On this beautiful, soft, autumn day, I am thankful for the recent rain we have had – just one day of it, and not a lot, but the dust storms are over and new grass peeping through.
As you know, music is one of my greatest loves, and for the last couple of days, I have been discovering some new. I have been following a young American singer/songwriter since he was thirteen. Jack Barksdale, now seventeen, is releasing a new album tomorrow – ‘Martyrs.’ I can’t wait to hear it. He is an old soul, a thinker, a poet. His lyrics speak of too much pain for a young person.
When I was in my thirties, I played guitar and wrote songs. I was influenced by the female folk singers of the time – Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Carole King. I have a pile of my songs from that time. Perhaps I’ll share the lyrics of one with you here. I guess my songs were all poems to music.
(If you’re reading this on your phone, turn it sideways for my intended format).
Twilight and tea
Calm touching me
Drink deep of winter’s last wine
Streams murmur song
Spring births the sun
Distant fields slumber deep as the seas
Valley is still
Night drinks her fill
Sunset blends colours while scars gently heal
Dinner at nine
Steeple bells chime
Candlelight dances for free
Toes touching toes
Peace spreads her robe
around memories and coffee and cheese
Chatter is small
Night voices call
Warm winds and new leaves sing preludes to dawn
Table is cleared
Spring never feared summer
only the girl in the sand
Shoes on the hearth
Lights out to Brahms
Midnight smiles
Whispering eyes wake the stars
White light is born
Woe’s garment torn
Demons are buried and spring no more mourned
What I have always appreciated most in my favourite songs is the melody, and the beat. I guess when I was growing up, song lyrics were fairly shallow. However, with Bob Dylan and songs like ‘The Times They Are a-Changing,’ singers became messengers of revelation, social comment, sometimes despair and sometimes hope. Some songs have generous stories to them. One of the greatest is Harry Chapin’s ‘A Better Place To Be’ – a song about loneliness. For men who lead an itinerant life – working away from home for long periods, the song may touch a nerve. If you can, listen to this poignant story.
I heard Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ yesterday. A song whose lyrics read like a sad letter to a loved one who has gone away in search of a different/better life. Perhaps a brother. Perhaps pertinent to Mr. Cohen, or may be fiction. It doesn’t matter. Artists, writers usually draw from their own lives one way or another. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember someone I knew singing this. Maybe someone from my old folk-singing group many years ago. It’s one thing to listen to music and feel deeply that which was intended, and equally to sing it with that emotion.
I came across a cover of ‘A Million Dreams’ – a song from the movie ‘The Greatest Showman’ – about PT Barnum of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. This beautiful version was sung by Cloudy Davey – someone I know personally and who lives in our Valley. She gigs here regularly and it made me think that we must sit awhile and listen, and appreciate anew her beautiful voice.
I’ll finish today, with another of my songs from the seventies –
A maid with daisies in her hair
and skylight in her eyes of blue
went searching for a bed to lie
in wider worlds that she once knew
She knew no peace or comfort
while the blind still begged for bread
but when every eye was opened wide
her bonding chains were shed
She met a boy where kids swam free
and asked him why the water sang
He showed her how the pebbles moved
and yielded to the river’s hand
She met a hippy tried and true
whose robe and hair and eyes were wild
His freedom song fell short of truth
He knew no friend nor hearth nor child
She saw a city colder than
the place within her seeking light
It shouted lies from brazen signs
and killed a blind man’s hope for sight
She found a place where she could see
a pathway through the mire above
She closed her eyes and travelled far
till grew a universal love
If you’re not into music, this blog may have held little interest for you, but the next one should be different, exciting. It will probably be written from a small vessel on the Midi Canal in the south of France.
Thought my overseas travelling days were over, but my lovely man has buckets of dreams.
Take care,
Warmly,
Sue
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