Vol. 3

Give Me Wine, Give Me Wine — the repeated demand in the kharabat tradition, wine as both literal drink and figure for the intoxication of genuine spiritual and emotional life.

The loneliest man on earth — with you, a song of certainty; without you, a dry leaf of sorrowful autumn. From white jasmine to fallen leaf: the change that the beloved's absence accomplishes.

What futility — I ran a lifetime in hope and love of you but heard no answer. You were a mirage. I no longer love you — go quickly from my side.

Your fragrance still rises from my bed — the bed disturbed, giving your scent yet empty; from you I have only one wish: let me have another night, be with me another night.

My Unfaithful Love Has Made Me Sad — the naming of betrayal as the simple, central fact. Among the most emotionally direct statements of grief in his catalog.

Dark Nights — one of his most haunting golden-era recordings, the image of oppressive darkness carrying both personal and, in retrospect, political resonance in the Afghanistan of the 1970s.

Tonight with the Tale of My Heart — a song that frames itself as a story, the heart's condition given narrative form. The night as the appropriate time for telling what the day cannot contain.