Magpie - Song one

Lyrics:

Hold on strong, keep the venom and the coffee from your tongue,

Refrain, I’ve found the bitter words are the chaff amongst the grain.

The taste has gone how the whisky and the toffee rolled off my tongue,

So, pray to the water and the water shall sustain.

 

But it won’t be forever so don’t be forlorn,

All in good time the band shall strike up another song.

Don’t let their omens as a sure and binding design,

There’s no truth to their tales nor the old nursery rhymes,

Yet I still say; “good morning, Magpie”.

 

But small town streets where everyone’s a prophet and no one’s a priest,

Don’t confess your fears to the drunk nor too the weak.

Instead tread the line between the ghosts and the devils at closing time,

And wander alone pray our consternation will guide us home.

 

But it won’t be forever so don’t be forlorn,

All in good time the band shall strike up another song.

Don’t let their omens as a sure and binding design,

There’s no truth to their tales nor the old nursery rhymes,

Yet I still say; “good morning, Magpie”.

 

Never told a lie, no one listened hard enough to hear her reply.

I wonder still does that lake of a chance define the will.

But say; “you’re fine”, your bill will order the rain from the sky,

We’re wrapped in a riddle, but will the riddle just abstain.

But it won’t be forever so don’t be forlorn,

All in good time the band shall strike up another song.

Don’t let their omens as a sure and binding design,

There’s no truth to their tales nor the old nursery rhymes,

Yet I still say; “good morning, Magpie”.

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about

Magpie’s a strange song. I periodically get tired of writing alternating bass, or three finger style guitar pieces. When this happens, I invariably try to write something “modern” and jolly in a major key.

They never turnout sounding happy or modern.

Unlike most of my songs Magpie is set in a specific place, unsurprisingly a pub in Bridlington – whenever I play it I’m back in that bar, late on an October evening. For me the song is about frustration, and what you do with it, how it can sour you as a person. How to try overcome it.

I think the Magpie symbolises certain smalltown sentiments I seem to bring out in people:

“You might be book smart, but what do you know about real life?”

There are a great many people, young and old in my hometown, who will waste many hours of your life, talking at you departing their non-wisdom. This brings with it a certain condescension and lack of interest in my own world view, that oftentimes leaves me feeling small and irrelevant.

As I was taught to always turn the other cheek, I find myself siting and nodding, to their sage advice.

Of course, if this goes on long enough it can lead to a lonely, inverted arrogance; no body gets you because no one can.

I think what spurred this songs writing was being tarred with that same brush a few too many times. Finding myself departing my own pearls of non-wisdom and being made to feel just another condescending smalltown prophet. There are elements of anger in the song, being treated as a failure by both the people who grow out of this smalltown life and those who settled down into it, does seem a little rich from both parties.

Ultimately, there are bigger fish to fry in life than engaging the alcoholics that prop up the local bar, similarly impressing the young professionals that made it big down south doesn’t really serve a higher purpose.   

So, one must trend the line between the ghosts and the devils at closing time.