Fall of the Prince

1. Prologue [darkly]
  Cm               Db
A tune for him who once was called
      Cm        Bbm
  the Planetary Prince.
    Cm                Db
The way he turned his back on love
        Cm      Bb      Cm
  still makes immortals wince.

      Cm               Db
Three hundred thousand years he served
    Eb      Gm Bb Db
  uplifting human kind
      Cm         Db
Until Prince Caligastia
  {Eb   Fm E  Eb  D  Db  Cm   }
  {fell    victim to his mind.}

2. The story
    Cm          Db
The city of Dalamatia,
          Eb      Gm   Bb  Cm
  long forgotten, dead and cold,
      Cm                 Db
Which should be standing yet today,
       Eb      Gm  Bb   Db
  five hundred thousand old
  Cm              Db
Began the grand decline and fall
       Eb  Gm Bb    Cm
  with Daligastia's nod
   Cm                   Db
To teach the Prince was all-supreme,
  {Eb   Fm E Eb D Db    Cm  }
  {that    Caligastia's God.}

/ Fall of the Prince, page 2 of 4

3.
Cm             Db
.. Then came a great division.
  Eb        Gm Bb Cm
  Doctrines misconstrued
  Cm               Db
Deprived the rebel sixty of
    Eb     Gm Bb  Db
  immortal spirit-food.
[brighter]
Em7b5            Fm
Forty brave were led by Van
  Gbm7b5        Gm
  Steadfast and true
Eb
Many human followers
       F
  kept loyal and faithful too.
[sorrowful]
Eb-Db Cm             Db
      Forty thousand midway creatures
  Eb      Db
  So many cherubim
Cm               Db       Eb
Fell from glory, as did many
  Fm E  Eb  D  Db Cm
     loving seraphim
  Cm
     (O, lovely seraphim!)

4. [darkly]
Cm           Db
.. Confusion perpetrated
  Eb               Gm Bb Db
  brought the city under seige.
  Cm       Db
Defense preoccupied
      Cm                   Bbm
  all those who hailed the Prince as leige.

    F                Bbm
The gods were driven out by men
      Cm7b5            Bbm
  and northwardly took flight.
    F                Bbm
The house of our All-Father fell
     Fm E    Eb D    Db  Fm7b5
  to    Nog, of fire and light.

/ Fall of the Prince, page 3 of 4

5.
    Dm7b5         Cm
One hundred sixty-two years later
  Cm7b5        Bbm
  came a tidal wave
Cm7b5            Bbm           
Brick and timber broke ..  and 
  F               Bbm
  flowed into its wat'ry grave

     Dm7b5               Cm
Like all such schemes of ego,
      Cm7b5             Bbm
  the Prince's plan was fated
   Cm7b5             Bbm
to have almost every vestige of
  F   E    Eb D Db C B
  his plan obliterated.
  Bb A Ab G Gb F E Eb D Db Cm

6. Epilogue [hopefully]
  Em7b5               Fm
Although the Prince's sins destroyed
  Gbm7b5         Gm
  all he did for men
      Abm7b5
We'll someday build
     Am
  an age more Light
       Fm
   and Livelier
     Ab
     than
       Bb
       back
         Csus3
         then.....
Fm E Eb D Db
C  B Bb A Ab
G Gb F  E Eb
Db Eb C

Fall of the Prince -- First publication on the web ©1996 Dec 14. Published on mindfulwebworks.com 2007 Apr 30. Originally composed around the summer of 1974, I think, in my rental house on 35th Place, Tulsa. That was the summer the tornado went down 36th Street. Laura's mother used to live there, and my landlord Marv still owes me for tiling the shower. Oh yeah, the song. Well, what can I say? I was younger then, and could write things like "wat'ry" and make some rhymes I don't think I'd ever use today. Like the few other ballads I've written, this seemed to write itself; then I was stuck with trying to tweak a few unpolished phrases. Twenty-three Thirty-three years later, it's pretty much as I originally found it.

The descending series of chords at the end of some of those verses, and the turnaround-to-ascending bit I put at the very end will make sense of all those basic chord notations once I get a sound file of some sort posted. Something to look forward to, eh?

Characters and story of this song are taken from The Urantia Book, originally copyrighted by the Urantia Foundation, Chicago, Illinois. They didn't give me permission to publish it, and I didn't ask (see my personal introduction, Regarding The Urantia Book). Read the story in the original in Urantia Paper 66, The Planetary Prince of Urantia, and Urantia Paper 67, The Planetary Rebellion.