“Since you went away I’ve been hanging around
I’ve been wondering why I’m feeling down
You went away, it should make me feel better
But I don’t know
How I’m gonna get through?“

©Tenant/Lowe/Willis, 1987 from the album “Actually”

Another one that has somehow come out of thin air and is still in its first iteration. I was starting to wonder, I must admit, whether the well had started to run dry or whether there was any more to come.

Strangely, until about 10 minutes ago, on a Sunday afternoon this had a working title of Dusty, having just watched a BBC4 documentary on the enigmatic singer. I guess it took just one line to fire off the imagination and unlock a whole lot of other lines that I’ve spent the last nine months collecting in my notebook from all my various sources, which I was beginning to think were going to end up being orphaned. Not so, apparently.

As such, there isnt a central theme or such yet. It has been a stream of consciousness kind of thing where it has come out in one go in about 15 minutes. I guess if anything binds it all together, it is that:

• your memory isnt always quite as clear and as precise as maybe you think it is and
• Regrets about what is gone (and should remain in the past) will gladly destroy you and all you remember if you give them half a chance.

Far better to do the right thing late, however late in the day than to never do it at all. Sometimes we need to hear things can make us quite uncomfortable. But we need to hear them, nonetheless because they are part of our path to finding our own personal wisdom.

It is a first draft though so it may yet continue to evolve. No idea where the music is going to come from. Not yet anyway. We shall see. The music will come when it is ready.

The Wishing Game

V1/
Don’t just cover your eyes
And think no one can see you
I love your love and affection
But I don’t know what to do with it
And what you think that you knew when
You’re brought face to face with the truth

V2/
The palest ink tells less lies
Than the clearest memory of you
I cant look anybody in the eye
When they ask me what happened to you
The words you speak are the house that I live in
Haunted by daylight and by stars and dreams of your truth

CH/
I thought that I knew you,
But I found in the end that I never knew you at all.
In the time that was left to slow it down
And give it a name to make it all go away down the long dark hall
I could have dreamed you so many other things
If I hadn’t always been oh so blind
To what we had for just a moment
And gave what kept us together a little more time

V3/
Time to stop this wishing game
If this life has taught me anything
Its to read between the lines
Between what you say and what you mean
Bad things don’t just happen to faceless names
In newspapers; they can happen to you and to me.

CH/

V4/
Just for one moment, I was with you again
Twenty one again, stars aligned
So many things never said so long ago
God, what took you so damned long,
Was it all just once upon a time,
Is that why I cant help but think I did you wrong?

M8/
What you give’s not always what you lose
What you see and say isn’t always what you do
The faith of a child is not a fire to be put out
Now how many more are you gonna treat like your own broken heart?

© Words & Music, Steve McCarthy-Hunt