1. |
Cherrington Road
04:33
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Cherrington Road
No child
when I’m gone
to pass on to her own
a kind of holding,
a kind of feeding,
a kind of whispering
bad dreams away.
No child to remember my smell,
to retell the tales
I had to tell,
so I write it all down
and I thread in a tune,
like a prisoner
scratching obscenities
on a prison wall
in futile rebellion,
and I rant within four walls
amidst the cacophony -
not to raise my voice
above the din -
just to join in.
I heard someone say
just the other day
on the radio,
or in a film,
or somewhere,
that when it comes to the end
all you’ve got
is where you came from.
A summer’s day 1968 or 9?
Sitting on a swing,
singing up to the sky,
spitting stars
and watching them fall and glisten on my thigh.
Gillian Dubber’s grandmother
is cleaning their upstairs windows,
she waves to me
a fat-armed, dusty wave.
In the kitchen
my mother boils potatoes,
hot potatoes on a hot summer’s day
for my father’s dinner,
we called it dinner
even though it was during the day.
He rides home on his bicycle
from the factory.
I run in and clamber on his knee,
he asks if we’ve been watching Andy Pandy and Loppy Loo on TV?
My mother tells him,
We’ve been dancing
in the kitchen
to our favourite song
by Engelbert Humperdinck.
Time to go.
He lets me ride as far as the curve in the road,
holding me tight
on the white
leather saddle,
then lifts me down and rides away
and I run back to my swing
and continue to sing,
“I love Jennifer Eccles,
I know she loves me.”
No child to remember my smell,
to retell the tales
I had to tell
so, I write it all down
and I thread in a tune,
like a prisoner
scratching obscenities
on a prison wall
in futile rebellion,
and I rant within four walls
amidst the cacophony -
not to raise my voice
above the din -
just to join in.
“I love Jennifer Eccles,
I know she loves me.
I love Jennifer Eccles,
I know she loves me.”
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2. |
Georgia Blue
03:54
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Georgia Blue
5 o’clock on a Wednesday evening.
Snow’s been falling hard, it’s freezing.
On platform 12 they queue,
like the English do,
but the mood’s turned black
just like the snow
at the side of the track.
They want to know
the reason for the train’s delay
but no one leaves,
they’re too afraid
they’ll lose their place.
Finally, someone comes with the news:
the driver’s gone without a trace,
without a clue.
My name is Joseph
but I can’t be your driver today.
Gonna put on my best dress,
my highest heels,
take my time with the face.
Do you know how good it feels?
Gonna paint this grey town red,
gonna paint these grey skies red.
Today was more than I could bear,
the rush, the cold, the dirty air,
the forming of that endless queue,
like the English do.
Today I just needed to recall
what it’s like to feel beautiful.
What it feels like to light up a room,
to take some glamour from the gloom
and fill the night with Georgia Blue.
Then feel in her wake
a calm descend
as her flower fades
and the music ends.
My name is Joseph
but I can’t be your driver today.
Gonna put on my best dress,
my highest heels,
take my time with the face.
Do you know how good it feels?
Gonna paint this grey town red,
gonna paint these grey skies red.
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3. |
Follow
03:50
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Follow
Pain all packed up in a rucksack,
I arrive at the airport.
You pick me up
and we drive to the mountains
to walk.
I say,
You lead,
I will follow –
just for one week
let me follow.
In a blue sky
we ride high
to the start.
Things I don’t need
I leave behind in the van.
And we walk.
White rock above
below green meadows,
not another soul
just a few rebeccos.
I steam ahead,
you still lead.
I follow,
angel mine.
You give time
to those that we meet on the way
a space to have their say:
the mother of the hotel owner,
she’d named Lover,
heats up coffee for me in her kitchen
as she tells you her news.
As the days unfold
and my story is told,
you listen,
you lead.
I follow,
angel mine.
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4. |
Traces
03:18
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Traces
You tell me
conspiratorially
about your latest affair,
with no mention or care
for her.
I find I’m the foil to avoid
your just-in-case date,
his clear distress you ignore,
as we walk through the door.
We can find
different places
to hide away our mistakes.
We can be blind
to the clues
to our truths.
Some wounds cut so deep,
they’ve got to dig their way down
till they find their ease to sleep.
But they leave scattered behind
tell-tale traces.
Arrogance sublime,
you suggest he’s more my kind.
I decline.
We can find
different places
to hide away our mistakes.
We can be blind
to the clues
to our truths.
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5. |
Bonnie
03:37
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Bonnie
Goodbye bonnie boy,
it’s time to go.
I can’t keep you
in my heart
when we are apart,
no memory of tender love
to hold me in the dark.
I have searched a lifetime
for your love
and I have longed a lifetime
not to feel
I have to leave.
You take my hand
in your hand
but you don’t hold tight.
You take my love
in the warm night
but you let it grow cold
in the daylight.
Goodbye bonnie boy,
it’s time to go.
I can’t keep you
in my heart
when we are apart,
no memory of tender love
to hold me in the dark.
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6. |
It Could Be
04:06
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It could be
He logs on
before he puts the kettle on,
just to see,
who’s been checking me?
He hopes there might be a message
to lighten the day?
Not this time,
but he’ll make the best of things anyway.
Oozes charm
as friends arrive arm in arm,
he serves up one of his specials.
He’s so understanding when friends don’t call,
he knows it gets harder for them to fit him in
when they’ve got kids.
To quote Frank,
regrets I’ve got a few,
maybe there’s been a little too
much of my way?
But I’ve got this far
and I’ve still got hair,
if you’re looking for love
as you walk down the aisle
of the supermarket?
Sunday morning shopping for one?
As you sip latte in Munson’s café with pain au chocolat?
It could be
sweet.
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7. |
Magic
02:59
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Magic
You tried
but it could never be
the love
that makes any space feel
home.
So did you throw it away?
Did you think it the only way?
You see each detail before you
with a clarity
only loss can bring.
Connection to the world
you no longer have
makes a conversation
with a child
or a stranger
into something precious,
something
like love.
Later.
Later.
Just when you think that good enough
really is good enough,
something fresh and new
comes.
Today
why not let a little magic happen?
Today
why push love away?
No need today
those games hurting has you play.
Today
why not let a little magic?
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8. |
Caravan Man
03:29
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Caravan Man
Solitary man
sitting by your caravan all day,
watching people passing through
or stopping for a longer stay.
Pulling up on the faded patch of grass opposite you,
pegging out their lives in tidy piles
the way that campers do.
You observe evening strolls,
dinner plates in plastic bowls
washed up in communal sinks
all lined up in a row.
A couple’s tensions rise,
you wave at their child
who blinks at you and smiles.
The woman with them tries to hide
private grief that swells inside.
Caravan man,
who are you waiting for?
What are you hoping for
sitting there
by your door?
Is it some lover
who promised to stop by
to renew acquaintances throughout the night?
Are you the favourite uncle
of some grande famille?
You never married
but you still enjoy la vie.
Caravan man,
who are you waiting for?
What are you hoping for
sitting there
by your door?
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9. |
When
03:53
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When
When the rain ceases to fall,
when the birds no longer call,
when the spring fails to return.
When the sun declines to shine,
when the stars decide to hide.
That’s when I’ll stop loving you.
That’s when there’ll be no more living to do.
When the tide curbs its rise,
when blue bows out from the skies,
when the moon dulls its glow.
When the flower shuns the light,
when the dawn draws out the night.
That’s when I’ll stop loving you.
That’s when there’ll be no more living to do.
This is a love song to you,
many years overdue,
it is all I can do.
This is a love song to you,
from a heart that is true,
it is all I can do
love.
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10. |
Paris Metro
04:38
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Paris Metro
Paris Metro
on a Sunday morning.
Two guys from South America
play trumpet and tuba
to tracks from a speaker,
strapped to the back
of a two-wheeled shopper.
Mexico City
two o’clock in the morning.
Traffic lights,
and the night
is lit up by flames of fire blown
from the mouth of a boy
while his friend
tries to clean
the taxi driver’s windscreen.
And there’s not a lot between us,
oh no, thin line.
Feels like I’ve been
travelling a lifetime.
Transit eternal.
Never going home.
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11. |
White Dots
03:20
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White Dots
White dots on my spectacles,
where the tears
have been caught
and dried,
as you talk.
I watch your face
as you tell me lies,
do you think
I can’t read
your eyes
as you talk?
In a hotel room
secretly you killed
whatever love lingered still.
Overlooking trees,
you freed
memory of me.
In a hotel room
you made new love
grow.
You don’t know
I know,
as you talk.
After all the pain
and all the tears,
a battle of wills
that has raged
for years.
We’re sitting in my car,
that is actually yours,
in the car park,
outside your work –
feels like I’m clinging to the kerb –
as you disregard our world.
Lying to my face
about your affair,
crying at the thought
of my leaving you there
in the house
meant to be
the start
of all our dreams.
If you’re right to say,
just get on with it now,
you’re not right to say
I don’t know how it feels
to be alone.
White dots on my spectacles,
where the tears
have been caught
and dried,
as you talk.
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Paula Wolfe London, UK
* * * * MOJO ‘exquisite’
‘sweetly addictive’
'glorious Brill Building-style chant, jazz drums and
lustrous strings'
‘flowing arrangements build and drive each track, leading us through a world of broken love, memory and magic realism’
‘a latter-day Carole King’ (Lucy O'Brien)
'super smart and keenly observant' (Velvet Sheep)
'That's Entertainment for the woke generation' (Travellers Tunes)
... more
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