Composer: John MilneDetailsFormat: Mixed Choir - 4 voicesVoicing: SATBSolo Requirements: SAccompaniment: unaccompaniedNotation: standardPerformance Length: 4:56 Study Scores & Audio FilesStudy Score & Audio Order Printed ScoresOrder site / Alternate source of score: Consortio.io/JohnMilne Texts & TranslationsLanguage(s): EnglishText Source: John MilneText: VI: Every day I walk past the flower store, and I hear him sing through the open door Just a little bird with a funny crest , calling to his mate from his metal nest And the lonely song fills a winter sky where that caged bird will never fly Such a prisoner may have no choice, but no metal bars can hold his voice Chorus: It’s so sad to me, it’s so sad to me, of all the things that will never be It’s so sad to me, it’s so sad to me, but I can’t set the caged bird free Like a blinded man in a darkened room looking for a door he'll never find Or a single bird in a silver cage who never knew another of his kind V: Were it up to me, were it up to me, then I would set every captive free And though everyone might think it wrong, still I would sing my birdsong and the human race could fade and die, to leave behind an open sky, and all the generations pass that put God's creatures under glass or behind bars, or in some stall or to slaughterhouses send them all Chorus: Every day I walk past the flower store, and I hear him sing through the open door Such a prisoner may have no choice, but no metal bars can hold his voice Programming AidsPerformance Difficulty: difficultSeasonal Usage: SpringSummerDescriptive Terms: animal rightsAllow Excerpts: Composition is a single movement Additional InformationDate of Completion: April, 2015Date of First Performance: Tuesday, February 6, 2018Premier Performance Data: Festival Choir of Madison (Sergei Pavlov, cond), Madison Wisconsin Masonic AuditoriumAdditional Performances: The Pacific Edge Voices, spring of 2018, Berkeley CA and San Francisco, CA