A Beautiful Aerialist Lyrics

So, I was performing in a variety show

Lots of strange, dysfunctional, and glamourous people

But of course, I get chatting to the very beautiful Aerialist

Now, it turns out they had been all over the world with their skills

They'd seen amazing things

They trained everyday

And they REALLY really knew how to enjoy the pain of conditioning

Which is… essentially beating up your body

So that you're ready to perform

It's a very handy skill, if you want…

Well if you wanna get anywhere really

That, kind of, ability to push through

And to practice

To pre-empt

Takes a lot of discipline

Our talk

Very swiftly turned to death, of all things

And all of the things that we had to do before we die

They had such an obsession with mortality

I didn't mind though

I love those conversations

Now I didn't know at the time but

They had some kind of medical condition

They didn't mention it much, but

The doctor once told them to stop dancing

To stop training physically…

That the demands of aerial were too overwhelming

And that it was going to shorten their life

I asked how much

And they told me between about

Twenty and thirty years

That's crazy… right?

Like, what do you do? Do you…

Do you find something else?

Do you just stop what you love

And learn to love something else?

Like, when I got injured

I fell in love with music

It took a while, but I did

Now the Aerialist, well…

By the time I'd got talking to them

At least, that night

It had been ten years since the diagnosis

That's ten YEARS of defiance

They refused the doctor's advice

Refused to let their condition define them

They weren't the condition

It's just something they lived with

And like, they're not stupid

They know full well that the aerial is killing them, but

Without it, at least…

In their opinion, by their standards

Without it, they couldn't live

You know, after this conversation

I told them the story of Deirdre and Naoise

There was something in their defiance

That reminded me of Deirdre

This kind of…

In the face of everything

In the face of helplessness

You still decide to do what you wanna do

You still maintain your freedom

You still forge your own path

This story made them cry, but

They thanked me after

So I guess it helped

Maybe… they needed to get something off their chest

Or… they needed to hear about another person

Who was as defiant as them and

They just felt that little bit less alone

I'm not really sure what it did for them

I never really got to speak to them again, but

I wonder what they're up to now