She or not

She or not

Program notes

Although it may not be immediately apparent, She or not is a love song. If that doesn’t seem obvious at first, it is because the song is nearly four hundred years old (it is actually Shakespeare Sonnet 109).

In those days, a lover sang a complaint to his loved one after an absence (whereto? why?): he wanted her to take him back. Almost four centuries later, he would like to come back again, but this time he has some difficulties remembering his poem, and is also far less articulate.
Fragments of the old text come back to his mind, sometimes even whole phrases. But his plea is rendered far less efficient by the mass of words which have been spoken, sung or otherwise uttered in the meantime (nearly four centuries!) by lovers in similar situations, and which seem to make his return somewhat suspicious: can he still be sincere, can his heart still be pure? He is all too aware of this, and it only increases his frustration...