Steven Wilson - Staircase (performed by Primuz Chamber Orchestra)

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Check out the remarkable orchestral arrangement of Staircase by Wojtek Lemański, as performed by the Primuz Chamber Orchestra, I love this!

String Arrangement - Wojciech Lemański
Video made and edited - Antoni Lemański
performed by PRIMUZ CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Conductor - Łukasz Błaszczyk

Recorded in September 2024 at the studio of the University of Music in Łódź (POLAND)
Recording Engineer - Mateusz Muchewicz, Krzysztof Sztekmiler
Arranged, edited, mixed by Wojciech Lemański using original tracks from Steven Wilson's album.

1st violin: Dominika Sznajder-Janczewska - leader, Paulina Wiecha - manager, Agata Niewiadoma, Izabela Ignatowska, Jędrzej Lemański (improvisation), Julia Loska
2nd violin: Andżelika Chorzempa - leader, Daria Pacuda, Gabriela Graboń, Natalia Szymczyk
Viola: Magdalena Żurawska - leader, Bartosz Paradowski, Martyna Susek
Cello: Jakub Lemański - leader (improvisation), Miłosz Mirowski, Jakub Nowak
Double bass: Kamil Biadała

Staircase is a dark song about getting older in the modern world. The pressure to provide for a family, get on the property ladder, the need to compete with everyone else (or to be seem to be doing so), battling stress and illness, focussing on accumulation of wealth... all the things that society expects us to do. The pressure to “play the game”. But one day you find you're massively in debt, surrounded by things you don’t really need, your life being run by technology, being bombarded by content. And all with a deep seated sense of dread, as your life ticks away. Ascending (or descending) the staircase.

Lyrics:
Automaton drone
You're lost with no phone
And the home you made you own
Can never be paid for
The great in the small
The rise and the fall
And you come back for more

The need to belong
And the will to do no wrong
The ones that you lost
Abandoned or crossed
Will haunt you

Plagued by poor health
But you stockpile more wealth
Congratulate yourself
A sense of proportion
And act of extortion
There’s too much distortion

You sink in stages
As you’re approaching middle ages
You’re up to here in debt
Insidious tech
You’re up to your neck
Why don’t you give it a rest?

A train set
A cold war threat
A prison
A poison nest
A chrome cassette
Division
The blue and white
A power strike
A girl you like
The daylight fades
You feel your way
Daguerreotype

The power of nature
And the oppression of strangers
The consequence of dread
A barbarous brain
A dominant strain
You’ll never win this game