I was listening to a recent album – Doctor Moan – by one of my musical heroes, Peter Case. It’s great, as always, but unusual in that a lot of the songs are piano based, rather than guitar.
It led me to sit down at the piano, and just mess around with some chord changes, and pretty soon I had a song.
I wrote the song back in January and started this blog post then, but didn’t get it finished. So I’m using some time I have now to finish off some of the things I was working on.
The first line – ‘There are so many stories that should never be told’ – came from something I heard, or read somewhere. I must get into the habit of making a note of where these initial ideas come from …
But that first line got me thinking about the horror of the situation in Gaza, and most of the rest of the words just came in a stream as I was out walking one day in January.
I also had remembered (and noted!) some words from the film ‘The Magnificent Seven.’ The quote that I took from the film comes right at the end of the film, after the seven have helped to rid the village of Calvera and his men.
‘Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You are like the wind, blowing across the land and… passing on. Vaya con Dios.”
The Reaper (Working title)
There are so many stories that should never be told
Of lives that were broken, that never got old.
Their choices were cut down
They’re buried or they’re burned
Swarming all over the land
Stripping the fields of grain
And everything you see that grows,
All that grows
For now the Reaper has won
The earth receives her own
Watered by the tears that flow,
The tears that flow
And only the strongest wind
Helps them be rid of the curse
They are like the wind that blows,
The wind that blows
And the graveyards are filled with the people so bold
The women and men and the children now cold (repeat x4)
And I do believe in the milk of human kindness,
But sometimes it seems to run dry
I do believe that there must be hope somewhere
And I will keep looking for the signs
Is it true that one small light
Is all the light we need
To banish all the dark away, the dark away ?
© Jonathan Evans. January 2024
Five Short Words 