"Here I am in the closet. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. I can't see it in the dark but I trace the tiny scratched writing with the ends of my fingers, as if it's a code in Braille. It sounds in my head now less like a prayer, more like a command; but to do what? Useless to me in any case, an ancient hieroglyph to which the key's been lost. Why did she write it, why did she bother? There's no way out of here."
- Excerpt from "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
The screenshots below are from episode 4, season 1 of the Hulu series, which, along with the book passage, inspired the song.
Here's a rough cut of the song:
The thematic material for this whole song series is dark, of course. I don't expect anyone is going to turn on the car radio and hear one of these songs on Mix 98.1 FM. But this song is the darkest yet, with the ominous repetitive piano part and the whole ceiling fan bit in the lyrics. Dacey told me we should not play it if there are children around. Truth. It probably wouldn't go over too well most places we play.
Lyrics:
I was lying on the closet floor
With my face toward the wall
Contemplating how to end it
When I noticed the scrawl
Someone had been here before
Someone had gotten a knife
And etched letters in the wall
I traced them with my fingers
But I didn't understand at all
It said "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum."
It said "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum."
It seemed like a message from the other side
It seemed like a sign that I should stay alive
It made me want to live for another day
If only to find out what she was trying to say
When she said, "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum."
"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum."
Later I found out
What the message said
And I also found out
That they found her dead
They found her hanging from a ceiling fan
She couldn't take it any more
Not one more single day
But before she left
She had one last thing to say:
"Don't let the bastards grind you down."
"Don't let the bastards grind you down!"
It seemed like a message from the other side
It seemed like a sign that I should stay alive
It made me want to live for another day
If only to live out what she was trying to say
She left me a message from the other side
Saying, "Hang on girl you gotta stay alive
You've still got a lot of living to do
Don't let what happened to me, happen to you, no
Don't let the bastards grind you down!
Don't let the bastards grind you down!
Don't let the bastards grind you down!
Don't let those bastards grind you down."