Thou Art My Life
About this chant
The words and music of this chant were written by Rabindranath Tagore. This is a familiar chant of medium length with a wide vocal range. It has a 6/8 feel, though in Cosmic Chants it is written in 3/4. “Thou” is a pickup and “art” is beat 1. The book also prints alternate melodies (p. 25); most of those are little used, because if people aren’t familiar with them they can sound like a mistake. The one common alternate is on the A section—“Thou art my life…”—where the optional variation can be done naturally alongside the standard melody.
Song Form
A Thou art my life, Thou art my love, Thou art the sweetness which I do seek. x2
B In the thought by my love brought, In the thought by my love brought I taste Thy Name, so sweet, so sweet.
C Devotee knows how sweet You are. x2
D He knows, whom You let know. x2
Notes
Written in 3/4 in Cosmic Chants, felt as 6/8. “Thou” is a quarter-note pickup into beat 1 on “art.” A is 8 bars sung x2, B is 14 bars, and C and D are 4 bars each sung x2, so the length of the form is 46 bars in 3/4.
A nice section to repeat is A, alternating between the standard melody and the optional variation for “Thou art my life…” (Cosmic Chants p. 25).
A nice subsection to repeat is to finish out the chant, then jump back to C (“Devotee knows how sweet You are”) instead of returning to the beginning, and finish out the chant from there.
A good place to end is repeating the A section—“Thou art my life, Thou art my love, Thou art the sweetness which I do seek”—until it ends.
Listen to SRF Recordings
Videos on YouTube
Audio Recordings
Thou Art My Life (Bro. Kamalananda), from the album The Ocean of Love
Spotify · Apple Music · TidalThou Art My Life (Sr. Ishwari), from the album Light the Lamp of Thy Love
Spotify · Apple Music · Tidal
Details
Rhythm
In-time chants in 3/4 time signature ("triplet" feel, 6/8 with pulse on beats 1 & 4)
Difficulty
3 / 5
Tamboura Key
A (A, E)