Song Information

Many of the songs are love songs and need no explanation. Others are a bit more obscure, so the following notes may be of interest. (Click on a song title to be directed straight to info).

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
On the Edge of Your Memories
Talking Through The Rain
Now I Understand The Sorrow
Little Hinges
Dance Alone
Midsummer Common
The Train Now Standing

Note: Some of the contents of this page may be protected by copyright and where we have been unable to identify the copyright owners we have accredited the work to their authors, creators, owners. If copyright owners of any material on this site are not currently acknowledged as such, please let us know and we will update immediately.

Disclaimer: Lightning Bird Records Limited is not responsible for the content of external sites.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

This song was inspired by the title of Philip K Dick's chilling novel of the same name, about Jason Taverner, a world famous chat-show host with over 30,000,000 viewers, who wakes up one morning to find all trace of his identity has been wiped from the Earth's data banks.

Taverner is a Six, a genetically modified human created by top-secret government experiments forty years earlier, which resulted in a handful of exceptionally smart and beautiful people. Waking suddenly in a seedy hotel room, with no idea how he got there, and without identity papers, he realises he's a non-person in a fascist US police state. He's also smart enough to realise that staying a non-person will result in imminent death, or a very short life in a forced labour camp.

Through Taverner's quest to regain his identity and solve the riddle of an alternative universe where he doesn't exist, Dick deals with two themes which recur in much of his work - what is reality and what is it to be human?

What impressed me greatly was Dick's ability to write about the human condition with such insight. This becomes more understandable when we find that having been married several times himself - none of which relationships had a happy ending, he had "been there, done that, got the T-shirt " in terms of love and grief. Here is an extract from Chapter 11, which, with the last Chapter (27) is my favourite:

"Grief causes you to leave ourselves. You step outside your narrow little pelt. And you can't feel grief unless you're had love before it -grief is the final outcome of love, because it's love lost. You do understand; I know you do. But you just don't want to think about it. It's the cycle of love completed: to love, to lose, to feel grief, to leave, and then to love again. Jason, grief is awareness that you will have to be alone, and there is nothing beyond that because being alone is the ultimate final destiny of each individual living creature. That's what death is, the great loneliness. I remember once when I first smoked from a water pipe rather than a joint. It, the smoke, was cool, and I didn't realise how much I had inhaled. All of a sudden, I died. For a little instant, but several seconds long. The world, every sensation, including even the awareness of my own body, of even having a body, faded out. And it didn't leave me in isolation in the usual sense because when you're alone in the usual sense you still have sense data coming in even if it's from your own body. But even the darkness went away. Everything just ceased. Silence. Nothing. Alone."

Apart from Taverner, other characters who inhabit Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said include the dogged Inspector McNulty, and ruthless Police General Felix Buckman - who sees Taverner as the perfect fall guy for his police-government intrigues. It's Buckman however, who weeps on his way home at the end of the novel, and recalls the lute music from John Dowland's Second Lute Book of 1600, in which collection "Flow my tears" is the second piece.

And here I have to confess to a little anomaly. The very last chord in this song, the keyboard chord that swells and then fades at the end, was inspired by one of the closing scenes in Ridley Scott's movie 'Blade Runner', which itself is an adaptation of Philip K Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"? Remember the scene on the roof, in the dark and the rain, where Rutger Hauer's Roy, after saving his life, talks to Harrison Ford's Deckard? Remember how eloquent Roy's descriptions of off-world?

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die..."

Lost in time like tears in rain. Fantastic. And the story runs that Hauer came up with those lines just a few minutes before the scene was shot - they were not in the script, but Ridley Scott had the foresight to allow him some creative space. Nice one Ridley.

And remember how, as his head slumps forward onto his chest, and he dies, Roy releases the white bird into the dark heavens? For me, that was one of the most powerful and dramatic cinematic moments of all time. It was visual poetry, a perfect counterpoint to Roy's own poetry. The last chord in the song is to celebrate Roy's last 'breath'; his own flight into his own dark heaven, and his parting, very human, compassionate gift to Deckard - his very life. The white bird flies into the night, taking Roy's last breath with it, leaving Deckard with another chance to live and love another day. Replicant or not.

Afterwards Deckard says:

"I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments, he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life, my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die."

Links

Philip K Dick site
Chapter 11 of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
John Dowland website
Synopsis of Blade Runner
Blade Runner site
Rutger Hauer official site

On the Edge of Your Memories

In the north Dublin suburb of Artane on St Valentine's night 1981, forty-eight teenagers died in a fire at the Stardust Disco. There were allegations that many of the emergency fire exits had been chained shut and that there were iron bar grilles on the windows. The victims were mostly teenagers, 'New Romantics' charging headlong into the rest of their lives as they set out that night, unknowingly, for something quite different. I knew the Stardust. Although I had never been in it, I used to pass it on my way to school football. It was about a mile away from where I lived, in Coolock. The Stardust was the worst possible tragedy, which traumatised north Dublin and shocked the entire country. Most of the victims were local, from the Coolock, Bonnybrook, Artane, Kilmore and Donnycarney areas of north Dublin, and more tragically, some victims were from the same family. The morning after the tragedy I awoke to a rumpus downstairs. A girlfriend of my sister had been at the disco; suffering from smoke inhalation and at the point of collapse, she barely managed to crawl out of the inferno on her hands and knees. The Stardust Memorial Park is in Coolock, North Dublin.

I struggled for a long time to express what I felt about this tragedy, and only began to see a way when I read a poem by Dermot Bolger about the same subject, in his collection, 'No Waiting America', (Raven Arts Press, 1982). The poem starts: 'On the edge of peoples' memories...'

Those who died were not the only victims. They left behind grieving families and friends. And then there were the families and friends of those who survived, some injured, some not, but all damaged by the experience, and all of whom had the daunting challenge of trying to rebuild their own lives. The idea driving the song is a question: If those New Romantics could speak, now, what would they say?

The electric lead guitar is introduced at "release your anger", where Tim and I worked to get as close as possible to expressing that emotion with six guitar strings and a Marshall amp. As the song progressed, I worked with Simon to build the strings to a place where celebration and sorrow flow into each other. I say 'celebration' because the song is also a celebration of the lives that had been lived, an expression of gratitude and joy that they had been among us, if only for a short time. The last flurry of keys, set against a shortened riff, represents the untimely passing of those unforgotten Valentines, who will always be with us.

Links

A summary of what happened
The aftermath
Info on Dermot Bolger
More info on Dermot Bolger

Talking Through The Rain

On June 26, 1975, at Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, a gunfight broke out between two FBI agents and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM). AIM had been formed to protect the rights of Native American Indians who wanted to live their lives in the 'traditional' way and to pursue the rights guaranteed them by numerous government treaties. Additionally, oil and uranium ore had been discovered beneath the Pine Ridge Reservation, and the Federal government wanted to get hold of this land which had once thought to be worthless, and had been given (back) to the Indians. Indians of the old tradition however, believed the land to be sacred, and were opposed to giving it back to the government, at any price.

In the gunfight, the two FBI agents and a young Indian were killed. AIM members scattered and a manhunt began for the agents' killers. AIM security chief Leonard Peltier was later arrested, charged, and convicted of the murders of the FBI agents and has been in jail ever since. When Peltier was arrested, the FBI based part of their case against him on the account of a Lakota woman, Myrtle Poor Bear, who claimed she'd seen Peltier commit the murders. Later on, she changed her story, saying she had been coerced by FBI agents into identifying Peltier as the killer.

In 1983 renowned author Peter Matthiessen, (The Snow Leopard), published a book, 'In The Spirit of Crazy Horse', in which, as well as describing the persecution of native Americans by successive US governments, he wrote extensively about the Pine Ridge shoot-out, and came down squarely in favour of Peltier's innocence. (The book was not released until 1991 because of court actions taken by the former Governor of South Dakota). It was in 'Crazy Horse' that I first met Anna Mae Aquash, a Micmac (Mi'qmaw) Indian from Nova Scotia. I liked Anna. I was taken by her humanity. It therefore came as a shock when, late in the book, I discovered a person or persons unknown had murdered her. There were suggestions in the book that local Indian 'goons', in the employment of local law enforcement agencies may have killed her.

On February 24, 1976, a Lakota rancher found Anna's body while riding the perimeter of his property. The deterioration of her body indicated she had been dead for some time. She was initially taken to the Pine Ridge Public Health Service for autopsy, where cause of death was listed as exposure. Since no one could identify her, she was buried as a "Jane Doe" - an anonymous corpse. Her hands were cut off and sent to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, for possible fingerprint id, and a week later, she was identified. When her family was informed, they called for a second autopsy. On March 11, 1976, another post-mortem revealed a .32 calibre bullet hole at the base of Anna's skull. Her death was then officially designated a homicide.

That, I thought was the end of it; a disputed murder conviction (Peltier's) and an unsolved murder (Anna's). However, when I checked the Internet recently (2003), I was surprised to find there have been a number of disturbing allegations posted recently, suggesting that Anna may have been raped and murdered by own people - either by persons within AIM, or by persons who had the approval of AIM. The allegations suggest Anna was murdered either because she was suspected of being an informant and/or because of internal AIM rivalries and jealousies. Names have been named. People are in custody. After being allegedly raped, she was taken to the site of her execution where she asked for time to pray. Her executioners did not grant this one last request.

I've used the word 'allegations' in the above paragraph for obvious reasons. Nothing has been satisfactorily or finally proven yet. A government 'hit' or an internal execution? A combination of both? Who knows? There appears to have been so may attempts to manipulate the facts, so many lies and cover-up's, so much deceit that it is impossible to say what the truth will finally look like when it eventually finds us. But find us it will. And then perhaps, Anna's spirit can be free, and the Nation can move on. They say that to deny a truth is to give it irresistible power, and that may account for why, even after 27 years, there is still an incredible amount of interest and a growing cache of information available about Anna.

When I wrote this song I wrote it for Anna. Not for her cause or her beliefs. For her as a person. I wanted to say I sensed in her a quality that put her outside the scheming, ego-driven politics of the then AIM movement. A quality which allowed her to recognise these failings but carry on the crusade just the same. I wanted to acknowledge her existence on this Earth as a positive influence; to say she had more in common with the great Oglala Sioux leader, Crazy Horse (Tashunkewitko), than others who, with loud modesty, and well-rehearsed rhetoric, were/are pretenders to his eagle feathers. Anna at least, walked her talk. In Peter Matthiessen's 'Crazy Horse', one of the people who knew Anna said he still hears her voice - talking through the rain.

Check out the following links and make up your own mind.

Links

Comprehensive website dedicated to Anna
AIM site

Now I Understand The Sorrow

Late at night. The house is quiet. You're feeling mellow. You switch on the TV. Cruising for something easy. Instead, I came across a 1989 movie by Director Bruno Nuytten, starring Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardiue. Camille Claudel plunges you into a whole world of emotion. For me, the movie is a masterpiece, like Ridley Scott's Blade Runner or Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso. The acting is sublime - how Isabelle Adjani didn't get an Academy Award for Best Actress is beyond me. I have read criticism of her performance on some websites - all pretentious bullshit; criticism for the sake of it.

Robert Ebert, in his review of the movie for the Chicago Sun Times in 1990, (see links hereunder for full review), describes Camille thus:

"She is above all a lonely woman, because she chooses to do with her life what her society says no decent woman should do. She chooses to love who she will, and she wants to be an artist - to create sculptures out of clay, just as if she were a man. It is hard to say which of her choices is the most offensive. And when she goes mad, it is impossible to say whether the seeds of madness were there from the beginning, or whether she was driven to madness by a society that could not accept a woman who lived for herself.

Camille Claudel has until now occupied only the footnotes of late 19th century art. She was one of the mistresses of Auguste Rodin, the wilful sculptor who is known to everyone, if only for "The Thinker." She was often his model, and for a time she worked as his collaborator. She left behind many sculptures, which can be seen here or there, not much remarked, while Rodin's work has been enshrined in the pantheon. She spent the last 30 years of her life in a madhouse."

The movie suggests her father was the only member of her family who supported and demonstrated any real love for her. Ominously, after her relationship with Rodin ended we are told she began to neglect herself and showed signs of paranoia. An artist in her own right, but now abandoned and betrayed by the man who had been the mainstay of her emotional life for 10 years, she struggled to hold her own in a world of men. She struggled to be herself and live her life the way she chose. Then her father died. We are told that as her illness developed she would create her sculptures in a state of euphoria, and destroy them when depressed. An embarrassment to her family, her fate was sealed when her brother - the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, with his mother's support, had Camille committed to a lunatic asylum, where she remained confined for 30 years, until her death in 1943. She was not allowed to practise her art, and when the staff psychiatrists thought she has sufficiently recovered and wanted to release her into her family's custody, her mother absolutely refused to allow it.

Check out Camille Claudel: a Life by Odile Ayral-Clause or Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel (Pegasus Library) by J.A., gen Eisenwerth Schmoll at www.amazon.co.uk

Links

Some of Camille's work
More of Camille's work
Review of the Camille Claudel by Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times, 9 March, 1990
An essay with photos by Wendy Koenigsmann
National Museum Of Women In The Arts
Radio Netherlands

Little Hinges

I read about some people who saw the boys who eventually killed him, lead toddler Jamie Bolger to his death in Manchester in 1992. These people sensed something wasn't right about the toddler being with two older boys, and thought about saying something, but didn't.

In March 2001, the German trawler Hansa, sank near the Scottish Isle of Mull with a 16-man fishing crew. The last man rescued was Juan Jesus Caamano. Despite losing a liferaft and being buffeted by high winds, he held on to his brother-in-law in the icy waters of the Atlantic. He had clung to Victor Bretal Santos for 12 hours until the pain in his arms became unbearable, and he had to let him go. Five minutes later, a rescue helicopter arrived.

I read about a couple who had an argument at breakfast - shortly before he stepped onto one of the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

And here we are. The great unforgiven. Every day the same. We torment ourselves with thoughts of what if. What if we had said or done something? What if we had just said a word? Just made a gesture. And we carry these burdens because we have forgotten we are imperfect human beings; by our very nature we don't always do or say the right thing at the right time; we don't always make the right decisions. And for these 'sins', some people try to punish themselves by denying themselves a future, by locking themselves in a past that no longer serves them, or anybody else. And though no one has condemned them, they still condemn themselves.

One of the most spiritual pieces of writing I have ever read has, perhaps, an answer. It comes from Abel, the main character in W H Hudson's Green Mansions, and it comes at a time of his deepest anguish.

In those darkest days in the forest I had her as a visitor - a Rima of the mind, whose words when she spoke reflected my despair. Yet even then I was not entirely without hope. Heaven itself, she said, could not undo that which I had done; and she also said that if I forgave myself, Heaven would say no word, nor would she. That is my philosophy still: prayers, austerities, good works - they avail nothing, and there is no intercession, and outside of the soul there is no forgiveness in heaven or earth for sin. Nevertheless there is a way, which every soul can find out for itself-even the most rebellious, the most darkened with crime and tormented by remorse. In that way I have walked; and, self-forgiven and self-absolved, I know that if she were to return once more and appear to me - even here where her ashes are - I know that her divine eyes would no longer refuse to look into mine, since the sorrow which seemed eternal and would have slain me to see would not now be in them.

Little Hinges takes up the theme of self-forgiveness, and suggests that with just a little effort, a little self-forgiveness, we will come to realise that the heavy, closed doors of our guilt are hung on little hinges, and with just a push we can open them, and ourselves, to the world again. We will realise that although we are imperfect by nature, we can still make a contribution to the world, and indeed atone for any transgressions - real or imaginary, by choosing to forgive ourselves, first, and then move on to write the next chapter in the book of our own lives.

Dance Alone

A true story. At a party in London I saw a girl dancing alone to Madonna's Live to Tell. Her eyes were closed. Guys came up to her and threw some shapes, whispered in her ear, and she just smiled and danced away from them. Including yours truly.

Midsummer Common

This song was written for a girl I knew. We were driving to Cambridge. I hadn't been there before. Talking about the places we should visit, she said we could visit Midsummer Common. I loved the sound of those two words so much I kept repeating them, like an incantation. Later, we split up and I wanted to build a monument to her. This song is the closest I could get. I should also acknowledge that Oxford, and not Cambridge is the original city of 'dreaming spires'. Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Professor of Poetry at Balliol College, Oxford, first christened the 'dreaming spires' in 'Thrysis', his elegy for Arthur Hugh Clough, a close friend who had died in Italy. Cambridge nonetheless, has it's own dreaming spires. And it also has Midsummer Common.

The Train Now Standing

London, Liverpool Street Station. Passing through one evening, on the way back to Ipswich, I noticed a guy standing, looking at his watch. He held a bunch of flowers. A look of growing despair in his eyes. I don't know if she ever showed, but the song title came into my mind, and I worked it from there.

All songs © and publishing copyright