Song Lyrics

April's Lament      Sept 2009

Inspired by the song Frozen April by Philip Mills

We set off from earth in a cold sleep berth and dreamed of life to come
We’d find ourselves at our journey’s end with a distant different sun
And down we lay to sleep away the endless days and nights
To wake once more on a virgin shore with a thousand virgin sights.

So many slept while a few still kept a guard over our sleep
But something happened, I don’t know what, and we’re lost in the blackest deeps
The few awake knew that things were wrong, so they woke us to learn more
But we cannot tell why we’re going to hell, and I’m sick down to my core .

My dear old friend, you came to spend your days in guarding me
Though you’re ancient now, I can’t say how we’ll ever be set free
I can’t save you and I can’t save me and no one here knows why
There is no force that can change our course; there’s nothing left to try.

Instrumental

I wish I’d known ‘for I left my home what I know now that I’m here
Hopelessness was just a word, not something I could fear
When I see death’s face and feel his embrace I’ll give a happy happy sigh.
As I grow old in the cruel cold, how I wish you’d let me die.

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The Big One        Feb 2011

Metal detectors humming
Dragged across the ground
Checking all the strewn fields
Listening for a sound.

Search the earth wide over
For treasures large and small
Carbonaceous chondrites
Iron and nickel balls

Seeds from distant planets
Time travellers from space
Ancient impact craters
A faint magnetic trace

Cosmic stained glass window
Shades of olivine
Stardust’s oldest matter
Think of where they’ve been

Some day we’ll find the big one
A signal loud and strong
Still we’ll keep on digging
For meteorites not meteor wrongs.

Seeds from distant planets
Time travellers from space
Ancient impact craters
A faint magnetic trace
A faint magnetic trace
A faint magnetic trace

Board and Twine       June 2008

Tom's follower to his own Circles in the Grain

Well Cousin Bob and I, we loaded up the truck
With boards and beer and twine and lamps to light things up.
We headed down the road just as the sun went down
We thought we’d have some fun and bring attention to our town.

Chorus:
Circles in the grain don’t look up in the air
We’ll stomp those suckers down without any care.
Circles in the grain we’ll be famous in our town
When all our kin folk see all those circles on the ground.

We drove for thirteen miles in the dark late that night
Bob pointed to a field glowing in the blue moonlight
So we parked the truck, drank some beer and loaded up our things
And headed to the field that night to make concentric rings.

Chorus

We flopped our boards on to the ground tied up with binder twine
And walked around in circles while listening to John Prine.
The morning sun was rising as we pulled back into town
We laughted about the fun we’d had and those circles on the ground.

Chorus

Ma an’ Pa woke us with news they'd just heard
Something happened late last night it seemed quite absurd
Something had made circles it was marvelous to see!
But beer had had the best of us - we’d spelled out B  O  B!

Chorus x2

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Chosen      September 2009

I did not know that I was chosen
Only that my life was hell
Fallen from a former glory
Shamed and tortured as I fell

Bruised and bleeding I returned home
They saw my scars they thought they knew
Thought me evil, hateful lecher
Hated me but never knew

That the Goddess tests her creatures
To destruction and beyond.
Brings them back to suffer worse pain
Till they swear they can’t go on

But I did her every bidding
And I passed her every test
So she used me as her vessel
And I served her to my best

Was I lucky, was I honoured
That she chose me for her tool
If she needs another champion
She can choose another fool. 

Circles in the Grain         1992

Tom's first ever filk song

Mysterious circles that come from above
Might be a greeting from some celestial dove
Alien farmers in a strange unknown craft
Spinning and separating wheat from the chaff

Chorus

Circles in the grain going round and round
Nocturnal revolutions down on the ground
Circles in the grain lok up in the air
If you look tomorrow will they still be there

Turbulent forces from a dark starry sky
Tiny balls of wind from an atmospheric eye
Leaving their artwork for all those to see
A complex set of symbols on a grassy sea

Chorus

Instrumental break

Stonehenge stands in all it’s mystical glory
A circular design and never ending story
Perhaps its creators were once thought insane
When they worshipped all those circles in the grain

Chorus (2x)

Circles in the grain (3x)

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Out In the Darkness    Feb 2011

Space is dark and cold and empty
When you’re lost and all alone
I miss my friends, my home, my father
The points of light don’t point me home.

Sliding through the twisting passage
Like a leaf drawn down a drain
I felt elation at my journey
It was later that I felt the pain

   I’ve made friends out in the darkness
   Learned to trust them with my life
   Learned respect for those around me
   I could take one for my wife

We used to wonder was there life there
Out beyond the space we knew
Now I know, but I can’t tell them
That our wildest dreams were true

   I’ve made friends out in the darkness
   Learned to trust them with my life
   Learned respect for those around me
   I could take one for my wife

As I slip between the stars here
I will make this life my own
New worlds full of light and wonder
But how I long to go back home
I may never find my home.

Shepherd Moon    2006

“Shepherd Moon” - a satellite which constrains the extent of a planetary ring through gravitational forces.               

Shepherd moon
Like a watchdog round the flock
You guide the course
Of the rings forever changing
Shepherd moon
Shepherd moon
Shepherd moon

Sparkling rings
Bits of ice too vast to count.
A mystery
Where you came from why you stayed
Sparkling rings
Sparkling rings
Sparkling rings

We sent a tiny ship around
The dark side of the planet
To answer all our questions
But it found us even more.

Instrumental

Saturn calls
Beauty in the starlit heavens
We will come
To search for frozen clues
Saturn calls
Saturn calls
Saturn calls.

Shepherd moon
Like a watchdog round the flock
You guide the course
Of the rings forever changing
Shepherd moon
Shepherd moon
Shepherd moon

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