be shared with new generations.

Enjoy the music!

Sparky T. Rabbit for Lunacy

She's Been Waiting

(2:51)
© 1979 Paula Walowitz, used by permission
Bridge © 1990 Lunacy
Greg: vocals, Sparky: vocals

I first heard Paula sing this classic Pagan tune at a farewell performance for her and “Surrender Dorothy” in a dim Chicago bar in the early ‘80s. I knew right away that I wanted to learn it, and she sang it into my tape recorder a few weeks later.

Our cover of this song is a great example of Lunacy’s key modus operandi; we played around with other people’s melodies and lyrics a lot. (The entire bridge “To remember/Her shining face,” for example, is Lunacy’s composition, appearing nowhere in the original song.) So if you’re looking for a song performed as written, you’ll have to check out the songwriter’s own work. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Lunacy’s interpretation of these songs.

I am Here

(3:48)
© 1987 Greg Johnson
Greg: vocals, Sparky: vocals

Come, Brothers, Come

(3:48)
© 1987 Greg Johnson
Greg: vocals, Sparky: vocals

We were chanting each other’s names one night at a Pagan men’s group in Madison, Wisconsin, and out came a catchy little tune. Not wanting it to simply fade away as a one-time improvisation, I tucked it into my pocket for later, then tinkered around with it until this song appeared.

Demeter's Song

(2:30)
© 1979 Starhawk, used by permission
Greg: vocal, whistling

We were gathered around a blazing bonfire at Circle Farm in Wisconsin, on a chilly June evening in 1981. The next morning we would all be heading out to the first Pagan Spirit Gathering. During the ebb and flow of the ritual that night, Starhawk sang this song. I fell in love with it on the spot.

Boys Burned Too

(5:54)
© 1988 Sparky T. Rabbit
Greg: vocals, Sparky: vocals

Greg and Bert and I were standing around in their kitchen, talking about the Burning Times, and one of us said, “It wasn’t just women; the boys burned too.” The air vibrated around us in the silence that followed. It was 1988. Every gay man knew at least one other gay man who had been lost to the plague. It’s amazing we were able to record this, considering all the tears.

In his book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture (Boston: Fag Rag Books, 1978), Arthur Evans relates the apocryphal tale of gay men laid as kindling at the feet of women being burned as witches (hence faggot = queer). This is a powerful mythic re-framing, but historically doubtful; what is true is that gay men were also executed by both church and state for the unpardonable crime of witchcraft.

The Moon Song

(5:41)
© 1983 Sparky T. Rabbit
Greg: vocals, Sparky: vocals

A powerful image in the chorus of this song surprises – and even shocks – some folks. A women’s bookstore in Witchita, Kansas, once refused to play this tune in their shop, concerned, they said, about its effect on children. I’m happy to report that they changed their minds once they started getting lots of customer requests for it. Today Witch-ita, tomorrow the world!

Barge of Heaven

(4:08)
© 1987 Starhawk, used by permission
Words adapted by Starhawk from Sumerian text
(trans. T. Jacobson, D. Wolkstein & S.N. Kramer)
Music by Starhawk
Greg: vocals, Sparky: vocals

Ya gotta love polytheism. These lyrics come from an ancient sacred text, “The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi,” in which praises are sung to the goddess’ vulva and a demigod’s erection, conflating their arousal with the abundance of the land. Imagine the last 2000 years of history if all holy writ had been filled with such images.

Aphrodite's Song

(2:48)
© 1984 Ray Bayley & Sparky T. Rabbit
Words from “Pervigilium Veneris” (trans. Coventry Patmore) and adapted by Sparky T. Rabbit from “The Charge” by Doreen Valiente
Music by Ray Bayley & Sparky T. Rabbit
Additional percussion tracks recorded at VanDerKamp Studios 1999
(Thanks to Twisted River Witches for clapping along)
Sparky: vocals, rattle, shaker, claves

“Cras amet qui numquam amavit,
Quique amavit cras amet.”

[“Let those who love now who never loved;
Let those who have loved love again.”]

From “Pervigillium Veneris,” attributed to the early 4th century poet Tiberianuss
Translated by Coventry Patmore (1823-1896)

“No other law but love I know,
By naught but love may I be known;
And all that liveth is my own,
From me they come, to me they go.”

from the version of “The Charge” by Doreen Valiente (1922-1999)

Purple God

Who are the gods that speak to gay men? Did our ancestors pour out libations to them? Have they recently come into being, called to the world by Radical Faeries and other queer men? Or have they always been here, waiting for us to remember, now waking from their long slumber?

Drumming & Whistling

Greg has a special knack for improvisational whistling (as well as singing), so we figured, “Why not record a session?”

Kali Ma

(5:12)
© 1982 Sparky T. Rabbit
Vocal sampling engineered by Greg Mackender at City Spark Studios 1990
Additional vocal track recorded at VanDerKamp Studios 2008
Greg: drone, vocals. Sparky: vocals

In the fall of 2009 at a Pagan festival, which shall remain nameless, a presenter (likewise nameless) was giving a workshop on Tantra. He told his audience that the goddess Kali was neither all sexuality nor all death, but also a mother figure. As an example, he sang what he called “the ancient hymn to Mother Kali,” which turned out to be the chorus of this song – which I’d written in 1982. A good friend of mine happened to be there, and he certainly knew better, yet didn’t bother to correct the presenter. He understood that once your songs become “ancient and traditional” in the Pagan community, you’ve really made it – bless his wicked heart.

Round and Round

This chant came to me in the middle of a ritual at Reclaiming’s Vancouver Witch Camp in 1989; and let me tell you, any ritual that gives you a new song automatically qualifies as a great rite in my black book.