Playing Rapunzel

London-based duo Playing Rapunzel (Mich Sampson and Marilisa Valtazanou) started singing together in 2005, and have since performed in settings including a castle, a 12th century chapel, a shopping mall, a Georgian mansion, and more parks, hotels, village halls and pubs than you can shake a stick at. Harmony singing is the band’s main feature; in addition, Mich plays the piano and talks a lot, while Marilisa plays any instrument she can get her hands on and giggles a lot at what Mich is saying.

Playing Rapunzel perform professionally as a folk duo, sneakily introducing filk songs to unsuspecting audiences (Oh! You want us to play at a *book* festival! Now, if only we knew any songs about books...) They have also played at filkcons in four different countries, and were International Guests of Honour at Consonance in 2009.

Playing Rapunzel’s first album, Abseiling for Beginners, was released in February 2009.

Representative Work for the 2011 Pegasus. Note- this is NOT a song nominated for the 2011 Pegasus Awards.

Nine hundred and ninety nine

Words © by Marilisa Valtazanou
Music © by Mich Sampson
All rights reserved
Used by permission

Nine hundred and ninety nine nights
Forty two turns of the moon
I knew then that one night the well would run dry
I know now that night will come soon

Nine hundred and ninety nine nights
Tonight, and tomorrow, and then
I'll see the moon rise for the third and last time
As my spool of tales comes to its end.

Only three left, and there's power in threes:
In the stories I tell, there's never a doubt
That the third one is different, the third one has magic
But what will I do, where will I be
What will become of me when the stories run out?

Nine hundred and ninety nine nights
Three summers, three springs and two falls
The long endless nights of three frozen winters
And those were the hardest of all

Nine hundred and ninety nine nights
Too spellbound to touch me at first
I told him the tale of the faithful young daughter
Who knew that her marriage was cursed.

(Chorus)

Three hundred and five when my firstborn arrived
That night was the tale of the morning star rising at dawn
Six hundred and twenty – my second son came
I told of the tale of the moon ever chasing the sun
Nine hundred and seven – the smallest of three
That night came the noble adventures of three brothers brave
He sleeps at my breast, but there's power in threes
And who knows what this third one might save?

Nine hundred and ninety nine nights
The fear with each story's last breath
Was this tale as good as the ones gone before it –
Enough still to keep me from death?

Nine hundred and ninety nine nights
Three silver coins left still to spend
The last one's the tale of the girl who told stories
And who knows how this one will end?