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Joan Baez - The Magic Wood (Lyrics) [HD]

2,557 views · Published 23 March 2018 · 2:29 · Indexed 25 October 2026

Channel: Gary Larson · 2018 · People & Blogs

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Joan Baez sings 'The Magic Wood'. This song from a poem written by British poet Henry Treece was first on her 1968 Vanguard album 'Baptism: A Journey Through Our Time'. The song lyrics are in the video and listed below along with some notes from Wikipedia.

[CD/Lyrics/21-Images]

The Magic Wood

Singer - Joan Baez

[Chorus]
The wood is full of shining eyes
The wood is full of creeping feet
The wood is full of tiny cries
You must not go to the wood at night

I met a man with eyes of glass
And the fingers curled with a wriggling worm 
And hair all red with rotting leaves
And a stick that hissed like a summer snake

[Chorus]

He sang me a song in backwards words
And drew me a dragon in the air 
I saw his teeth through the back of its head
And a rat's eyes winking from his hair

[Chorus]

He made me a penny out of a stone
And showed me the way to catch a lark
With a straw and a nut and a whispered word
A penny with a ginger wrapped up in a leaf

[Chorus]

He asked me my name and where I lived
I told him a name from my book of tales
He asked me to come with him into the wood
And dance with the kings from under the hills

[Chorus]

But I saw that his eyes were turning to fire
And I watched the nails grow on his wriggling hand
And I said my prayers all out in a rush
And found myself safe on my father's lap

[Chorus]

Songwriter: Henry Treece

[Lyrics transcribed by Gary Larson]

Wikipedia states:

Baptism: A Journey Through Our Time was a 1968 album of poetry spoken and sung by Joan Baez. Peter Schickele (of P. D. Q. Bach fame) did the orchestration, as he did on 1967's Joan. The album was released during a time when many folk, pop and rock artists were experimenting with mixing their music with classical orchestration (e.g. The Beatles, Judy Collins, The Rolling Stones).

Henry Treece (22 December 1911 – 10 June 1966) was a British poet and writer who also worked as a teacher and editor. He wrote a range of works but is mostly remembered as a writer of children's historical novels.

Treece was born in Wednesbury, Staffordshire. After graduating from the University of Birmingham in 1933, he went into teaching with his first placement being at Tynemouth School In 1939 he married Mary Woodman and settled in Lincolnshire as a teacher at Barton-upon-Humber Grammar School. Their son, Richard Treece, became a musician with Help Yourself and other rock bands.

He published five volumes of poetry: 38 Poems (London: Fortune Press, 1940), then by Faber & Faber; Invitation and Warning 1942; The Black Seasons 1945; The Haunted Garden 1947; and The Exiles 1952. He appeared in the 1949 The New British Poets: an anthology edited by Kenneth Rexroth; but from 1952 with The Dark Island he devoted himself to fiction. His best known are his juvenile historical novels, particularly those set in the Viking age, although he also wrote some adult historical novels. Many of his novels are set in transitional periods in history,  where more primitive societies are forced to face modernization, e.g. the end of the Viking period, or the Roman conquest of Britain.

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