The Incredible String Band



The Incredible String Band

Maybe Someday

by Mike Heron

Maybe someday she will come, come along long

maybe someday she will come along

Maybe someday she will come, come along long

maybe someday she will come along

Sitting here with my arms around my music

Thinking of the girl that I might spend the whole of my days with

Until then I will do the best that I can

And any fine young girl that I might meet

'That I could use, keep my eye on.

Mother tried the very best that she could do,

That was no good, the one she chose

Didn’t like the way her teeth grew.

One fine day I took a walk down by the river,

Fair maid did lie and she did sigh

As I stooped down to kiss her.

note : could it be “that I could choose”?

October Song

by Robin Williamson

I'll sing you this October song,

Oh, there is no song before it.

The words and tune are none of my own,

for my joys and sorrows bore it.

Beside the sea the brambly briars

In the still of evening,

Birds fly out behind the sun,

and with them I'll leaving.

The fallen leaves that jewel the ground,

They know the art of dying,

And leave with joy their glad gold hearts,

In the scarlet shadows lying.

When hunger calls my footsteps home,

The morning follows after,

I swim the seas within my mind,

And the pine-trees laugh green laughter.

I used to search for happiness,

And I used to follow pleasure,

But I found a door behind my mind,

And that's the greatest treasure.

For rulers like to lay down laws,

And rebels like to break them,

And the poor priests like to walk in chains,

And God likes to forsake them.

I met a man whose name was Time,

And he said, "I must be going”

But just how long ago that was,

I have no way of knowing.

Sometimes I want to murder time,

Sometimes when my heart's aching,

But mostly I just stroll along,

The path that he is taking.

Version : bloomsbury 2000

Version : Live at Bloomsbury 1997

Version : Songs for the Calendarium (Robin)

When the Music Starts To Play

by Mike Heron

All my life and it's been a short one;

I've met the happy and the sad together.

I chased the soft warm air that flew before me,

And through the storm on wings of love,

the song of life bore me.

And when the music starts to play let me be around, (I said)

When the music starts to play let me be around.

Oh, can't you see how my heart soars high,

When I hear that music.

When the music starts to play let me be around.

When sadness lays his cold fist on my shoulder,

And pushes me in icy waters drowning,

The gentle hand of music lifts me smiling,

And through these sounds my heart takes bounds,

I happy am.

Womankind

by Robin Williamson

I sing for love of womankind,

I have one in my heart and mind,

Lo, my heart aches for her.

My soul swims naked in her streams,

And in her meadows lies to dream,

Hey, what need to waken.

Her breasts blow blossom in my hands,

Her eyes shine moons on secret lands,

As through my clouds her raven thoughts go flying.

Space nearly parts and nearly joins,

Love's magic song moans through her loins,

Well hey, the league-long sweets of loving.

May she glow always in her sun,

have nothing lost and nothing won,

Oh, now what fear can chain her?

Oh blessed is he who joys and grieves

Who wears the coat the rainbow weaves

Lo, around his body.

Tree

By Mike Heron

I had a tree in the dream hills where my childhood lay

and I'd go there in the wide long days

and my tree would listen to all that I'd say

and the sun was shining brightly and the sky was smiling

then one day when the world had put me in its tomb

and my life was just an empty room

I went to my tree and I sat there in my gloom

and the light was fading dimly and the sky was crying

then my tree bent its branches low down to the ground

and its green leaves shrouded up my mind

and I left the world somewhere behind

and I did not know what I would find

and the sun was shining brightly and the sky was smiling

Version : Liquid Acrobat As Regards the Air

Dandelion Blues

by Robin Williamson

You meet a girl, she moves soft eyes and pulls you in the game.

Perhaps you do not wonder her reasons or her name.

You'll follow her on out the room, how sweet her body flows,

Say take it easy, make it lazy, that's the way to go.

Do believe it's easy, do believe it's easy,

Do believe it's easy don't even have to try.

You may lip your flute or pick your strings to hear the music grow,

Maybe you'll stand by a while, it all comes through you so,

Just maybe you will hit magic sounds that call you to your heart,

And gently you will follow down and view yourself a part

Do believe it's easy, do believe it's easy,

Do believe it's easy don't even have to try.

If when the moon's a toothy smile you meet a whirling wind,

Whirls you clear to nowhere and forgets where you came in,

There is no call to worry, or be sorry that you came,

You may laze along there for a space, oh buddy and then come back to your name.

Do believe it's easy, do believe it's easy,

Do believe it's easy don't even have to try.

Now, if your man gets busted and you hope to go his bail,

Suppose you cannot borrow money, you may go to borrow the mail,

Yes, if your man gets busted and you hope to go his fine,

You may laze along to the judge's house, sweet woman, and set it on the line.

Empty Pocket Blues

By Clive Palmer

My pocket's empty baby, singing the blues for you.

My pocket's empty baby, you know I loved you true.

Even my old kettle is whistling the blues for you...

Back again, I'm still willing, (to go)

Back again, with you...

The nights are lonely baby, I need you all the time.

I'm lonely baby, need your lips on mine.

Even my old kettle is whistling the blues for you...

Version : Across the Airwaves

version : nebulous nearnesses

Version : Just Like the Ivy (Robin and Clive)

Oh, Lord How Happy I Am

by Mike Heron

Oh, Lord how happy I am,

Oh, Lord how happy I am,

I won't feel sad 'till the whiskey's gone.

Oh, Lord how happy I am.

Oh, when I met my first woman,

you know, she was nice and kind as can be.

Now she go walking out all over town,

and she do just what she please.

Well, if she thinks I'm sitting here

An' I'm waiting for her to come home,

She wanna come a little closer to me right now,

and I'll tell you how happy I am.

Now, a whole lot of women in this world,

They making trouble for all you men;

They're strutting around all over town,

And then walking back home again;

Well, if you think that she's got you down,

And she's started to count to ten,

Just look at her with one eye closed,

And sing to her again.

version : nebulous nearnesses

Smoke Shovelling Song

by Robin Williamson

Last winter blew so cold no lies,

And my fire smoke would not rise;

Soon as the smoke tried to depart,

It'd be froze up harder than a landlord's heart.

I called up the police and they came around

Three days later and very brought down.

The sergeant he gave me this hysterical croak.

Says, "What do you think you have going here, some kind of joke?"

(of course I wasn't laughing)

He says, "You're causing us officers so much grief,

Why don't you give us some relief?

Why don't you call the fire brigade?

Or maybe why don't you try shovelling the smoke up the chimney with a spade."

I borrowed a spade from the woman next door,

And I broke up the smoke that remained on the floor,

I was shovelling away, 'till the closing day singing a smoke-shovelling song.

After working so hard I went out to my yard,

And I looked up to my chimney so long, (there was nothing to see there)

Just a thousand foot high, way into the sky,

Was a pillar of smoke full of song.

There was an airplane stuck in it,

but I didn't notice at first it was so cunningly disguised as a dragon.

Came the summer at last, though it was rainy and fast,

The pillar it melted away,

The airplane fell with a big smoky smell,

And echoing around all over the town,

Was the words of the smoke shovelling song.

And anyone telling a bigger story would have to be telling a lie,

And anyone think a bigger one up,

Have to be very high.

Can't Keep Me Here

by Mike Heron

I'm going way over the wide skyline

And I'll sing and be happy

And you can't keep me here no how.

And I'll sing and be happy

And my world is my own

And I'll do what I want to

And you can't keep me here no how.

Hey baby, don't cry for me

Hey baby, when the sun comes up I'll be free.

Good As Gone

by Robin Williamson

A strange thought just crossed my mind paid the rains back in kind.

‘Twas the thought of sweet May coming on.

The days are running so slow, my heart is aching to go,

and my feet surely itch for the road.

Oh the long hot summer.

Oh now the summer long.

Things I must do places to see,

Things I must do, I've nothing now to hold me here,

And I'll take the southward road.

I have been tied to this land since the day I was planned,

By the need to feed my body and my mind;

Look can you work 'till you're grey, waste your whole life away;

What security then do you find?

I don't have no one to cheat, don't have no one to beat,

I just need some room to uncurl,

I don't have no aim in view, just some dreams to pursue,

As I wallow around in the world.

Version : Songs for the Calendarium (Robin)

Footsteps of the Heron

by Mike Heron

One day as I sat in a big noisy crowd,

There was me and the whole of my conscience.

And I thought that I wouldn't be missed if I went,

and that my going would be of no importance.

And I've nothing to do and I've nowhere to go;

I'm not in the slightest way upset.

I'm not chasing a hope, or a dream or a plan;

And I'm not even chasing the sunset.

The pussycat laughed and he followed me down,

As we walked through the crowds without motion;

He said he would stay, but he ran clean away,

I just laughed at his lack of devotion.

I met this fink, tried to buy me a drink,

And he says, I don't care 'bout no money."

I said, "Neither do I, but I'd buy you a guy,

If I thought you were trying to get funny."

This man I did meet, spoke to me through his feet,

And he said, "I don't care either 'bout no money."

I said, "Neither do I but I buy wings to fly,

'Cause without them the sun ain't so sunny."

Everything's Fine Right Now

by Mike Heron

Who's that knocking on my door?

Can't see no-one right now.

Got my baby here by me,

can't stop, no, no, not now.

Oh, come a little closer to my breast,

I'll tell you that you're the one I really love the best,

and you don't have to worry about any of the rest,

'cause everything's fine right now.

And you don't have to talk and you don't have to sing,

You don’t have to do nothing at all;

Just lie around and do as you please, you don't have far to fall.

Oh, come a little closer to my breast,

I'll tell you that you're the one I really love the best,

and you don't have to worry about any of the rest,

'cause everything's fine right now.

Oh, my, my, it looks kind of dark.

Looks like the night's rolled on.

Best thing you do is just lie here by me, of course only just until the dawn.

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

version : nebulous nearnesses

Version : Live at Bloomsbury 1997

The Chelsea Sessions 1967

Lover Man

by Mike Heron

Baby come tell me 'bout your tree-house

And your candy-striped pet mouse

And your car that has feet

Hey come tell me 'bout your eyebrows that meet

And my baby won't you tell me 'bout your chilblains

And your right eyeball's growing pains

And your purple tractor that sings

Hey come tell me all of those things

But if you want to tell me some more

Think you can

Oh babe tell me 'bout your lover man

You know I'm talking 'bout him

He's one that's strutting around

Each time I get out of town

You know the one that I mean

He's one that's stealing my scene away

Baby I'm talking 'bout him

Oh baby won't you tell me 'bout your black rose

And the garden where your love grows

Among the cabbages and beans

Hey come tell me why your primroses are green

But if you want to tell me some more

Think you can

Oh babe tell me 'bout your lover man

You know I'm talking 'bout him

He's one that's strutting around

Each time I get out of town

You know the one that I mean

He's one that's stealing my scene away

Baby I'm talking 'bout him

He's one that's stealing my cream away

Baby I'm talking 'bout him

Talking 'bout your lover man

Talking 'bout him

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Born In Your Town

by Robin Williamson

Born in your town on this young morning

oh certainly I have good luck coming

sadly sadly have I mourned making heavy my burden

such toils to entwine me

no more to endure them

A lover is to me she is my companion

six strings at my hand to the morning I tuned them

oh warm room I have and a warm place for sleeping

black coffee to waken me

no more to be dreaming

The wings of the albatross long since I saw him

the hair of the goats as they walk to the island

in the hands of the watchers a page is turned over

and the echoes flow on rippling on

on the face of the river

What would I wish for if wishing were having

in the streets of your town I see nothing worth stealing

for autumn speaks leaves to the lost deeps forever

and the clouds echo on echoing on

on the face of the river

Alice is a Long Time Gone

by Robin Williamson

White rabbit smile, white rabbit smile

cry not so loud my lover frowns

I'm a grown up lady from London town

Yet ever more he sang his sad song-

sweet Alice is a long time gone

Oh Alice is gone, gone

Alice is gone, gone

sweet Alice is a long time gone

she was pretty, oh yes

with her flaxen hair, her eyes so fair

her sweet voice and her snow white dress

Oh Alice is gone, gone

Alice is gone, gone

sweet Alice is a long time gone

It's seven long years

since last I seen your face

no-one in Wonderland

could take your place

but when I see you again

that sets me back apace

sweet Alice is a long time gone

I would exchange my coat of fur

if time would turn or waters burn

I'd wish you back the way you were

Oh Alice is gone, gone

Alice is gone, gone

sweet Alice is a long time gone.

LIST : GROWING UP

See Your Face and I Know You

by Robin Williamson

I sit down in the Underground trying to be gay

see the wild grass turn just into hay

I see the magic movement but they don't fly away

bad karma and it ricochets my eye

bad karma round me

the asp and the ashed and the infant of flame

Murgatroyd and Doris and the leper-leaping lame

the sad and the giggly and the black-suit swain

I see your face and know you

Easy as lightning I've laughed in the leaves

and I'd feel like Ali Baba when he quit the forty thieves

I can cruel no more so you cause me to grieve

I see your face and know you

I don't dig hating and I don't like to try

but how can I love you when you want me to die

oh Lord, live and learn

I see your face and know you

I wish I was springtime green as the snow

I'd sprinkle me with growing dust green for to grow

I'd leave here running 'cause walking's too slow

I see your face and know you

oh watch how the light comes new each day

if you learn how to wonder you will know how to pray

oh Lord, live and learn

I see your face and know you.

Frutch

by Mike Heron

Now I met me a girl and her name was Frutch

And she liked dirt and me very much

She said if she'd met me during the war

And she found me hiding underneath the door

Even if she was German and I was Dutch

She wouldn't shoot me

She was a fine girl, Frutch

Shot me last Tuesday

Now I met me a girl and her name was Scrot

She kept a notebook with many a jot

About how to turn a banknote into a cat

And many such things just as useful as that

But I told her she wouldn't dig it if she turned

into a piece of gunshot

She didn't listen

She was a fine girl, Scrot

I got her right here in my shoulder now

thanks to Frutch

Now I met me a girl and her name was Blit

And she bought a do-it-yourself submarine kit

She tried it in the bath and it went down the plug

And she was inside it, she was making it chug

When she found there wasn't no place at all for

her to sit

She didn't worry none

She was a fine girl, Blit

She was still standing when she passed Norroway

for the fourth time

Now I met me a girl and her name was Twing

She looked like a yoyo without a string

She rolled up and down like a solid hoop

Right round the block and right through the soup

And right through the stew and the chicken stuffing

She was a fine girl, Twing

She was a good cook as cooks go...she went!

Now I met me a girl and her name was Plof

She had a car with a nasty cough

She fed it with aspirins and vitamin pills

Lotions and potions for to cure all ills

'Til you couldn't see the car for three miles of froth

Big Claimsville

She was a fine girl, Plof

Car don't cough no more

Just sits in the garage all day long

And screams for the doctor

Hypochondriac!

God Dog

by Robin Williamson

This dog is no puppy dog, she's strange as the trees

she's brown as the mountain and white as the breeze

she walks on the water without any boots

her eyes are as fine as the music of flutes

but she will not sweep chimneys nor will she pluck corn

but she is the best little dog that ever was born

I have lain in the womb of the rocks cold and chill

while she speaks in my heart with the voice of the hill

and when I am risen and ready to run

she will laugh without laughter to welcome the sun

but she will not learn language nor will she bear scorn

but she is the best little dog that ever was born

The water god offered me the ring of his rings

to buy the dog from me to teach she poor kings

the ring's on my finger the dog runs behind

since watery palaces would ne'er suit her mind

but as yet she can't fly well nor play on the horn

still she is the best little dog that ever was born.

The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion

Chinese White

by Mike Heron

The bent twig of darkness grows the petals of the morning;

It shows to them the birds singinggjust behind the dawning.

Come dip into the cloud cream lapping;

I can't keep my hand on the plough because it's dying.

But I will lay me down with my arms round a rainbow,

And I will lay me down to dream.

Oh, will your magic Christmas tree be shining

Gently all around?

Climbing up these figures the sun is tugging at my shoulder.

And, every step I take I think my feet are getting older.

I see the crystal dreams unfolding,

I can't keep my eyes on the book because it's mouldering.

But I will lay me down with my arms round a rainbow,

And I will lay me down to dream.

Oh, will your magic Christmas tree be shining

Gently all around?

version : nebulous nearnesses

No Sleep Blues

by Robin Williamson

Cracks rack the windows,

Howls hold the floor;

Rains rot the rafters,

And do you just have to snore?

It's a most inclement climate,

for the season of the night,

Is that mouse playing football, oh

I thought they didn't like the light?

And the dawn comes sneaking up when it thinks I'm not looking;

I’m starting to grieve, man,

I used to know but now I’m believin’.

They tell me sleep is a gas,

and if I want to lay down,

But I'm sorry I woke you,

I mean I've got the no sleep blues.

There's mayhem in this mansion,

Since the cows were coming home,

With delirium no sleepum,

In a cloud of nylon foam.

But release scours the outhouse,

When a hard rain sears the sky,

But if you let the pigs decide it,

They will put you in the sty.

I think I'll get a picture,

And I think I'll put it on a nail.

I think I'll get another one,

And put it in a pail.

But the pail got so rusty

I called it red, red, red for fun,

And it left like a leaver

till you ought to seen it run.

The size of the future declared itself no part,

Aloof like a Sultan in the autumn of your heart,

But the heart got so hearty,

that it pulled for the shore,

And the sailors fired a big salute,

and it made my ears quite sore.

I mixed stones and water

just to see what it would do.

And the water it got stoney,

and the stones got watery too.

So I mixed my feet with water

just to see what could be seen,

And the water it got dirty,

and the feet they got quite clean.

Additional verses on early Balmore version :

When you meet a dragon

don’t put him in a stew

Just treat him politely

And he’ll see what he will do

When the dragon answered

He didn’t have too much to say

He’s just burned down a couple of towns

Follow me boys, that’s the way

The lock mends the locksmith

Oh but there’s a big lorry going by

Its dulcet intonations

Make a wild soliloquy

Just then I had to leave for London

I felt like going right away

Travelled much faster than the speed of light

And even got there the previous day

Painting Box

by Mike Heron

When the morning of your eyes comes waking through my shadows

Leaving just a trace of twilight sleep,

I whisper to the baby raindrops playing on my window,

And tell them gently this is not the time that they should weep.

For somewhere in my mind there is a painting box,

I have every colour there it's true.

Just lately when I look inside my painting box,

I seem to pick the colours of you.

My Friday evening's footsteps plodding dully through this black town,

Are far away now from the world that I'm in.

My eyes are listening to some sounds that I think just might be springtime,

With daffodils between my toes I'm laughing at the wind

The purple sail above me catches all the strength of summer.

Fishes stop and ask me where I am bound.

I smile and shake my head and say my little ship is sinking,

But I kind of like the sea that I'm on, and I don't mind if I do drown.

version : nebulous nearnesses

Version : where the mystics swim (Mike)

The Mad Hatter's Song

by Robin Williamson

Oh seekers of spring how could you not find contentment

In a time of riddling reasons in this land of the blind

By the joke of fate alone it's sure that as the loved hand leaves you,

You clutch for the slip-stream, the realness to find

But do what you like, do what you like, do what you like,

do what you like, do what you like, do what you can,

do what you can, live till you die my poor little man.

For Jesus will stretch out his hand no more.

But in the south there's many a waving tree

Oh would that musky finger move your pain;

In the warm south winds the lost flowers bloom again.

And if you cried, you know you'd fill a lake with tears,

Still wouldn't turn back the years,

Since the city has took you,

Mad Hatter’s on my mind.

So sad, sad to see the way it grew

Those other people that I knew

That have either fell or faltered

Mad Hatter’s on my mind.

And you must have to see clear some time.

Prometheus the problem child, still juggling with his brains

Gives his limping leopard's visions to the miser in his veins.

Within the ruined factories the normal so insane

As he sets the sky beneath his heel and learns away the pain.

But I am the archer, the lover of laughter,

and mine is the arrowed flight.

I am the archer, and my eyes yearn after the unsullied sight.

Born of the dark waters of the daughters of night,

Dancing without movement after the clear light.

O Perithean fate be kind in the rumbling and trundling rickshaw of time.

Hooked by the heart to the kingfisher's line,

I will set my one eye for the shores of the blind.

****

Note : Additional line from Chelsea Sessions version (after “normal so insane”):

saying gods are indigestions, I come for gain

Little Cloud

by Mike Heron

How sweet to be a cloud, floating in the blue.

Lying awake, late the other night

Heard above me a trembling,

I looked up, it was a little cloud,

From which a gold string was dangling;

You know, I gave the string a little pull,

Just to see what was on the other end.

Just then a voice came down to me, says,

"Hey, now, don't you want to be my friend,

And float with me to distant lands,

wondrous and fair;

Float with me to distant lands wondrous and fair?

You see I'm just a happy little cloud,

I laugh and float and sing my song,

But the other clouds don't like me none.

They say I am behaving very wrong.

You see a cloud’s supposed to be sad,

To cry and weep and tear its hair and all,

And don't matter how hard I try,

I can't get the first little tear to fall."

And float with me to distant lands, wondrous and fair;

Float with me to distant lands, wondrous and fair;

I said, "Hey, I like you little cloud,

You are a nice little fellow, yes."

"You making some, kind of a joke?", said the cloud,

"Now can't you see I'm wearing such a pretty dress?

You see I am the prettiest little chick cloud

That you'd find anywhere up above.

I just dropped in on you awhile

To see if you could give me some kind of love."

And float with me to distant lands, wondrous and fair;

Float with me to distant lands wondrous and fair;

Just then the chief cloud come into view

And says, "Hey, girl, now what you think you're doing there?

I told you so many times before

You just don't seem at all to care.

You know you should be floating up above, now

Don't let me catch you down here again."

And as my cloud pulled out of view,

There come failing down a gentle shower of rain.

Happy rain come failing down,

Red, green, blue and golden.

And every drop, as it fell, it smiled

And, throwing back its head, began singing,

"Oh float with me to distant lands, wondrous and fair;

Float with me to distant lands, wondrous and fair."

The Eyes of Fate

by Robin Williamson

Oh, who can see in the eyes of fate?

All life alone in its chronic patterns.

Oh, swan, let me fly you

To the land of no winds blowing.

I know nothing, and know that I know nothing;

All is in the eye, and in its blinks of seeing.

So just like the morning

The ghost of the following day.

Listen: Ory, cry, cry.....

Rear the rollers wild and stormy

Echoes wholly only lonely long beforey, ory ory.

All rivalry and opinion still cast their wild spells.

Effort and contrariness change the directions of time.

The lion still growls in your hollowness.

Please let's be easy, please let's be friends.

Watching and learning like small children.

Till out of the morning is growing the strength of the day.

Listen: ory, ory, ory.....

Rear the rollers wild and stormy

Echoes wholly only lonely long beforey, ory, ory.

Servant of fame or fame for a servant,

You see what you see, you see seldom what is.

Servant of fate or fate for a servant,

You see what you see, you see seldom what is.

Servant of fate, ohhhhhh.

Blues for the Muse

by Robin Williamson

I wake up in the early when I see my day walk in;

I wake up in the early when I start to begin.

I drink up my coffee to drive dreams away,

And I think about leaving but remain for the day.

Oh glory but I just stay blind,

Think about my loving, yes, some of the time

I want to be easy, ain't it hard like they say,

But I can play

And most any morning, most any morning

I like to be born into my guitar day.

They say it's all butterflies,

Don't let your dreams get in your eyes,

But Orpheus made the sunrise,

'Cause he knew how to play.

She sings so fadey,

Called the sweet guitar lady.

She's a noted rider, I just can't seem to let her be.

And she is my flower, I call her my easy hour.

She's a low special, baby that's enough for me.

And it's all right, you're in the graveyard now.

Well it's all right, you're in the graveyard now.

You may weep, you may moan,

You may pass your life so gay,

But lucky in life, I swear sometimes,

Surely going to have to reach your leaving day.

Well, she sings like the seashore,

Tonight I don’t ride on your seesaw.

I will call up the angels if they have a little word to say,

And I think I'll try cloudwalking.

It's just my face you see here talking,

And it's just the guitar singing,

And I have to let her have her way.

***

Additional verse from Chelsea Sessions version:

I got my sorrows felt, I got my sorrows felt

I will reach for my lady

and I swear she's sure to blow the blues away

and it's rain in the ocean, rain in the ocean

and stones on the mountain

and just like I say I'm just the string striker

I ain't no prizefighter, it's easy to play

The Hedgehog's Song

by Mike Heron

I'm not the kind to complain

That I never had a girl to love.

Many a fine girl I tried hard to know,

But I think I never tried enough.

Sitting one day by myself,

And I'm thinking, "What could be wrong?"

When this funny little Hedgehog comes running up to me,

And it starts up to sing me this song.

Oh, you know all the words, and you sung all the notes,

But you never quite learned the song she sung

I can tell by the sadness in your eyes,

That you never quite learned the song.

Every day when the sun go down,

And the evening is so very still,

Many a fine girl I've held in my arms,

And I hope there's many more that I will,

But just when everything is going fine,

And absolutely nothing is wrong,

This funny little Hedgehog's always around

And every time he wants to sing me this song.

Oh, you know all the words, and you sung all the notes,

But you never quite learned the song she sung

I can tell by the sadness in your eyes,

That you never quite learned the song.

One day when the moon was full I thought I might settle down,

Found myself a pretty little girl,

And I stopped all my running around;

But just when the preacher come along,

And he's just gonna pop on the ring,

This funny little Hedgehog comes

running down the aisle,

And I don't have to tell you what he did sing.

I'm not the kind to complain

That I never had a girl to love;

Many fine girls I've tried hard to know,

But I think I never tried enough.

But now I'll be looking all my days,

And it isn't just me I got to please,

There's this funny little Hedgehog

Who's always around,

And the only words he ever sings to me are these.

Oh, you know all the words and you sung all the notes,

But you never quite learned the song she sung

I can tell by the sadness in your eyes,

That you never quite learned the song.

version : nebulous nearnesses

First Girl I Loved

by Robin Williamson

First girl I loved,

Time has come I will sing you

this sad goodbye song,

When I was seventeen, I used to know you.

Well, I haven't seen you, now, since many is the short year,

And the last time I seen you, you said you'd joined the

Church of Jesus.

But me, I remember your long red hair falling in our faces

As I kissed you.

Well, I want you to know, we just had to grow;

I want you to know, I just had to go.

And you're probably married now, house and car and all,

And you turned into a grownup, female, stranger.

And if I was lying near you now,

I probably wouldn't be here at all.

Well, we parted so hard;

Me, rushing round Britain with a guitar,

Making love to people

That I didn't even like to see.

Well, I would think of you.

Yes, I mean in the sick sad morning.

And in the lonely midnight,

Try to hold your face before me.

Well, I want you to know, I just had to go;

I want you to know, we just had to grow.

And you're probably married now, kids and all,

And you turned into a grownup, female, stranger.

And if I was lying near you now,

I'd just have to fall.

Well, I never slept with you

Though we must have made love a thousand times.

For we were just young, didn't have no place to go,

But in the wide hills and beside many a long water

You have gathered flowers, and they do not smell for me.

Well, I want you to know, I just had to go.

I want you to know, we just had to grow.

So it's goodbye first love, and I hope you're fine.

Well, I have a sweet woman

Maybe some day to have babies by me,

she's pretty,

She’s a true friend of mine

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

You Know What You Could Be

by Mike Heron

Read your book and lose yourself in another's thoughts.

He might tell you 'bout what is or even 'bout what is not.

And if he's kind and gentle too, and he loves the world a lot,

His twilight words may melt the slush of what you have been taught.

You know what you could be.

Tell me my friend,

Why you worry all the time

What you should been.

Listen to the song of life, its rainbow's end won't hold you.

Its crimson shapes and purple sounds softly will enfold you.

It gurgles through the timeless glade in quartertones of lightning.

No policy is up for sale in case the truth be frightening.

You know what you could be.

Tell me my friend,

Why you worry all the time about

What you should be.

version : bloomsbury 2000

version : nebulous nearnesses

My Name is Death

Traditional, arranged by Robin Williamson

I am the question that cannot be answered,

I am the lover that cannot be lost,

Yet small are the gifts of my servant the soldier,

For time is my offspring, pray, what is my name?

My name is Death, cannot you see?

All life must turn to me - oh cannot you see?

And you must come with me,

You must come with me.

I'll give you gold and jewels rare, and all my wealth in store.

All pleasures fair, if I may live but a few short years more.

Oh lady, lay your jewels aside, no more to glory in your pride.

Tarrying here there is no way, your time has come that you must away,

And you must come to clay.

Gently Tender

by Mike Heron

Gently tender falls the rain, washing clean the slate again;

But leave me please, behind my brain, the slightest shadow of her

Shadows dancing through the pink milk blankets,

where my mind lay dreaming gently of my loving you.

Sometimes I think it was true

but then I loved the stone beneath my feet as much

usually.

Gently tender snowdrop grows, see the past tense quietly go.

Kill the core but let me know the slightest shadow of her

Shadows crawling through the green bush trees

where my toes crept breathing lightly of my loving you.

Sometimes I think it was true,

but then I loved the stone beneath my feet as much

usually.

Slowly spitting crawls the snake,

see the branches bend and break.

Venom that might easily shake

the slightest shadow of her

Good, good loving, she gave me good loving, good,

good, loving, she gave me good loving,

Good, good loving, she gave me good.

And now all my wine is water,

to her all my wine is water,

Oh water, and my pearls are clay

She gave to me good loving,

she gave to me good loving,

Oohhhhhhh good loving

note : some people hear “clear” not “clay” and “chord” not “core”

Way Back in the 1960s

by Robin Williamson

I was a young man back in the 1960s.

Yes, you made your own amusements then,

going to the pictures;

Well, the travel was hard, and I mean

We still used the wheel.

But you could sit down at your table

And eat a real food meal.

But hey, you young people, well I just do not know,

And I can't even understand you

When you try to talk slow.

There was one fellow singing in those days,

And he was quite good, and I mean to say that

His name was Bob Dylan, and I used to do gigs too

Before I made my first million.

That was way, way back before,

before wild World War Three,

When England went missing,

And we moved to Paraguayee.

But hey, you young people, I just do not know,

And I can't even understand you

When you try to talk slow.

Well, I got a secret, and don't give us away.

I got some real food tins for my 91st birthday,

And your grandmother bought them

Way down in the new antique food store,

And for beans and for bacon, I will open up my door.

But hey, you young people, well I just do not know,

And I can't even understand you

When you try to talk slow.

Well, I was a young man back in the 1960s.

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

Koeeoaddi There

By Robin Williamson

the natural cards revolve ever changing

seeded elsewhere planted in the garden fair grow trees, grow trees

tongues of the sheer wind

setting your foot where the sand is untrodden,

the ocean that only begins

listen a woman with a bulldozer built this house now

carving away the mountain whose name is your childhood home

we were trying to buy it buy it buy it

someone was found killed there all bones bones dry bones

earth water fire and air

met together in a garden fair

put in a basket bound with skin

if you answer this riddle

you'll never begin

born in a house where the doors shut tight

shadowy fingers on the curtains at night

cherry tree blossom head high snow

a busy main road where I wasn't to go

I used to sit on the garden wall

say hello to people going by so tall

hallo to the postman's stubbly skin

hallo to the baker's stubbly grin

mrs thompson gave me a bear

brigitte and some people lived upstairs

skating on happy valley pond

various ministers and guards stood around

the ice was nice hallo the invisible brethren

and there was a tent you played cards with the

soldiers in, don't worry we won't send anyone

after you they screamed

but me and licorice saw the last of them one

misty twisty day

across the mournful morning moor motoring away

singing ladybird, ladybird what is your wish

your wish is not granted unless it's a fish

your wish is not granted unless it's a dish

a fish on a dish is that what you wish

earth water fire and air

met together in a garden fair

put in a basket bound with skin

if you answer this riddle

you'll never begin

Version retitled “Happy Valley Pond” on “Memories” by Robin

The Minotaur's song

By Robin Williamson

Straight from the shoulder

I think like a soldier

I know what's right and what's wrong

He knows what's right and what's wrong.

I'm the original discriminating buffalo man

And I'll do what's wrong as long as I can

He'll do what's wrong as long as he can

I live in a labyrinth under the sea

Down in the dark as dark as can be

I like the dark as dark as can be

He likes the dark as dark as can be

I'll even attack you or eat you whole

Down in the dark my bone mills roll

Porridge for my porridge bowl

Porridge for his porridge bowl

I'm strong as the earth from which I'm born

He's strong as the earth from which he's born

I can't dream well because of my horns

He can't dream well because of his horns

Moo

I'm strong as the earth from which I'm born

He's strong as the earth from which he's born

I can't dream well because of my horns

He can't dream well because of his horns

A minotaur gets very sore

His features they are such a bore

His habits are predicta-bull

Aggressively relia-bull, bull, bull

I'm strong as the earth from which I'm born

He's strong as the earth from which he's born

I can't dream well because of my horns

He can't dream well because of his horns

I'm the original discriminating buffalo man

And I'll do what's wrong as long as I can

He'll do what's wrong as long as he can

Witches hat

By Robin Williamson

certainly the children have seen them

in quiet places where the moss grows green

coloured shells jangle together

the wind is cold the year is old the trees whisper together

and bent in the wind they lean

next week a monkey is coming to stay

if I was a witches hat

sitting on her head like a paraffin stove

I'd fly away and be a bat

across the air I would rove

stepping like a tightrope walker

putting one foot after another

wearing black cherries for rings

Version : Songs for Children of all Ages

Version : Songs for the Calendarium

A Very Cellular Song

By Mike Heron

Winter was cold and the clothing was thin

But the gentle shepherd calls the tune

Oh dear mother what shall I do

First please your eyes and then your ears Jenny

Exchanging love tokens say goodnight

Lay down my dear sister

Won't you lay and take your rest

Won't you lay your head upon your saviours breast

And I love you but Jesus loves you the best

And I bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight,

And I bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

One of these mornings bright and early and fine.

Goodnight, goodnight

Not a cricket not a spirit going to shout me on

Goodnight, goodnight

I go walking in the valley of the shadow of death

Goodnight, goodnight

And his rod and his staff shall comfort me

Goodnight, goodnight

Oh John the wine he saw the sign

Goodnight, goodnight

Oh John say I seen a number of signs

Goodnight, goodnight

Tell A for the ark that wonderful boat

Goodnight, goodnight

You know they built it on the land getting water to float

Goodnight, goodnight

Tell B for the beast at the ending of the wood

Goodnight, goodnight

You know it ate all the children when they wouldn't be good

Goodnight, goodnight

I remember quite well, I remember quite well

Goodnight, goodnight

I was walking in Jerusalem just like John

Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

Who would lose and who would bruise

Or who would live quite prettily?

And who would love what comes along

And fill the air with joyous song

Who would go and who would come

Or who would simply linger

And who would hide behind your chair

And steal your crystallised ginger

Nebulous nearness cry to me

At this timeless moment

Someone dear to me wants me near, makes me high

I can hear vibrations fly

Through mangoes, pomegranates and planes

All the same

When it reaches me and teaches me

To sigh

Who would mouse and who would lion

Or who would be the tamer

And who would hear directions clear

From the unameable namer

Who would skip and who would plod

Or who would lie quite stilly

And who would ride backwards on a giraffe

Stopping every so often to laugh

Amoebas are very small

Oh ah ee oo there's absolutely no strife

living the timeless life

I don't need a wife

living the timeless life

If I need a friend I just give a wriggle

Split right down the middle

And when I look there's two of me

Both as handsome as can be

Oh here we go slithering, here we go slithering and squelching on

Oh here we go slithering, here we go slithering and squelching on

Oh ah ee oo there's absolutely no strife

living the timeless life

Black hair brown hair feather and scale

Seed and stamen and all unnamed lives that live

Turn your quivering nerves in my direction

Turn your quivering nerves in my direction

Feel the energy projection of my cells

Wishes you well.

May the long time sun shine upon you

All love surround you

And the pure light within you

Guide you all the way on.

version : nebulous nearnesses

Mercy I Cry City

By Mike Heron

Since you got me here I see you're trying to steal my soul

You're army's trying so very hard to find for me a goal

But where's your quiet pastures where there's time for me to be

Nothing else but what I am that's what you seem scared to see

You cover up your emptiness with brick and noise and rush

Oh I can see and touch you but you don't owe reality much

Have mercy I cry city you're all upon my mind

Sometimes I think you keep forgetting that you don't know me

Mercy I cry city you're all upon my mind

Send another carriage chugging down your chokey tube

I hope it makes you happy 'cause it don't do my health much good

You slowly killing fumes now squeeze the lemon in my head

Make me know just what it's like for a sin drenched Christian to be dead

Ah show me your litter and your flashing neon light

You see I think that only the sun knows how to be quietly bright

Have mercy I cry city you're all upon my mind

Sometimes I think you keep forgetting that you don't know me

Mercy I cry city you're all upon my mind

Hey, city, what you been doing?

All these years what you been doing?

Who would believe that what you been doing

Would make such a ruin of you?

Waltz of the New Moon

By Robin Willamson

I hear that the emperor of china used to wear iron shoes with ease

We are the tablecloth and also the table also the fable of the dancing leaves

The new moon is rising the axe of the thunder is broken

as never was not since the flood nor yet since the world began

The new moon is shining the angels are washing their windows

Above the years whose jumble sale goes spinning on below

Ask the snail beneath the stone, ask the stone beneath the wall

Are there any stars at all

Like an eagle in the sky tell me if air is strong

In the floating pan pipe victories of the golden harvest

Safe in the care of the dear moon

The new moon is rising the eyelid of god is approaching

The humane train the skating raining travelling voice of certainty

The new moon is shining the harmonious hand is now holding lord krishna's ring

the eagle's wing the voice of mother everything

Ask the snail beneath the stone, ask the stone beneath the wall

Are there any stars at all

Like an eagle in the sky tell me if air is strong

In the floating palaces of the spinning castle

May the fire king's daughter bring water to you

version : bloomsbury 2000

The Water Song

By Robin Williamson

Water water see the water flow

Glancing dancing see the water flow

O wizard of changes water water water

Dark or silvery mother of life

Water water holy mystery heavens daughter

God made a song when the world was new

Waters laughter sings it through

O, wizard of changes, teach me the lesson of flowing

version : nebulous nearnesses

Version : Songs for Children of all Ages

Three Is a Green Crown

By Robin Williamson

Not with the lips of skin nor yet with the lips of dark snow

But let the white dove sing

Of the body of life of the lover whose love is complete

Hold hands out to greet ah let not the swan be brought low

For all that is moving is moved by her hands

She is mirrored forever in the light of the lands

In the building of thoughts in the shifting sands

Life life remembering

Well here you are now o now you are here

Well how has it been so far

The hair and the fur

Lemons, frankincense, and myrhh

For all that is moving is moved by her hands

She is mirrored for ever in the light of the lands

In the building of thoughts in the shifting sands

Let the cracked crystal raindrop be merged in the sea

Silent shining thoughtless free

but close your eyes to find the golden flower

And open them to see the sunshine shower

Where the flowers are free and the fishes ask

Ah what can water be

She beareth thought she beareth visions

Speaking truth in contradictions

Dreams of pain dreams of laughter

And every action follows after

O second self o gate of the soft mystery

I'll love you if you'll love me

O guide me with the gold of Gabriel's wing

Grant me the tongue that all the earth does sing

Vibrating light forever one the sun

The book of life is open to us

There'll be no secrets left between us

Swift as the wind

By Mike Heron

For my delight

Swift as the wind flies

His chariot and wings

Shine in the light of a thousand suns

For he comes from the land of no night

He comes from the land of no night

There is no land

The night is all around my child

You must stop imagining all this

You must stop imagining all this

For your own good

Why don't you go with the rest and play downstairs

Closing my eyes

I see him so clear

The blood on his sword

Flashes so bright as it

Falls to the skulls by his feet

But his eyes they know all things

His eyes they know all

There is no blood

No-one knows all my child

You must stop imagining all this

You must stop imagining all this

For your own good

Why don't you go with the rest and play downstairs

Swift as the wind

Stay if you will now

Seeing you again will be in your castle so fair

But I make take some time on the way

And I may spend some time downstairs

Nightfall

By Robin Williamson

Nightfall o river of night flow through me

Washing thoughts of the day on your waters away

For the morrow that dawns never knew me

Nightfall nightfall folding her dark locks around you

Her eyes they have found you would show you

This new dream they're holding

O sleep o come to me you who are night's daughter

And I'll give you my eyes for the colours that rise

As time's echoes reflect on you water.

1968 unreleased

The Pig went Toddling over the Hill

By Robin Williamson

The pig went toddling over the hill to see what he could find

“Oink oink” were the words he spoke, he thought he was going blind

First he looked here, then he looked here

The man in the hat was walking away saying “dear dear”

[sings gobbledygook] and the sky was blue

Oh oh see a small boat row

The pig went walking over the hill

With hardly any clothes

Oh oh I never feel this way in the snow

Oh and I can’t remember anything

I talk to thee everywhere and somewhere I sing

Yes what happened just before I came in?

Wee Tam and the Big Huge

Job's Tears

By Robin Williamson

We're all still here

no one has gone away

Waiting, acting much too

well and procrastinating

The cross of the earth

(let me go through)

The four winds point them

Body to body

Seas to anoint them

The reed they brought him

Sponge and vinegar

Fiery serpents

Spitting gold and cinnamon

The moon was bleeding

And stars were shallow

And the sword that killed him

Was a sword of willow

Hello I must be going well I only came to say

I hear my mother calling and I must be on my way

O I remember it all from before

The winter and the midnight

Could not hold him

The fire could not burn him

Nor earth enfold him

Rise up Lazarus

Sweet and salty

Brother soldiers

Stop your gambling and talk to me

The thieves were stealers

But reason condemned him

And the grave was empty

Where they had laid him

Why heroes die at sunrise

Why the birds are arrows of the wise

Why each perfumed flower

Why each moment has its hour

It's you

It's all true

Stranger than that we're alive

Stranger than that

Stranger than that

Whatever you think

It's more than that, more than that

Happy man, the happy man

Doing the best he can

Keep on walking where the angels showed

(All will be one)

Travelling where the saints have trod

Over in the old golden land

In the golden book of the golden game

The golden angel wrote my name

When the deal goes down I'll put my crown

Over in the old golden land

I won't need to kiss you when we're there

(All will be one)

I won't need to miss you when we're there

Over in the old golden land

We'll understand it better in the sweet bye and bye

You won't need to worry and you won't have to cry

Over in the old golden land

Puppies

By Mike Heron

Even the birds when they sing

It's not everything to them

Fiddle-head ferns and daffodils

Made me want to play

To the puppies having their little breakfast

So I picked up six fine strings

And I began to play

What I thought that new

Born fur would like best

Hey, hey, such a new born morn

Hey, hey, the puppies they have gone

Left me here holding this song

Music is so much less than what you are

Just how far can you take me

How far can you take me, Mother Nina

Before I'm on my own

Don't imagine that the pretty flower can sing a song

When the sun makes it's sap to rise

One by one the chorus swells till it's a mighty noise

Are you sure that it's not a silence?

Even the birds when they sing

It's not everything to them

Even the birds when they sing

Spread their wings to heaven and fly away.

The Yellow Snake

By Robin Williamson

Someone you saw stretched sleeping on the sand

Five withered violets cradled in his hand

His dreams are so loud calling in your ear

The yellow snake coils from the water

And all is refreshed far and near.

Version : The Iron Stone

Log Cabin In the Sky

By Mike Heron

All around this wide country the winter it has now begun

Now is the time to slip away from the California sun

To a place where a man can be free as the wind

As wild as the huskies' cry

Now winter is nigh let us fly to my log cabin home in the sky

With snow piling all round the door

And many a log on the stove

Where the chickadee's singing a comforting song

I'll show you it's you that I love

O let the wolves howl, they won't find us here

By a soft oil lamp we will lie

Now there comes a time to every man

When he must turn his back on the crowd

When the glare of the lights gets much too bright

And the music plays too loud

When a man must run from the deeds he has done

Recalling those days with a sigh.

version : nebulous nearnesses

Version : Live at Bloomsbury 1997

You get Brighter

By Mike Heron

You get brighter every day and every time I see you

Scattered brightness in your way and you taught me how to love you

I know you belong to everybody but you can't deny that I'm you

In the morning when I wake I moor my boat and greet you

Hold your brightness in my eye and I wonder what does sleep do

Krishna colours on the wall

You taught me how to love you

Oh wondrous light, light, lighter

You give all your brightness away and it only makes you brighter.

The Half-Remarkable Question

By Robin Williamson

Who moved the black castle, who moved the white queen

When Gimmel and Daleth where standing between?

Out of the evening growing a veil

Pining for the pine woods that ached for the sail

There's something forgotten I want you to know

The freckles of rain are telling me so

O it's the old forgotten question

What is that we are part of?

What is it that we are?

And an elephant madness has covered the sun

The judge and the juries they play for the fun

They've torn up the roses and washed all the soap

And the martyr who marries them dares not elope

O it's the never realised question

O long O long e're yet my eyes

Braved the gates enormous fire

And the body folded 'round me

And the person in me grew

The flower and its petal

The root and its grasp

The earth and its bigness

The breath and its gasp

The mind and its motion

The foot and its move

The life and its pattern

The heart and its love

O it's the half-remarkable question.

Air

By Mike Heron

Breathing, all creatures are

Brighter then than brightest star

You are by far

You come right inside of me

Close as you can be

You kiss my blood

And my blood kiss me.

version : philadelphia folk festival 1969

version : bloomsbury 2000

Ducks on a Pond

By Robin Williamson

Ducks on a pond, ducks on a pond

Very pretty swimming round

The lion and the unicorn journey very far

The answers are the question, sir

The lady soothes the lion's fur

Meek as a lamb he follows her

Wherever angels are

Sing me something

I asked the ice it would not say

But only cracked or moved away

I thought I knew me yesterday

Whoever sings this song

Greetings on you kings in the sky

Who'll buy me a mynah bird

Play me a magic word

Speak of hopes with thoughts absurd

Thoughts floating by

Little ducks, pretty birds

Clouds across the sky

Moving pieces on the plains of Troy

Carving faces on the rocks of joy

Pretty lady washing the tiles

Soapy pictures like crocodiles

Chilly winds blowing

Lovely spring coming soon

I wear my body like a caravan

Gipsy rover in a magic land

Misty mountains where the eagles fly

Lonely valleys where the lost ones cry

I had a little letter full of paper

Inky scratches everywhere

Always looking, looking for a paradise island

Help me find it everywhere

Peacocks talking of the colour grey

Awaking soundly in darkest day

A howling tempest on a silent sea

Lovely Jesus nailed to a tree

Mad as the moon when Merlin falls

Silver castles and silver halls

Taking lessons from the piper's son

Learn to play while the world is young

Boys and girls come out to play

The moon doth shine as bright as day

Leave your sorrows and leave your sleep

And join your playfellows in the street

Come with a whoop or come with a call

Come with a goodwill or not at all

Up the ladder and down the wall

A ha'penny loaf will serve for all

Following my fortune now the Holy Grail is found

And the Holy Bread of Heaven it is given all around

Farewell sorrow, praise God the open door

I ain't got no home in this world any more

For as the birds love to give their song away

Gathering possessions round to make a bright array

Dark was the night, praise God the open door

I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

version : bloomsbury 2000

version : nebulous nearnesses

Maya

By Robin Williamson

The dust of the rivers does murmur and weep

Hard and sharp laughter that cuts to the bone

Ah, but ever face within your face does show

Going gladly now to give himself his own

And twelve yellow willows shall fellow the shallows

Small waves and thunder be my pillow

Upon the gleaming water two swans that swim

And every place shall be my native home

The east gate like a fortress dissolve it away

The west gate like a prison O come break it down

Island I remember living here

Wandering beneath the empty skies

In time her hair grew long and swept the ground

And seven blackbirds carried it out behind

It bore the holy imprint of her mind

As green-foot slow she moved among the seasons

The great man, the great man, historians his memory

Artists his senses, thinkers his brain

Labourers his growth

Explorers his limbs

And soldiers his death each second

And mystics his rebirth each second

Businessmen his nervous system

No-hustle men his stomach

Astrologers his balance

Lovers his loins

His skin it is all patchy

But soon will reach one glowing hue

God is his soul

Infinity his goal

The mystery his source

And civilisation he leaves behind

Opinions are his fingernails

Maya Maya

All this world is but a play

Be thou the joyful player

The wanderer no sense does make

His eyes being tied in the true love's knot

The trees perceive his soul

Do not detain him long

Dear little animal dark-eyed and small

Caring for your fur with pointed paws

This hawk of truth is swift and flies with a still cry

A small sweetmeat to the eyes of night

O dandelion be thou thine

Reflecting the sun in sexual glory

In every-changing tongues

The every-changing story

The book, man, bird, woman, serpent, sea, sun

Blessed O blessed are they of the air

Your eyes are the eyes

Of the glad land

Ye twelve that will enter the seasons

The great ship, the ship of the world

Long time sailing

Mariners, mariners, gather your skills

Jesus and Hitler and Richard the Lion Heart

Three kings and Moses and Queen Cleopatra

The Cobbler, the maiden

The mender and the maker

The sickener and the twitcher

And the glad undertaker

The shepherd of willows

The harper and the archer

All sat down in one boat together

Troubled voyage in calm weather.

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Version : Live at Bloomsbury 1997

Version : Songs for the Calendarium

Greatest Friend

By Mike Heron

The greatest friend I have in life has brought me here to dwell

Awhile among your green green hills all by the watery well

The water from that wondrous well has made my eyes to see

And loosed my tongue to sing with joy that such a friend can be

The greatest friend I have in life was hidden long from me

Above the mountains cold and white, beneath the sacred tree

That sacred tree whose bark I touched, whose leaves did tell to me

The ancient tales that made me sure my friend would come to me

My greatest friend a song has given to sing where I may go

To sing among the green green hills and where the waters flow

The waters from that wondrous well that made my eyes to see

And made my mind to ever show my greatest friend to me.

The Son of Noah's brother

By Robin Williamson

Many were the lifetimes of the Son of Noah's brother

See his coat the ragged riches of the soul

Lordly Nightshade

By Robin Williamson

Captured by Hitler with Oliver Twist in the tower

Guards say here's pens and paper just sit down and work for an hour

O, Goodness, how can we escape? but it's not worthwhile

All I can do is smile.

Down gallons of glandular corridors of the dark castle

The pompous old bellman is tolling one bell

At bathtime the hippies in chains they are crossing the hall

Where Hitler is making his new film about it all

We slip trough a pew and escape but I just don't know

All I can do is grow

Tell me more, what then

Down Main Street I go on a duffel-coat hoping instead

For a little room, yawn, I'm so tired with this big bag of coal on my head

It's a top hat I'm trying to sell or a lesson to learn

Vaguely seeking some fire to burn

While a group of middle-aged persons with dwarfish expressions and tinned conversations in Sunday blessed blue

Standing around for a photograph, watch the cuckoo

Do you need any coal? But it doesn't appear that they do

Then I offered my throat to the wolf but I just can't die

All I can do is fly

Safe and secure in the skirts of the midsummer wood

Cooking soup with stale words and fresh meanings it tastes so good

The green wolf with his bunch of red roses is slinking away

All on a summer's day.

The Mountain of God

By Robin Williamson

"Behold the mountain of the Lord in latter days shall rise"

"Hark, the herald angels sing"

"Hush, hush, whisper who dares, Christopher Robin is saying his prayers"

"Do ye not fly as clouds and as doves to your windows

Who serve as the shadow and the example of heavenly things"

"As Moses was admonished of God as he was making the Tabernacle

See that ye do all things according to the pattern shown you on the high mountain."

"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

World without end

Amen."

Cousin Caterpillar

By Mike Heron

My cousin has great changes coming

One day he'll wake with wings

Cousin Caterpillar, seven pairs of legs for you

Cousin Caterpillar, can you tell me what they do?

Well, all that I can say

Is that they seem to help some way

To pull my little body along

Well first I didn't know their use

But worrying you only lose

So I said I love you and I love what you do

Come on do your thing

Cousin Caterpillar, white and silky threads for you

Cousin Caterpillar, can you tell me what they do?

My cousin as you see

Takes his changes easily

O happy we

Could we take each change so easily

Then all that we could say

Is that it would seem to help some way

To pull our little bodies along

So we say I love you and I love what you do

Come on do your thing

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

version : nebulous nearnesses

The Iron Stone

By Robin Williamson

A long wind a weaving mind

Over all the land the wild flowers grow,

Echoing kind to kind

On that day when I found the iron stone

Heavy in my hand in the sloping rain

Ever the seas rolled on and o'er my heart

They roofed their slates of grey

The iron stone I found it on that day

The iron stone I brought it home

Heavy in my hand I brought it home

Black as the thoughts of doom

A man told me it came from the moon

Flying through time it flew

Upon the long beach where I found it

Dancing horses told their tale

Among the stones it called me

There my hand it knew

Seeing in the thickness of the thick black sight

Forests and centaurs and gods of the night

Never that sun shone on

Where high Atlantis raised her shores

Out sang the dragons of the sea

Love paints the cart with suns for wheels

The jester's baubles, cap and bells

The brave, perhaps, Mustachio

Sir Primalform Magnifico

The dragon me with golden toes

And golden fire my flaming nose

And memories, memories

My cave was bright with sulky gems

That paled the stars like diadems

Silver lost and buried gold

Such was my home in days of old.

Additional verse from Chelsea Sessions version:

the stag hunt rushing round the world

one turn of light it's gone again

the eyes of Merlin speak

beneath their crown of silver grey

A piece of iron black and heavy

smoothed and rounded by the sea

holding its sand and stones...

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Version : The iron Stone

Douglas Traherne Harding

By Mike Heron

When I was born I had no head

My eye was single and my body was filled with light

And the light that I was, was the light that I saw by

And the light that I saw by, was the light that I was

And many's the time that I've passed by the river

And saw no tollman and needed no ferryman to cross

And I enjoyed the world aright

For the sea itself floweth

And warm I was and crowned.

But one day walking by the river

I met a tollman with an angry face

And many's the time I passed through his tollgate

And paid no silver and paid no fee

But rather I did hide my sheep and goats under the bags of oatmeal

And cold I was, no crown did I wear

But if you're walking down the street

Why don't you look down to the basement

And sitting very quietly there is a man who has no head

His eye is single and his whole body also is filled with light

And the streets are his and all the people

And even the temples and the whole world

And many's the time he walks to the river

And seeing the ferryman and seeing the tollman

The light within him leaps to greet them

For he sees that their faces are none but his own

One light, the light that is one though the lamps be many

You never enjoy the world aright

"Till the sea itself floweth

In your vein and you are clothed

With the heavens and crowned with the stars"

Version - Tricks of the Senses

The Circle is Unbroken

By Robin Williamson

Seasons they change while cold blood is raining

I have been waiting beyond the years

Now over the skyline I see you're travelling

Brothers from all time gathering here

Come let us build the ship of the future

In an ancient pattern that journeys far

Come let us set sail for the always island

Through seas of leaving to the summer stars

Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging

O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?

Seeds of beauty ye bear within you

Of unborn children glad and free

Within your fingers the fates are spinning

The sacred binding of the yellow grain

Scattered we were when the long night was breaking

But in the bright morning converse again.

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

The Head

By Robin Williamson

Only a palace with interior doors

Well painted well gargoyled with multiple floors

Two windows let free this projector machine

and the magical world here appears on the screen

My servants attend me with tricks of the senses

The past and the future and similar tenses

and on platters of air they convey me my measure

both gladness and sorrow, I lack not for treasure

The lord and his lady are seated within

In the court of the mind where the song does begin

The song is as fine is as fine is as follows

The song does continue through measureless hollows

that sink from the level of personal being

through caverns of darkness where dragons

are dwelling

The mountains above them are raised at my calling

Where the apples are ripe or the rain is a-falling

In ships of white vision I sail the horizon

where three spinners stand beyond the

horizon under the tree of the apples of beauty

I watch them arranging my days and tomorrows

The song is as fine is as fine as follows

I stood on the beach where the moon was a-curling

Laughed on the wings of the sea birds calling

I loved when sweet Venus a lover did bring me

I cried when sweet Saturn and Jupiter moved us

and all of my servants were fighting their brothers

And the lord and the lady they hated each other

Till the spinners arose with their work on their fingers

Commanding the presence of heavenly singers

That spoke of the silence so soon to be coming

When all would be still in the wonderful palace

The peace is not stillness but peacefully changing

This hope is the hope of the man on the gallows

The song is as fine is as fine is as follows

The infant I was in the womb of my mother

White sperm I was in the loins of my father

Before that I swam in the oceans of nowhere

Where the fish are as fine as the colour of colours

Where waves are the message of centuries rolling

Where wind is the breath of the Holy Creator

Where no ship sails but only the ocean

Where all the rivers grow mighty with showing

And crowned with the gifts of the myriad valleys

Return with a sigh to the sea of the coming

Forever and ever and ever and ever be glad O be

Glad for the song has no ending.

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Be Glad For the Song Has No Ending

Come With Me

by Robin Williamson

I have a ship both sleek and fine

I point her bows wherever I will

The seven seas they all are mine

I call the winds

I call the winds her sails to fill

If you will flee away with me

And bid farewell to the land you know

I'll show you marvels presently

And wonders

And wonders that the earth does show

The shouting mountains

O speak on sir

The diamond valleys

The caves where sleep the stars by day

Eve's clouded bower

Adam's garden

The secret land that love does see

O come with me

I will come with thee

The gentle spring rains will lave your face

O sweet waters

The winds will bear your train

The morning birds will sing your song

The earth will call your name

The stars will be your canopy

The sun your candle flame

The greeny-gold wheat your incense sweet

My heart your windowpane

O come with me

I will come with thee

version : philadelphia folk festival 1969

All Writ Down

by Mike Heron

I fully understood

That you'd leave when your ship come by

And l fully understood

You had a purpose more high

Than to give a little schoolboy

To give a little schoolboy his first love

But oh did I cry

And did I cry

For I thought that those days

Would just fade and die

But every cell in my body has it all writ down

Every smile and every frown

And oh those good-time girls

Oh those good-time girls

That book it sometimes makes me glad

That book it sometimes makes me sad

But oh - it don't read bad

I cursed you to your face

When you turned to go

But I see now that you did just right

And I bow to you low

For you gave a little schoolboy

You gave a little schoolboy his first love...

I thought those women were so cruel

And were so low

But they just moved by nature’s law

Didn’t feel right to stay

Thought that they’d just go

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Version : Across the Airwaves

Vishangro

by Robin Williamson

Moon of the berries is waning to clay

Bavol the wind leap on the whale's way

Sing for Veshengro, oak ash and may

I will not flash the day glance on the strong king's shield

Nor yet the moon glance on the frightened man

Bring her sweet peace ere she rests on the breast of God

With the nutmegs and oak-apples of her rosary

That counts the praying sand

Who cradles earth and water in the hollow of her hand

I was a wasp on a nettled hill

Ten thousand brothers in a nest of fungus paper

And every sopping apple held its cider sweet for my thin tongue

I was a swineherd at the court of Fionn

I wore the coat of patches with Jalal beneath the stars

Sang at the black court of Ain

I baked sweet pastries for the Queen of Spain

I hid my alchemy beneath the stone of lies

Burned at the post my boiling brain

Made craters of my eyes

The mystery of history it is not revealed

We hear not clear but only with hope and fear

And the pomp of crime, and the pride of the time

I was a monk repelled by a woman's smell

I sailed in Darwin's ship, a mouse that gnawed the grain

Trapped by the cook on one dark day

I have spoken with the Thames in much sweeter times

And with the Medway where she rolls her waves

The snake-weed is hissing the wind of the morn

The mountains are mouthing where Albion is born

The light rays are gathering where Horus is shown

Sing for Veshengro, oak ash and thorn.

Version : Ring Dance

Waiting For You

by Robin Williamson

I've been wearing faces in the strangest places

Just to make a dream come true

The dawn is sweet but it's incomplete and I'm waiting for you

The breeze is blowing and my hair is growing

Forgotten everything my mother knew

The day is young and spring is sprung and I'm waiting for you

Must you bring that horse in here Miss Jones

(although your snowshoes do look terrific)

Yes they all come from out of the sky you know

I'm waiting for the dove that never came home

I'm waiting for the painter when his colours were gone

I’m waiting for the soldiers at the war, I’m waiting for a royal decision

I'm waiting for the sun to snore

I'm waiting for a rumble from Jericho, waiting for the world to begin

I'm a bareback rider, I'm an outsider and love to dance the boogaloo

I'm a turnip head, I'm a lately wed and I'm waiting for you

More tea vicar? (Hold that tiger)

Yes, the hydrangeas do look divine this time of the year

I'm wailing for the angels to put on their smiles

I’m waiting for the judges to come to trial

I’m waiting for the aeroplane, I’m waiting for the graves to open

I'm waiting to be sold in chains

I'm waiting for a signal from the trapdoor queen

Waiting for the world to begin

I'm a snake charmer, I'm a guava farmer

I'm a goose to me don't ever say boo

Let the universe roll, I'm a simple soul and I'm waiting for you

Oh it sounds so sweet when you play it to me like that..

(that tiger really doesn’t want to be held)

I’m waiting for the signs to point a different way

I’m waiting for God to take a holiday

I'm waiting for night in the mine

I'm waiting for the hills to grow steeper

I'm waiting for the man they call Shine

I'm waiting for Willie the Weeper to wake,

waiting for the world to begin

I'm off to market with an old straw basket singing dodeodeodo

Greenest cloak to wear in the spring, in the April breezes how it will blow

I'm going to introduce to you now the

personalities who compose the Jim Spiggatt Occult Quart.

Over there on my left we have Miss Cynthia de Monfort-Jones on her silvery toned

mandoline, and just a little further over the left we have that famed Oriental bass player

Miss Fenola Bumgarner (first time in captivity folks!)

On the pounding batterie and coterie we

have that well known bricklayer's labourer from Pilton,

Mr Jack McMarker- and perhaps we just have time to devastate your synaesthesia

with one more searing chorus from Black Jack Davy on the steam organ. That's all.

version : philadelphia folk festival 1969

See All the People

By Mike Heron

See all the people laugh

Ha ha ha ha ha

See all the people cry

Boo hoo hoo hoo

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Changing Horses

Big Ted

By Robin Williamson

Big Ted he was a great old pig

He’d eat most anything, never wore a wig

Now he’s gone like snow on the water

Don’t cry

He was getting old, so the farmer said

Sold him to the butcher just to make a little bread

Now he’s gone like snow on the water

Goodbye

Ted may be a moo-cow next time around

Giving sweet milk to the people in the town

He’ll be whatever he will choose on air or sea or ground

The sows are busy with piglets five

I’d put them in the forest now if they were mine

Cause I know they like acorns and I don’t like bacon

He came into the kitchen while we were away

He took all the rice and he forgot to pay

He’s gone like snow on the water

Don’t cry

He never cared to do the boogaloo dance

All he ever thought about was food and romance

And he’s gone like snow on the water

Goodbye

Big Ted’s soul is gone

Note: or Big Ted’s solid gone!

Mr & Mrs

By Robin Williamson

He’s wearing the breeches that father bequeathed him

Grandfather’s jacket still stained from the war

Schoolmaster’s hat and mother’s familiar

And thousands of souvenirs kept from before

Still wearing the bruises of coppers and robbers

Ring of the bishop on loving his thumb

Once-bitten apple of jealous dispassion

Twice-eaten hopes with the crust and the crumb

She carries a gramophone and plays the same records

Family choir playing truth equals pain

Compulsively buying the devil’s selection

Of sugar-gilt nothing again and again

Children come follow in grandfather’s footsteps

Lace on her fears and her man-of-war stare

Mapping the course with the hard-learned lesson

Magistrate’s customer, and the three bear (grieved air?)

Mr and Mrs I know it’s sore

With the daily pitchfork and the martial law

Old chat, young nervous, sweetness heart

Working together to make this world

Out of the pain of sweet gone sour

I’m going to the beautiful country, don’t you want to come?

I’m caring for the break in my telephone line

And people are buzzing me most of the time

I’m dialling your eye

I wait for my reply

I’m here

Now I’m on my way

O Mr and Mrs

Too many haters in this house

You’re in despair

I understand your acceptedness

From the tears in your eyes

You know I won’t leave till you come too.

Version : retitled The Martial law, on Memories (Robin)

White Bird

By Mike Heron

Who among you has not laid his head

beneath some holy awning

Would think that such a night of tortured travelling

Could bring such a glory morning

And feel his heart sucked to his head

His head so wide that all life says

Has room to live and breathe and have its being - and more

For such a scene of beauty

For such a scene of beauty

encompasses

See the white bird on the water

In beauty calm and still

White bird, white bird, white bird

Of the morning

White bird, white bird,

White bird, white bird, white bird

Of the morning

White bird, white bird,

See he watches the white bird

of the morning

White bird, white bird,

See he watches the white bird

of the morning

White bird, white bird,

Warm in his ecstasy

A shimmering gentle backward fall

He leaves his body there so small and mirror black against the sun

With deities for strength

He sees his body wracked with pain

And hears his voice so stained with sadness deep

It asks the day to weep away

Loved her so strong now

She is gone

My heart will break forever

Sun and moon change around

Me the games seem so strange

Walk in the light

I shall never

Walk in the light

I will never

White bird, white bird, white bird

Of the morning

White bird, white bird,

White bird, white bird, white bird

Of the morning

White bird, white bird,

White bird, white bird, white bird

Of the morning

White bird, white bird,

White bird, white bird, white bird

Of the morning

White bird, white bird,

O speak to me with your beauty

oh white bird of the morning

Oh he cried Oh he cried

But stopped short

Seeing not water but ice

death not life

dead white bird dead white bird

Walking onward every day

Sunshine in our faces

Sun knows what goes on below

But still our faces graces

No disgraces

No distastes

Nothing wasted at all

White bird, white bird, white bird

Of the morning

White bird, white bird

Sleepers, Awake!

By Mike Heron

Sleepers, awaken

The night has gone and taken

Your darkest fears and left you here

And the sun it shines so clear

O awake for the world looks wonderful

O glorious golden sun

Your song of light to pray

And when we turn away

Your silver sister moon does sing

Then once again we face

Your glory and your grace

And those whom sleep still takes

Tell the little birds to wake

You send your beams to earth

Giving flowers their birth

And looking to the sky

They see your diamond eye

Livening sap and cell

They love you very well

And answering the first light’s ring

Push their petals back and sing

Dust Be Diamonds

By Robin Williamson

I fished for a cloud, it was heavy as lead

And tired in my body I wished for a bed

When I lay claim to nothing

Seems everything’s fine

When I lay claim to nothing

Dust be diamonds, water be wine

Happy happy happy all the time

King Jesus he whispers “It is not so far”

And Buddha declares it is right where you are

O tell me how many tales have you tried?

Tell me how many

The things that you crave are the things you will be

And the actions of now are tomorrow’s memories

So buy for a million, sell for a dime

Buy for a million

Somebody tells you the world’s all wrong

And somebody tells you the road is so long

And if you have an argument, please see your mind

And if you have an argument

The man on the corner is singing the blues

And the man in the office is studying the news

So you’re looking for trouble, trouble you’ll find

So you’re looking for trouble

I used to have to wind up my clockwork heart

And my face was addicted and I did not feel part

So look in the index, see my secret crime

Look in the index

Version : Across the Airwaves

version : philadelphia folk festival 1969

Creation

By Robin Williamson

The messengers with sharpened heels

Flew backwards into whose galloping arms

And the impassioned Phoenix

Drawls a sad goodnight to fiction's tomb

Then come to me secretly

And with your silken feather

And with your silken feather

Open your rooms

Never, in fact, as he gazed amazed

At two lost eyebrows lisping into the unexpected

And the archetypal postman delivering your seed letters

Whose eyes are black eggs really

Upon a long shore, upon a long shore

Open your door, open your door

'Ask anyone,' he muttered, as he spat a small,

Brilliant blue insect whirring into the gauze.

'I would advise stilts for the quagmires,

And camels for the snowy hills

And any survivors

Their debts I will certainly pay.

There's always a way, there's always a way.

I smiled with that gallantly concealed forceful nervousness

That has proved that oysters cry

And that I have come to know and accept as myself.

And plucking a barbed feather from the morose universe

I called him deathless

And he left before he could reply

Open your eyes, open your eyes

Our first father, Abraham, whose bosom

Was the unique soul of the humans

Was certainly as bewildered as we are

If not infinitely more so

And with an ancient ceremonial gesture of dismissal

He pointed forward.

Verily, verily

Verily, verily

The first day was golden

And she coloured the sun

And she named it Hyperion

And she made it a day of light and healing

The second was silver

And she coloured the moon

And she named it Phoebe

And she made a day of enchantment and the living waters

And the third was many-coloured

And she coloured the earth

And she made a day of joy

With the scarlet strength of seed

In the fourth black and white were mingled into quicksilver

And she coloured Mercury

And she made a day of wisdom

And the signs that are placed in the firmament

The fifth was bright blue

And she envisaged Jupiter

And she made a day of awe and circles, circles

And she sent it to guide the blood of the universe

The sixth was burning with icy, green flames that glowed white

And of her beauty she made Venus

And she made a day of love

Whereby all beings are united

The seventh was rich purple of the molluscs

And she coloured Chronos

And she made a day of idleness and repose

Whereon all beings cease from struggle.

Verily, verily

Verily, verily

I am the pebble in your very own eye

I am the sword and your enemy dies

I am the storm and the hurricane wind

I am the thorn of an unkind friend

I am desire what colour my eyes?

I am Loki wizard of lies

Catch me, find me, see me if you can

I am the guilt of an honest man

Then seven times we raised our arms and with cat-stretch

Sent our footspells yawning into the multitudes

In need we called upon the mother of all living

Three times for succour

But with ambitious spears they made us change

They crouched behind their mirrors and fought on.

I will not allow them praise

That broke the harmonious globe in splintered fragments

And yet they moved perforce with a perfect pattern

And complemented harmony with discord

And light with darkness

It was then that we stepped out of our world machine

Between the palm and the fingers

Peeling like gloves

And for each eye that shed one tear,

We made of that tear an ocean

And in the five directions

We loosed our several craft.

Wild sea, I say today,

Please be a sweet cow for me

Amethyst galleon, out on the rolling sea

Gentle as lightning, easily

Take me to the root of the world tree

Amethyst galleon, out on the rolling sea

Your face is consumed in a bruised sky's glance

By the brazen wall with your sword and lance

Where iron-eyed your sight was cast

Where dappled maidens, endless danced

Round the root of the world tree.

Wild sea, I say today

Please be a sweet cow for me

Amethyst galleon, out on the rolling sea

Wild sea, my love is salty for me

Every ripple in her body is a wave in me

Amethyst galleon, out on the rolling sea.

Extra final verse on April 1969 Fillmore live version

[indistinguishable] I lived all alone

Nothing to eat but an old horse bone

I’d [scuff?] all day but I found myself alone

When I sat down in the evening

1969 songs unreleased on official albums

All Too Much for Me

By Robin Williamson

Bless all the dead and every little unborn child

Sitting in their mummies’ tummies

Warm as warm as warm could be

No use trying, no use denying

Way past lying, all too much for me

Laughing and crying, living and dying

Smiling and sighing, sitting in the world you see

Now anything might happen any moment now

The doors won’t close to anything

It’s his, not yours, so take no vow

No use trying, no use denying

Way past lying, all too much for me

I feel so humble, now got to tumble

Lost in a jungle talking to a tree

(Lost my cool you see)

If you look too hard for anything, it disappears

And I’ve been looking much too hard

For years and years and years and years

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Fine Fingered Hands

By Robin Williamson

I glanced down at her hands, at her fine fingered hands

Nine naked Maja fingers lazy did lie

On the tenth small finger where it crossed my eye

Lo, a very small door

Spiked all with coral

With moonstones and bloodstones and the purple pearl

A rolling road leaned against that door

I stood before it with my crimson staff

I dare not call and I see no key

It opened with a cry and with a laugh

Happy I walked that beautiful town

Pale spires of water, roofs of thistledown

It was paved all with green berries pale as dew

Small windows bright with every hue

I stood on a clockface underground

Through shoals of movers that made no sound

I whistled for a table and a chair

Laughing they came there

And from the curling crowd

A girl brought hop’s milk in a green silk jar

Her face was sweet

Her eyes like nenuphar

I glanced down at her hands, at her fine fingered hands

Nine cyclops fingers moved softly and sly

On the tenth small finger where it crossed my eye

Lo, a very small door

All stained with bright jewels

And painted with the festival of fools

A rolling road leaned against that door

I stood before it with my crimson staff

I dare not call and I see no key

It opened with a cry and with a laugh

Happy I walked that beautiful town

It was all of colours that the eyes have not shown

The wind was solid and the rain was flame

And the people clad in shining clothes

Riding on the wind’s wall on horses tall

I sat on a fountain in a tree

The moon was mining silver and shared it for me

I whispered for a trumpet and a drum

No, but they would not come

But from the curling crowd

A girl brought essence in a love-hewn jar

Her face was sweet

Her eyes like nenuphar

I glanced down at her hands, at her fine fingered hands

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Ring Dance

Won’t You Come See Me?

By Robin Williamson

Build a loving mansion with the shapeless bricks of time

But friends they change like wispy mist though promises are fine

Lovers also go their way

Won’t you come see me some sweet day

Now love is on my shoulders, a cathedral and a town

Love is in my body like a whale in the sun

Dying flowers ache for rain

Oh if I were very clever I would state it very clear

That love of love is very huge, it’s shouting in my ear

Leaves me thinking with my body for a change

I have no will to own you or with chains of duty bind your way to my way

But won’t you please come see me some sweet day

Version : Across the Airwaves

Gather Round

by Robin Williamson

Gather round and I will tell you

Of a man who walked alone

He met with me one dusty evening

He could not recall his home

And he was not a beggar

But people pressed coins in his hand

And his skin it was weathered

His eyes full of far foreign lands

And he took food they offered him

For the hunger in his soul

And they want to wish he'd be there

It was written on their scroll

He had sold his heart's desire

Winding many a tangled thread

Salty tears he drank for water

But the thought he ate for bread

The bag across his shoulder

Was a painted paper heart

Filled with several thousand reasons

Why two souls can speak too hard

For he knew truth but seldom spoke

Nor written with the ten pens of the hand

And he sought not wealth

Of the door he wished to understand

And he sang of time a coming

When all secrets would be known

And the song would sing him the chorus

And no soul will walk alone

Here we are, here we are,

Here we are, here we are,

Here we are, here we are,

Here we stay, here we stay

Here we are, here we are,

Here we are, here we are,

Here the stars shall roll him away

I Looked Up

Black Jack Davy

by Mike Heron (based on the traditional song)

Black Jack David is the name that I bear

Been alone in the forest for a long time

But the time is coming when a lady I'll find

I will love her, hold her

Singing through the green green trees

And the skin on my hands is like the leathery hide

and my face is hard from the cold wind

But my heart so warm with the song that I sing

Would charm a fair lady

Singing through the green green trees

Fair Eloise rode out that day

From her fine fine home in the morning

In the flush of the dawn came a sound to her ear

Drifting and floating

Singing through the green green trees

Now fifteen summers was all that she'd seen

And her skin was as soft as the velvet

But she's forsaken her fine fine home

And Black Jack David is

Singing through the green green trees

Last night she slept on a fine feather bed

Far far from Black jack David

But tonight she will sleep on the cold cold ground

And love him and hold him

Singing through the green green trees

Saddle me up my fine gray mare

Cried the lord of the house next morning

For the servants tell me my daughter's gone

With Black Jack David

Singing through the green green trees

And he rode all day and he rode all night

But he never did find his daughter

But he heard from afar come adrift on the wind

Two voices laughing

Singing through the green green trees

Oh Black Jack David is the name that I bear

Been alone in the forest for a long time

But now I have found me a lady so fair

I will love her and hold her

Singing through the green green trees

Version : Across the Airwaves

version : philadelphia folk festival 1969

version : On Air cd (not included on Across the Airwaves)

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

The Letter

by Mike Heron

Started rubbin' my eyes

when I heard the birds talk

Hey mister sleep you're gonna

have to take 'walk

But nothing has much power to

make me rise as the post man

Bringin' a mornin' surprise

(Here he comes! You better believe it, here he comes!)

Too much I've got a letter

I'd better get out of bed

That’s what I said

Then I pulled the covers right

up to my nose

I thought well the letter

might be for Rose

Her mother she writes very regularly

Mister Postman have you got

a letter for me

“Er, Mr. Heron, yes I have!” Says “It’s right here, yes I have!”

Too much I've got a letter

I said with some joy

It came from Maria, Chicago, Illinois

And I never have met her but she sounds sweet

like a flower growin’ on a rubbish heap

She's got a lot of things 'round her

She's gotta work out

But she's gonna make it

and I have no doubt

(neither has she! Oh no, not Marie, not real!)

Maria, the plane that brought your letter must have

felt a little bit lighter

The air hostess must've felt brighter bringing your letter over the sea

And the pilot was your Orpheus

singing a song for you

Maria I'm singin'

Hear me singin' I'll be your Orpheus too

By the time you hear this song your

troubles will be gone

And you'll be left with what's shinin'

through your letter you (repeat)

version : philadelphia folk festival 1969

Pictures In A Mirror

by Robin Williamson

Deep in the hollow jail

Sleeps Lord Randall

The mixed voices speak of bread

And of sheets that were scarlet

and blue are at his head

His heart like a cat drowns in a well

He thinks of all the girls he will not love

He thinks not of the future or of the past

Blue lightning spikes the hills above the sea

Where Kasa's ship sets

sail for otherwhere

There stands the chief with

gold on his hair

Two fingers thick each link of coiled ore

Speaks to his white skinned

wife she answers not

He hurls his question angry to the gulls

His wife strikes her mouth

with a skull like sound

The bleeding image of her loss

revolves above her mind

With every line in its design

an accusing eye

That pierces Kasa's soul

The slaves row on beneath

the dragon flag

His heart recoils recall his red-haired son

Beneath the burning walls

that he razed down

His wife and he speak not

as wine is brought

A cup that seethes like the

black blood of wolves

His wife's dagger is hidden in her dress

He drinks joyless to a dark sleep

The gaoler bangs the iron door

Lord Randall wakes in pain

He shakes his shackles

in the beaten gloom

The blood of his wounds is hard as coal

The gaoler leads him out

upon the blinding bright stair

He feels uneven turf beneath his feet

The priest intones, the sword

falls on his neck

The pain is boiling cold

They lay him in the tomb

at the break of day

They close the earthen door

upon his clay

The birds are plucking worms

from the ground

Their feathers grey as mist

on a cloudy morn

Foresters burn branches

from the sleeping trees

The white sun turns to stone

His mother lies in her labour

Nine days long

She called on Saint Bridget in her time

I looked out on the room of my birth

With hangings rich of

many strange designs

Nobles stand with their wine

cups in the room

Saluting me and she the King's queen

Already I am forgetting who I am

Already I've forgotten who I've been

My mother lifts me up

to her huge soft breast

Her nipple like a berry both

hard and brown

Her eyes look on me like waves of the sea

And with small lips

the yellow milk I draw.

This Moment

by Mike Heron

This moment is different from any before it

this moment is different it's now

And if I don't kiss you

That kiss is untasted

I'll never get it back

But why should I want to

I'll be in the next moment

Sweet moment

Sweet lover

Sweet now

The walls of this room are

different from any before them

They are now

They are now

The air that you breathe is

different from any before it

It is now

It is now

You may think that life is repeating

Repeating

Repeating

Repeating

Repeating

You may think that life is repeating

Oh no

Oh no

Oh no

Oh no

Oh no

Each moment is different

from any before it

Each moment is different it's now

When You Find Out Who You Are

by Robin Williamson

It's of a strange and furious time when men did speed to pray

Along the road of discontent to gods of gold and clay

Some did seek security among the seas of change

And some did seek dear life to wound - a furious time and strange

But when you find out who you are

Beautiful beyond your dreams

Just look around and notice where you are

Just look around and notice what you see

Each moment born for you innocently

[Additional verse from the Fillmore East 27.4.69 live version]

The men and women fall into two basic lines

Using their reflectors for their own designs

Parting, coming together for a million more miles

Swap around bodies for a change of time

You are the way

Tat tvam asi

And when I see what we have made

What we have cut with the mind's blade

Within the blackness feel it all

Repeated faces rise and fall

Filling with the endless years

The river of my heart's tears

You are the way

Tat tvam asi

[Additional two verses and choruses from the Fillmore East 27.4.69 live version]

Ten million lovers they're all lost and gone

Standing where the traffic runs

Through the huge expanse of time

Leads me here to sing this song

And leaves me here to carry on

You are the way

Tat tvam asi

The armies they are gathering for the point-to-point game

For the ritual atoning of the bang bang name

Children of the mind they are born in flame

Children of the body live to bear the blame

You are the way

Tat tvam asi

I swear you have the power as the angels do

Spread out your fingers and make all things new

Change the world by the things you say

By the things you dig and by the games you play

And you make each new day

You are the way

Tat tvam asi

But when you find out who you are

Beautiful beyond your dreams

When you find out who you are

Beautiful beyond your dreams

When you find out who you are

Beautiful beyond your dreams

Talk to a stranger today

Talk to a stranger today

O how many shining hearts

With love have guided me

How many I have met before

in lands across the sea

We used to speak of that ocean deep

How little words can say

It's better now to ask your friend

What makes his world so grey

(or What makes him sad today)

No one can do it for you

Make your own sky blue

Make your own dreams come true

Make it come true.

Recorded verse omitted in live version:

It feels so funny in your mummy's tummy

Before you get born into

the world for to carry on

Remember young man of the time

before you first went to school

How did it feel trying to live by the rule

Remember young man of the time

when your love stick

First rose free between your legs

Like a growing tree

Remember you walked with your lover

Like a gypsy and a gypsy queen

Under the stars where the sight was seen

Under the stars where the leaves were green

Under the stars where the sight was seen

version : philadelphia folk festival 1969

Fair As You

by Mike Heron

My fairest love I live and learn the songs that ring true

Whose message is plain whose words are few

whose melodies smell of the pines

love dwells between the lines

cast upon the air to fly when words won't do

Words won't do

The sun he sings a song

For every day a new

But even he can’t sing to me

A song as fair as you

In forest moist at break of day when wonder fills the air

I thought to pluck at break of dawn a melody so fair

Whose gracious form can match your own

Your soul blessed in every turn

coloured by the rainbow's pen

in tints so rare

Tints so rare

1970 songs unreleased on official albums

Ring Dance

By Robin Williamson

The great oak stands five hundred years as solid as a wall sir

By there comes the north wind and crashing down they fall sir

The gentle grasses bend and sway, they grow unbroken still sir

The strongest thing a man can do is change his mind at will sir

All that our poor eyes can see is like some northern field sir

The farmer’s gone and the weeds grow there, how little it will yield sir

To us it seems a mountain high begirt with snow and rain sir

The strongest thing a man can do is dare to climb again sir

The keepers of the scales and pens, the guardians of our time sir

They ride blindfold down the hill, sat back to fore on swine sir

And every healer that they meet, they nail him to his gate sir

The strongest thing a man can do is still refuse to hate sir

Infinite much I do not know but this seems plain to me sir

Everything we’ve seen this far ain’t half of what we’ll see sir

Many people ask of me “What do you believe sir?”

How much love a man can give that love that man receives sir

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Ring Dance

Queen Juanita and her Fisherman Lover

By Mike Heron

Fisherman have you gone crazy

Mending your nets so near the sun

Just when the sun was highest in the sky

She came by and took you by the hand

To the shimmering ocean

An underwater land

Saying “I am Queen Juanita

Come to my palace so grand,

Fisherman come”

Lying in the cool green stillness

The seaweed’s lazy drift

Among the glistening pearly shells

The languorous seabirds shift

Drinking from Neptune’s cup

You sent a bubble floating to Queen Juanita’s cheek

She turns in her grace

Leaves her dolphin, lifts her face

Her seahorse earrings flick their tails

Her eyes bejewelled with water snails await you

Stay fisherman stay

Brown fisherman stay

Canopy of giant oystershells

Golden with sand and legend

Reflect the embrace of fisher and queen

Across the bay a rainbow gleams

Juanita loves you

Queen Juanita she loves you

Many men who sail upon the foam

In the still of the evening far from home

They hear her voice

Much slender as the seagrass sways

Her being is water’s ways Juanita playing with the currents

Spoken:

The conch rings out across that watery bower

A dangerous note struck in a dangerous hour.

Osmeroy Overloader, notorious giant octopus, demon of the deep,

Has vowed to ensnare Juanita and carry her off to the darkest doomy depths of the dim Sargasso Sea. The octopus comes nearer and nearer. He comes nearer and nearer and nearer. He stretches out his great tentacles towards Queen Juanita’s silvery minarets. He comes nearer and nearer. Just then the fisherman who has been hiding all this while behind a rock tries to tiptoe away, and stumbling, plunges his thumb into the octopus’ eye. [Sounds of screaming] says the octopus, falling down in a messy heap on the sand. Eurrrrhhhh!

Come prawn, come skate

Come fat, come thin

Come early, come late

Come swim, come plunge

Come float and treading

It is the day of our great Queen’s wedding

All across the sea the tabor is beating

The guests are drinking and the guests are eating

And all the ocean will sing forever of

Queen Juanita and her fisherman lover.

note : recorded in 1970; released on “Seasons They Change” and later on Tricks of the Senses

U

Juggler's Song

By Robin Williamson

Gather round friends and I'll show you what I made,

Something in my bag that'll surprise you all

It's a secret, don't push, I'm not ready

Something to dazzle your eyes-o

Something to blow your mind away,

Something that I made today

The first little ball is red and green

Oh it's pretty

Yes I know what you mean

I call it Space, do dio dio do

And what it will do I just don't know

But the trees may whisper and the hills may grow

While it's changing

The first and only juggler, I must be the best

I love to see the rings spin, never at rest

Up in the air and back to me

What it will do I just can't see

Something to blow your mind away,

Something that I made today

The next little ball is silver and black

See it chase the first one forward and back

I call it Space, do dio do

What it will do I just don't know

But it seems to make a difference just to have it so

While it's changing

The next little ball is too hot to hold

I have to keep tossing it and I hope it gets cold

I call it Power do dio do

What it will do I just don't know

But it seems to make the whole thingummywhojemyflippery rattle and go

While it's changing

Something to blow your mind away,

Something that I made today

The next little ball is orange and blue

I can't juggle four so I'll toss it to you

And I call it Time...

Time

By Robin Williamson

Arise, arise and follow me

as best you can

Come follow me, my measured dance

Come see my circus, come dice with chance

Now you are come beneath my sway

Who once was as the daylight gay

Here's rights, here’s wrongs

and reasons why

A time to live

A time to die

I was your slave, now you are mine

I am Time, I am Time.

Experience will teach you what you may

and what you may not do

I'll teach you to forget the truths

you always knew

See what might be,

See what might have been

Though you yourself created me,

Your own mistake has set me free

I was your slave, now you are mine

I am Time, I am Time.

Queen of Love

By Robin Williamson

A strong power calls from the left hand

Across the waters deep

a strong power calls from the left hand

let all things sleep or weep

oh the queen of love, you have unwove my eyes

and my heart will not sleep

the eye would sleep but the mind would rise

I must needs walk down God's eyebrows

and along the street of his eyes

look for me and you will see me in my red cloak

swimming determined

as God's blood flows

creatures of grief you beg from the thief

I will not carry home your sacks of sorrow

but I will pay the fiddler good silver if he smiles

pray God he see tomorrow

and the fine fine girls that are into it

and my eyes with salt water swim

and we disputing with a brittle gaiety

upon the world's rim

if I sought to love you with my body

it would be with a bent back

unto the day of doom

Oh the Queen of Love

I am in her heart

she is in my room

and together alone we clasp hands

and in each other's eyes walk the endless shore

and below I have my duty to perform in the song

and that that I was

you will see it no more

the snow is on the hills of my heart

and to speak is to die

the men at arms do seek to mark me

and the monks raise hue and cry

seek me in vain on Golgotha

or in fear's hollow

for the way I take today

only the true may follow

the ancestors in stone armour

calling for loyalty untrue

seek to make a zigzag of the arrow's flight

it is so swaddled in the bands of form

but I am girdled with the storm

and cloaked with the night

I am not to be seen or found

save only in what I cause

standing outside on the inside outside

perfectingness and flaws

how will I say where I end

or where you begin

how will I say, what shall I play

shall it be you or the wild wind

as Pan with the unsane eyes

or with the wild horns

or when I am crowned with the paper crown

or with the crown of thorns

a strong power compels distortion from the right hand

fleece to the grey wolves

fangs to the grey sheep

but the Queen of Love she strokes

my body alive, that I do not sleep.

The doctor brews potions and pills

to open his own front door

and the locksmith makes strong bolts

to bar his gates to every new breeze that blows

shall I now put lion's ears upon my ears

hear every sound as a roar

shall I now put mouse's eyes upon my eyes

gauge the moon for size against my paw

while the Queen of Love

she sings to me

from above and beyond the world

and I observe my mind

it is playing ignorant boy

while at her feet I am curled

and I remember all female movements so well

of such a form to bring much joy and ease much care

to perfume and let fall the coloured gown

and to let down the curling hair.

But now I play seed thrower

and I will play three-legged man

I will play dream weaver and day-bringer

and catch as catch can

While the Queen of Love

she swims like a silver dove in my mind's room

and my body sleepwalks down the road

in a warm dark swoon

Light In Time Of Darkness/Glad To See You

By Mike Heron

Oh light in time of darkness

When your eyes on mine fell

My heart on timeless waters drifted

I want to know you

I want to know you

I want to know you well

Oh strength in time of trouble

Pray your nature tell

Oh beautiful and shining one

Oh timeless closeness springing

Between our paths in time

Oh crystal bell of truth ringing

Oh formless bliss come flying

On wings of laughter free

Oh road of beauty crying

Brother all I know is I am

I know not yet who I am

But a bright star took my right hand

Led me to this strange and far land

Oh new star touch with your silver breath my light

Then you may know who I am

Brother the sun shines on our path

Flowers grow and birds sing on our path

Come to me love take my right hand

Together to walk in this far land

Oh new star touch with your silver breath my light

Then you may know who I am

Glad To See You

I'm glad, glad to see you

So glad, glad to see you

It must feel good to be you

And it feels good to be me

When you're glad to see me

Walking Along With You

By Mike Heron

There are many things'll give you a good time

I have known a few

But my lover it's you that makes my eyes shine

And makes the sky so blue

And it makes me feel so very good

When I'm walking along with you

When we're walking along

You've got the power you're so strong

But you move your body like a midnight song

I love you

Last night we made a meadow

Bathed among the dew

And out of buttercup's pale clear light

I was born anew

And it makes me feel so very good

When I'm walking along with you

When we're walking around

I see your feet kissing the ground

Your arms make music without a sound

I love you

Hirem Pawnitof

By Mike Heron

It's of a famous highwayman a story I will tell

His name was Hirem Pawnitof, in bread street he did dwell

Through all the storms of his career few troubles he had missed

His tale was wrote from ear to ear, and he looked like this:

Throughout the land his gallant band in many a song did star

With Biceps dead, and Pretty Boy fled, and Boothill claimed Bill Star

Though the best are gone, he still rides from Leeds to Carter Bar

Weedy and few his motley crew

And here they are:

His purse was lined with empty air, his wherewithal was low

The last good swag to pad his lag was 40 years ago

His motley band were out of hand, their breakfast they had missed

Then travellers two hove into view

And he challenged them like this.

The stranger turned to his lady fair

A smile played on his lips

What's the deal, are they for real

they've been taking too many trips

No gold need we, we travel free, here's something we won't miss

A treasure map from Gabby the Flap

And he gave it him like this:

His glasses perched upon his nose the map he carefully sussed

Each robber's eye filled with surprise, there's gold in it for us

The strangers waved the band goodbye but they did not see them go

Hirem got his compass out, said follow me lads, Westard Ho

Then had not gone but 20 yards when a pieman they did spy

They smacked their lips with hunger keen - my kingdom for a pie

The peddler twinkled once or twice

Not one word did he say

With snake-like eyes he shouted 'pie'

and he struck him on the head with the tray

At that moment Hirem Pawnitof attained enlightenment.

Come on said Hirem laughing much

Let's see what's down this road

His troop were dropping, wearily stooping

men of no fixed a bode

Just then a milkmaid Hirem spied

their hearts were filled with bliss

Like long lost friends who meet again

they fondly kissed like this

I need a man around the place

the milkmaid breathed with charm

And Hirem twirled his long moustache and took her by the arm

The last we heard they all lived there

doing what the law allows

They all ate breakfast every day, happily growing cows.

Bridge Song

By Mike Heron

Beautiful Girl:

To the South a brightness

It is not the moon deep dreams unfurling

It is not the starlight far but near

I feel in my heart bright joy stirring

Look yonder love, see it comes more clear

To the South a brightness

City of light unfolds its glory

How it calls me on through the night

Pinnacles of gold, towers of the silver bright

And the soul of city calls,

Come, be my bride tonight

To the South a brightness

And I must go

The bridge opens its arms and bends low

And you my love must go where you will

See you

Seeker:

Beloved how I love, how I love

To see things through the magic of your eyes

To share things that make your spirit rise up

But try as I might, and try as I may

I can't see anything

Invocation

By Robin Williamson

you that create the diversity of the forms

open to my words

you that divide and multiply

hear my sounds

I make yield league to you

ancient associates

and fellow wanderers

you that move the heart

in fur and scale

I join with you

you that sing bright and subtle

making shapes that my throat cannot tell

you that harden the horn

and make quick the eye

you that run the fast fox and the zigzag fly

you sizeless makers of the mole and of the whale

aid me and I will aid you

I make a blood pact with you

you that lift the blossom and the green branch

you who make symmetries more true

you who consider the angle of your limbs

who dance in slower time

who watch the patterns

you rough coated who eat water

who stretch deep and high

with your green blood

my red blood let it be mingled

aid me and I will aid you

I call upon you

you who are unconfined

who have no shape

who are not seen

but only in your action

I will call upon you

you who have no depth

but choose direction

who bring what is willed

that you blow love upon the summers of my loved ones

that you blow summers upon those loves of my love

aid me and I will aid you

I make a pact with you

you who are the liquidness of the waters

and the spark of the flame

I call upon you

you who make fertile the soft earth

and guard the growth of the growing things

I make peace with you

you who are the blueness of the blue sky

and the wrath of the storm

I take the cup of deepness with you

earthshakers

and with you the sharp and the hollow hills

I make reverence to you

round wakefulness we

call the earth

I make wide eyes to you

you who are awake

every created thing both solid and sleepy

or airy light

I weave colours round you

you who will come with me

I will consider it beauty

Version : Ring Dance

Robot Blues

By Robin Williamson

Down in Robot City, you might think it's play play play

Down in Robot City, you might think it's play play play

But a Number 5 Robot he must work in all the night and day

Number 1 come by, he give my work to me

Oil the flowers, fix the showers, clean the electronic trees

Shine the light, fix it right, now listen carefully

Don't you go romancing with that pretty Number Three

and that's why, why I got the Robot Blues,

Down in my heart compartment

Down in my old magnetic sole shoes

When I see that Number 3 I get a charge all in my dial

When I see that Number 3 my piston fills with oil

You know what I'm talking about

But she likes that number 1 because he's rich with

all my toil toil toil

That Number 3 she charm the heart of any robot man

Moving her body like an old tin can

If I could get my claws on her

I would lubricate her free

I've got a perfect action why won't she play with me

and that's why, why I got the Robot Blues,

Down in my heart compartment

Down in my old magnetic sole shoes

Well I think I'll get a ray gun

I will see what that will do

I think I'll get a ray gun

I think I'll get a ZZ Special Q

I will blast the Number 1's gaskets

and his coils I will refuse to renew

He seen me coming, sneak up from behind

switched off my vision and he left me stone blind

I could not see to blast him

here's the ending of my tale

He went of with Number 3 and I cursed to no avail

and that's why, why I got the Robot Blues,

Down in my heart compartment

Down in my old magnetic sole shoes

Puppet Song

By Robin Williamson

Now you may have observed if you walk into a wall

you get a certain sensation of reality

when you take a look through your memory book

you may perceive a certain rhythmic regularity

the crazy things your mind gets up to when you're away

throwing clouds of rain over brightest day

there was once a little man

he worked all day and slept all night

he looked at the sun

it didn't seem bright, it didn't seen right

he wondered did the world go rolling along on its own

or did some spirit move it with a black cat bone

and he set out to find the causes behind

the events in the world

and the seasons of the mind

so he asked his wife about it, and his wife said yes

come back and see me if it's time to know less

you do too much a-questioning of the world at large

everybody knows the politician's in charge

so he went to the Kinghouse just the next day

to see that politician with his hair dyed grey

jump down turn around blow you up or kiss the ground

trying to be the president of the land so gay

he had false pretendies, I had to love his style

bound to make some havoc with that violin smile

hey, Salvador Dali, make a walking talking something

you paint some freaky pictures, make a likeness of that man

muchos dollars if you can

so the little man asked the politician who makes the plan

who makes the plan, what happens to me

and who has the key

now you are asking me who makes the scene

his highness King Gold and Madam Silver his queen

they keep it all a-rustling with the dollars and pounds

and everyone knows that money makes the world go round

so the little man asked King Gold and Madam Silver

come tell me what you can

and King Gold said, lifting his golden voice from his golden bed

now money is something, it's a basic flow

and me I am the archetype of jewels and dough

I do a lot of talking both slow and fast

but me make decisions, no of course it's the past

for the past is something, we all have some

and universal history is a bundle of fun

now I'm getting sleepy, starting to nod

if you want to check the picture, want to check the picture

want to check it, check it with God

so the little man climbed up on a rickety ladder, to the heavenly lands

and he shed a tear, 'it's all so queer and it doesn't seem clear'

now God was sitting easy in a heavenly chair

breathing deep and lazy on the heavenly air

the little man got near him just to get right from wrong

said 'God are you responsible for all that goes on'

God looked up from having a heavenly think

he gave that little questioner a heavenly wink, saying

'men have coloured me with the colours of their minds

so I find

they used me as an excuse for all kinds of goofs

and for crimes of all kinds

all your so hard facts painted thinly on the void

why were you not more pleasantly employed

anything you want to do, I'm happy if you make it go right

and it's true if it makes you happy you know it makes the

world more bright

and you shall have liberty

it always was yours anyway

you're one of my kind, you're an infinite mind

you make each new day

there's nothing more I can say'

Cutting The Strings

By Robin Williamson

There now, they've all gone

almost as if they never had been

I turn my eyes backwards and I gaze into my own gaze

I turn my eyes inwards and I gaze into my own face

I built my prison stone by stone

how many useless knots I tied

I dug the pitfalls in my path

how many useless tears I cried

here to build in worlds of beauty

no-one made a joy a duty

no-one, no-one but me

I saw the birds that flew so free

I envied them their grace divine

I saw the dancer's airy steps

theirs was a different world than mine

here to build in worlds of glory

no-one made my sad sad story

no-one, no-one but me

when useless walls come tumbling down

sparrows will sing on the fallen stones

Adam will pull the knife from his brow

Eve will lick the salt from his wounds

free to make my own tomorrow

free to free my heart from sorrow

free to hear and smell and see

free to be me, free to be free

I Know You

By Christina McKechnie

I know you

through and through

Saw you kiss the flowers

For hours and hours

Saw you colour the flowers

For hours and hours

You and all the ones I've known

Shall wear my crown

Winged we were before time was

How we've flown, how we've flown

I love the others

My sisters and brothers

I love them all the more

Now that I've found you I love them all the more.

Rainbow

By Mike Heron

Golden seeds of autumn streak the purple sky

miles of amber raindrops stretch between our hands

just then, just then

my heart leaped high

beautiful colours danced

in my eye

walked to the window

looked up at the sky

As I lit an evening candle

feeling you were there with me

all around me, saw your love come shining brightly

You're a rainbow

And me I'll come shining though

Rain's gone, and the sky is blue

I'm a Rainbow too

No-one can say how long I've loved you

Rainbow shine

no one can say cause nobody knows

Rainbow rainbow rainbow time

Morning light of springing snowdrop

golden sun - at midday hour

twilight violet

midnight stars come shining silver

you're a rainbow

and you take my breath away

you make me stop and say

I'm a rainbow too

If you see a soft light falling

And you feel I'm there with you

All those colours

They do not come from the candle, Oh no

you're a rainbow

Born are the words

On the silent wings of love

So dear to me, sweet song of love

Coloured are the words with the rainbow of truth

So dear to me

As long as I live I will sing that song so dear

So dear to me

And merging with mine the voice of all that you are will shine

so dear to me

sweet song of love

And me I'll come shining through

Rain's gone and the sky is blue

I'm a rainbow too

No-one can say how long I've loved you

rainbow shine

No-one can say, cos nobody knows

Rainbow rainbow time

Me, I'm not missing you

I'm right there kissing you

I'm a rainbow too

I can tell by your eyes

You've been singing that old sweet song

Let your love roll on

Everybody here I think will agree

That they can sing that song

As good as can be

You know I'd hate to go

I'd hate to go

Before I see everybody here

Shine like a rainbow

I have seen you there

Long Long Road

By Mike Heron

I’m thinking tonight of that long long road

And all who walk upon it

Dying at midnight

New born by sunlight

We need love all right

I’ve been hurt so bad on that long long road

In the dust that I picked up took me

I was lying at sunlight

All alone crying by moonlight

I needed love all right

We needed love all right

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Version : Across the Airwaves

1971 songs unreleased on official albums

The Fourth Of August

By Mike Heron

'Twas upon the fourth of August

His coming unseen [???]

Where he had laid himself

The bracken burn beneath

How the years fell from his lips

As all his travels spoke

To cool me there's no breeze will blow

??????????????????

????????????? lonely have I laboured

Seen so many of my kind

To comfort with the band

And think that ever death some how

Will shortly end the song

Give to me, a little water,

To cool me, where there is no breeze,

Will blow, will blow

Cold enough, cold enough

I waited for so long this rest

I sneered at him for long

It seems to me out there

They could be you that's wrong

And if you fight the earthly bond

And higher passions crave

To cool you, there's no breeze will blow

I ???????? through the air

And struck him where he stood

Goodbye I shouted after

Goodbye to you for good

So soft his words returned to me

When I was quite alone

Give to me, a little water,

To cool me, there is no breeze,

Will blow, will blow

Cold enough, cold enough

Oh, twenty years they have passed by

From what I have just told

The poplars they shook in the wind

And our land was dark and cold

My door I opened to a friend

She was so fair and young

In my arms

She moved

Like a dream ???

Now my heart was softened then

My love I freely gave

The best ear of my fields as well

As in the brighter days

One day as I thought of life and death

My love she turned to me and said

You gave to me all your sweet love

Truly there is no breeze

Will blow, will blow

Cold enough, cold enough

Cold enough, and will you let

A young girl, thank you sir,

And will you let

A young girl, thank you sir,

And will you let

A young girl, thank you sir,

For a little water, freely given

Myrrh

Strings In The Earth And Air

lyric by James Joyce, melody by Ivan Pawle

Strings in the earth and air

make music sweet

strings by the river

where the willows meet

there's music along the river

for love wanders there

pale flowers on his mantle

dark leaves on his hair

all softly straying

with head to the music bent

and fingers playing

upon an instrument

twilight turns from amethyst

to deep and deeper blue

lamps light with a pale green glow

the trees of the avenue

the old piano plays an air

sedate and slow and gay

she bends upon the yellow keys

her head inclines this way

shy thoughts and grave wide eyes

and hands that wander as they list

twilight turns a darker blue

with lights of amethyst.

Rends-moi Demain

By Robin Williamson

Rends-moi demain et le lendemain

pour toi j'éfface le passé

pour toi j'écris les heures

laisses-moi derouler

dans le cháteau vitreu de tes pensées

tes réves mondains

tes espoirs purs

m'envoies tes baisers quand départ le jour

les nuits s'éloignent tu me manques

car les danses bizarres

de ce monde patinoir

génent maintenant mes yeux.

translation:

Give me tomorrow and the following day

for you I erase the past

for you I write the hours

allow me to unroll myself

in the glassy castle of your thoughts

your worldly dreams

your pure hopes

send me your kisses when the day departs

the nights grow longer I miss you

for the strange dances

of this world skating rink

hinder my eyes just now.

Version : Across the Airwaves

The Dancing of the Lord of Weir

By Robin Williamson

In the third part of the year

when men begin to gather fuel against the

coming cold

hear hooves ring hard on frosty ground

begins our song

for centuries we lived alone high on the moors

herding the deer for milk and cheese for leather

and horn

humans came seldom nigh

for we with our spells held them at bay

and they with gifts of wine and grain did

honour us

returning at evening from the great mountains

out red hoods ring with bells lightly we run

until before our own green hill

there we did stand

she is stolen

she is snatched away

through watery meads straying our lovely

daughter

she of the wild eyes

she of the wild hair

snatched up to the saddle of the lord of Weir

who has his castle high upon a crag

a league away

upon the horse of air at once we rode

to where Weir's castle lifts like a crippled claw

into the moon

and taking form of minstrels brightly clad

we paced upon white ponies to the gate

and rang thereon

"we come to sing unto my lord of Weir

a merry song."

into his sorry hall we stepped

where was our daughter bound near his chair

"come play a measure!"

"sir at once we will!"

and we began to sing and play

to lightly dance in rings and faster turn

no man within that hall could keep his seat

but needs must dance and leap

against his will

this was the way we danced them to the door

and sent them on their way into the world

where they will leap amain

till they think one kind thought

for all I know they may be dancing still

while we returned with our own

into our hall

and entering in

made fast

the grassy door.

Will We Open the Heavens

By Robin Williamson

Let me be where love is born

to sail upon a scallop shell

the way no hair of a thought is disturbed

and the sight is still

as moonlight clasps each leaf

of a tree of dust

until it knows it is alive

and lives to be green

tell me will we open the heavens

and disperse ourselves as rain

or passing by some closed door

beam morning at the passing of all dreams

i love you in spirit and in earth

through all and beyond

until sweet kindness fills all space

quieting the howling stars.

Through the Horned Clouds

By Robin Williamson

I see your faces

blown through the horned clouds

in the silent cities

they call me so loud

come through the fire

come through the foam

come at the world's night

call the herds home

dearest child dearest child

Most High

please don't let our fancy die

till all the grapes are gathered from the vine

when you come

will you sound the harp

give to the blind

cat's eyes in the dark

o will we know you for what you are

you who have come so far

sweetest fair sweetest fair

Most High

don't let them cut that ladder before its time

for all the grapes to be gathered from the vine

He comes again

She comes again

through the mist of time

through the mist of rain

no more words my heart brims over

in the sea of circumstance

rows for the rocky shore

we who have sworn

by the dead and the unborn

wheels within wheels

O Most High.

Version : Just Like the River

Sandy Land

By Robin Williamson

The wheels roll on and on into the older west

seeking for sleep and you found no rest

old genetic train is railed to the ground

it keeps your smiles turned down

dandelion compass and the bible and pin

seen some seasick sailors since the origin

you may sift your bread you can save your bran

its hard to make a living on sandy land

the map of human theatre

its incomplete

favourite parts are broken hearts and poison

sweet

here grins the villain in the smartest car

the hero in the mask of bone

everyone prompting behind the scenes

for their reasons unknown

the map of human theatre

its filled with roads

but favourite routes are concrete boots

and overloads.

Cold Harbour

By Robin Williamson

Please never name yourself to me

enough lies we see

even the moonlight

come rest, rest awhile beneath the shade

of all the beauty you have made

and shared with me

you are my pride

to think I once though you had died

in cold harbour

it seems there will be no more goodbyes

for you and I

dearest companions

there's time to wipe away what went before

to give away what you have stored

and moor no more moor no more

in cold harbour

it seems there will be no journey's end

for you and I

dearest companions

mother and I we have been singing all we can

I know that you will understand

you can be so strong and kind

no one will be left behind

when we leave

cold harbour

cold harbour

hard hard haven.

Dark Eyed Lady

By Robin Williamson

Dark eyed lady

I believe you are the one I loved before

you are the one I loved before

beneath the eucalyptus

of your garden door

I see a face within your face

I'm not looking any more

for anyone to take your place

at the noon of night

I believe we'd leave our bodies there below

lying there below

along the hidden ways to go

to the hidden hall

where the friends convene

to sing the songs that cannot be sung

to do the things that cannot be done

I always knew I would meet you again

I believe you are my long lost friend

I will know you when time has an end

and love continues to begin

I believe you are the one

the one I loved before.

I See Us All Get Home

By Robin Williamson

You treat me so kindly

how can I repay

seeing your lips talking

so lovely takes my breath away

you make me restless

but you give me words to say

and if I don't get it wrong

I see us all get home

let me be your fantasy

let me kiss your weary foot

let me be your cameraman

your confidant your preacher and your prostitute

let me be your enemy

but over all let me be your friend

cause if I don't get it wrong

I see us all get home

I see us hew great mountains down

I see us in a lovely place

I see us naked of lies together

I see us naked of disgrace

I see trust born in us through honour

and I see peace come

and if I don't get it wrong

I see us all get home.

*

rewritten as

I See Us Cross Great Waters

I see us cross great waters

I see us in a lovely place

I see us naked of lies together

I see us naked of disgrace

I see trust born in us

I see peace come

and if I don’t get it wrong

I see us all get home

Version : I see us cross great waters – Ring dance

Smiling Men With Bad Reputations

Call Me Diamond

Call me diamond, call me gold

I have been bought, been sold

I've been hung up, been laid

been exalted, been betrayed

I've been killed, I have been maimed

I've been freed, been tamed.

Oh, come on, come on, dig my mine.

Oh, come on, come on kiss me, kiss me

all along my spine.

Call me diamond, call me gold

Been in the fire so hot, been in the ice so cold

Been in the summer, winter, spring and fall

Been in the everything, I've been in the nothing at all.

Flowers Of the Forest

Sweet love the words that made you cry

They came from one that don't have love like we do

Even if you'd give him all your sweet love

Probably turn his back and walk away,

Lookin' for a trick and he wouldn't understand

That you just want to stretch out your hand

You know he's closed himself to all the grief and pain that he can't stand

And he's bound his heart with an iron band

Come dry your tears like the sun dries the rain

Deep is the river running through my life

Full shines the sun upon it

The girl I love swims there all day long

You know she is bright as the flowers of the forest

The tender tears in your smiling eyes

They meld me right to my soul

We have to part now for a while

But our lives will cross for ever

You'll bless every place you pass through

So much good in all you do.

I can't understand how anyone could hurt you so bad

So sad to see them hide from what they are

Me I know you like I know the song in my soul

It's gonna be all right

Audrey

Audrey my dear, I've been waitin' so long for you girl

Won't you let it all come on through

Tonight won't you come and make love to me

Oh Audrey my dear

Just look at us, walkin' in the snowy street with our collars up

I don't want to go to another party, 'cos I've had enough

And you, you look so lovely, I want very much

To take your clothes off and hold you very close

Someplace where it's quiet enough

To feel our love a-growin.

Brindaban

Lately I've seen your face come close in on mine like sunshine

Lately I've heard your voice come close in on mine like sunshine

And I know your life is running close to me

Peacocks in the first, kokilas in the fifth

Sing like Jayadeva

Ma lati, Madhava, how close Brindaban

Feast of Stephen

When winter came this year she found me well prepared for her

The flame well fed with pine, shuttered windows oakwood doors

From the low dales come the fiddler, gave his tunes their flight

Don't know her name or the dance that became her so well

From topmost limb of night's dark tree

Tonight my lantern light floats free

The ladies danced so well, the ladies danced so light

But it was not mortal step drew me from my guests to meet the night

Snow lies deep with friends unseen

I will light my eyes to Venus green

Holding my life with a hope

When the midnight skies rise,

She flies---

Version : Incredible Acoustic Band Official Bootleg

Version : Live at Bloomsbury 1997

Spirit Beautiful

Glow little spark glow brightly in the embers of dying fire

See the people come run to their windows

What manner of lightning this

Oh spirit, spirit beautiful

Oh spirit, spirit beautiful

Swim little bubble swim lightly, bubble on a silent pool

See the people come run to their windows

What manner of ocean this

Grow little seed grow brightly resting in a nest of earth

See the people come run to their windows

What manner of lightning this

Version : Across the Airwaves

Warm Heart Pastry

Hey I know your faces and you've sent them here before

Drinking my wine, dropping your ash on my floor, I'm waiting

And when you call, bring it all

I'm thin and I'm getting thinner

Hey I'm a hungry man and you know I ain't talking 'bout grits

Yeah I'll bid for the puzzle 'cos I think I know how it fits

You could be fat as a hog, still you want to chew it

One day you're gonna find out - hot dog doesn't do it

Warm heart pastry

Talkin' bout warm hot pastry sure ‘nuff I am

Hey I'm a hungry man and you know I ain't talkin’ 'bout grits

Just look at you, you got a sour lemon stuck where a smile oughta fit

Beautiful Stranger

Soft lapped the bark boats

A wounded shoulder hurt me not

Snake - like branches quietly hid my eyes so bright in the swamp-red sun

Soft edged the foreign words

Coloured by the dark waves splash in the mist

Brown the breasts and purple-stained

Dye deep-pounded with the stone

The warm wind now lifts the haze

I looked and I caught my breath

And I raised my head up high

And I shouted out loud in my soul

Beautiful stranger I'm glad I found you

Bright the sky above my head

Streaked with red and yellow wing

Warm the mud between my toes

Darkest green the inland trail

Distant now the bark boats

Golden beads on silver wire of sea

Long bathed by salty spray

Visions float on the dry earth’s smell

Drifting back through younger days

I looked and I caught my breath

And I shouted out loud in my soul

Beautiful stranger I'm glad I found you

Moist and cool the river bank

Laid me down against a tree

Remembering as in a dream

Shoulder cut in the dark waves splash

In that place no wound there was

Only a ring of finest bronze there gleamed

Soft lapped the back boats

Brown the breasts and purple stained

River green reflect the gaze

I looked and I caught my breath

And I raised my head up high

And I shouted out loud in my soul

Beautiful stranger I'm glad I found you

Version : Across the Airwaves

No Turning Back

No turning back I gave a small cry

Stirring in your sleep you caught my thought

So close and so far is a bad way to leave you

Once more the sea shore dry

Next time around lover

Next time around redeemer

Next time around saviour

We'll put our love together and sing

Remember, through it all I loved you

And you knew I loved you

So it wasn't such a bad one

Son it wasn't such a bad one

No brother but

Oh - next time around

1972 songs unreleased on official albums

Willow Pattern

by Robin Williamson

The sun in the pale silence

Through the soft yellow mist

A gentle sighing

My love lies alone in guarded palace

Hoi-hoi-ya

Hoi-hoi-ya

Hoi-hoi-ya

Ho!

Drifting in moonlight

I wait for soft step I know through swaying grasses

The bird will sing so sweet

The cage is broken

Hoi-hoi-ya &c

My skirt is long and the pink flowers tall

Oh how I love you, love you best of all

How we shall dance and sing of the day

You're so much stronger than twice what you say

Hoi-hoi-ya &c

Under the plum blossoms lingering snow

Come with me love before we must go

Over the water to our secret way

Tomorrow will be our sweet wedding day

Hoi-hoi-ya &c

Her father the Emperor has denied their right to marry

Hoi-ya-nah!

The lovers seek to escape by their secret way over the willow bridge

Hoi-yo, hoi-yo?

A spy has betrayed them, they are pursued by the palace guard

Hoi-ya!

Before their cruel spears can pierce their innocent flesh

We'll fly away like doves in the sky

Higher and higher, ever so high

We'll fly away like doves in the blue

Never they'll sever a love that is true

Hoi-hoi-ya

Version : Across the Airwaves

Living in the Shadows

By Robin Williamson

Living in the shadows and calling you

I was calling

Could hardly hear you calling me

Could not see you in my memory

Time rolled on like a river, like a wind

Like an endless song

Something was wrong for me

Could not see you in my memory

I tasted every drink, I was a sober man

You were my wine

You were my wine

You left me outside

Outside

Version : Across the Airwaves

Lowlands Away (also known as Ladies)

By Mike Heron

If the night was more gentle I would lie at home and sigh

And sing a song

But they ladies, they’re so fair and bold

Calling out my name

Wearing their fine bodies with insight

All in the cool of the startling night

Stars on my breast like pearls for a lover’s tongue or touch

With fire of dawn and you ride upon the hills like thunder

You’re so silent I recognise your song

And your mask of light for the seventh morn

Changing your dance for the lowlands

Come on, turn your long legs home

Jade princess stranded, pale ship gone far

Fiery light in the silver dawn

Scanning the skies for our lowlands

Turn your long legs home

The guitar lines tremble for the rosehip man

Lingering essence to fill the rain

Turning the galleons homeward again

Turn your long legs home

Alternative live version transcript:

The tow lines tremble for the rosehip dawn

Near the essence trembling

Scanning the skies, stranger again

Turn your long legs home

Cool high majestic (indecipherable)

And her black bead shine on the lotus flower

Deep is the chanting a lowland hour

Turn your long legs home

Come you long life sailors on the waves so high

All you who’ve heard the captain’s cry

I mean piercing the sky, lowlands away

Turn your long legs home

Lowlands lowlands away away

Secret Temple

Lyrics by Licorice McKechnie, Music by Mike Heron

Yes I will believe you're in trouble

Yet I see you as life's lover

How long, how long

How long, how long

How long

I see you are my son

I see you are my son

Ah the breathing of you - Secret Temple

Secret Temple

Open the gates

Ah the breathing of you - Secret Temple

Secret Temple

Open the gates

I trust you

I trust you

Yes I will believe you're in trouble

Yet I see you as life's lover

How long, how long

How long, how long

How long

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Version : Across the Airwaves

Sea White Horses

By Robin Williamson

Sea white horses

Prancing, dancing over a lilac sea

Waves like silver leaves silver leaves

O sea of memory, sea of memory

They got silver hooves, silver bells

Eyes like ivory

Get up in the saddle

Ride over the waves so free

Under a lilac sky

Over a violet sea

Far far away

El Ratto

By Robin Williamson

I am El Ratto

The aristocratto

From gay Seville I hail

I am a gay bagatto

With my lips I kiss the mirror

Mmmm, multo eleganto!

Naked I stand

Will I wear red or blue?

Will I wear velvet black or the doublet new?

I pass – the damsels sigh

And fainting all, saying

“I would wed El Ratto or none at all”

(A devil for the ladies)

Cara mia, I am so sincere

I keen for you, dearest snookums

Beneath her window I was singing “O soleoeoeoeoeoeo”

But she was upstairs with my rival.

Upstairs I ran, three steps at every stride,

Tu es magnifico.

I sneer, screech, I curse his mother’s knee,

I step up to my rival,

I seize him by the collar and to him I say

“I am El Ratto

Well known as the aristocratto.

Flee, coward, flee, flee

While yet you may.”

My rival turns, hmmm, turns,

Hmm, tall, hmm, taller than I thought…

Aaaah, he’s coming!

It is El Catto!

My pants I shatto!

Between his clan and mine is a long vendetta

I honourably withdraw, I think I’d better

I think I may go seek some calmer region

Perhaps I’ll go and join the Foreign Legion

Version - Tricks of the Senses

Giles Crocodile

by Robin Williamson

In a sleazy side street in a well-known town

Where only the strong survive

The slinky young pimp there

And I think you ought to meet him

Can you smell his Brylcreem?

Can you stand his vibes?

I'm Frankie the Frog, I don't work too much

I got the golden touch I got the socks to match

Great snakes! I got what it takes

I can always run you down a little zee love's snatch (?)

From here to Nevada Or even farther

Pay me my money down

Love her or leave her

But if you got the coins

And the porky loins

You ought to try my special Gloria Beaver

This Gloria Beaver

Whatever Gloria wants Gloria gets

She has those kind of eyes that say no!, no!, no! no!

She has that kind of mouth that says yes!

And she came out of the Union Trust

With her ferrin rollers and her silicone bust

She met a young croc on Fifth and Vine

And she said: "Oh, Gorgeous, can you spare a dime?

He had a football jersey with a number four

He said he'd buy her a beautiful mink coat

And bring it to her the next day for sure

He said he'd take her away with him

On his old man's wheels

And, as he was leaving, he said: "They call me Giles"

Now who is this that rides like a bat out of hell,

Down the side streets of his own home town

Totally swathed to the waist in the tightest of black leather

So there was rhinestones and the works

Crocodile angels are blazened (?) across his ass

Could this figure of perfect suavity and debonair

Could this be the young Giles?

Crusin' down Main Street

Yeah, with four-on-the-floor

Sitting away down low

I'm trying to be just like Bobby Vee

And I'm diggin' on the radio

I tell you, that Gloria, she came to me

Just like the answer to a young croc's prayer

With the gorgeous golden hair

Oh, man, how will I ever pay for that mink coat I sweared

I would buy for her I know!

Maybe I could rob that old candy store down the block

But no! The way in which I obtain this fur coat for my true love

It must be pure, as ribbon snow

I know, the very thing:

my childhood savings I will draw them out,

this very afternoon, I will buy her a fur coat today

And so he did

And it was early next morning Giles crawled out of bed

And he popped a few pimples

And he slicked down his hair

He sprayed his arm-pits till he smelled like a man

Near Gloria's gun (?) I made my stand

She appeared in the shade (?), dismayed

When she saw my empty hands

Then I reached down in the back seat

Of my Chevrolet Pontiac

And I gave her that beautiful mink

Oh, what do you think,

she loved that thing

And she loved that thing

She loved me then

She loved me then

She loved me then

Ah, she loved me then.

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

Liquid Acrobat As Regards the Air

Talking of the End

By Robin Williamson

Talking of the end

talking of the end

let me hear you say you disagree

talking of the end

talking of the end

let me hear you say it will not be

this is no time for easy riding

this is no time to cry

better start to play your part

start to live before you start to die

dream the world all alive

busily conspiring humming like a hive

dream the world all alive

I dream it as me

rise as fair and tender leaves

brightening in countless eyes

and the sweet song of whales beneath the sea

if I could sing only one song I'd sing of you

Additional verse sung live:

If you go to the beautiful future

Carry it my love from me

You’ll see what’s done in the heart of the sun

And in the deep salt sea

Remember every second since the world began

Build new worlds for your play

Reach out your hand, pick the fruit of the stars

When all that mist rolls away

Dear Old Battlefield

By Robin Williamson

just another rusty brother

seeing his old role replayed

looking in the world like a broken mirror

seeing his old face displayed

they come and go, come and go

why do you advertise goodbye

living a lie will lay you low, what can I tell you, what can I sell you

but the truth will make you high

death is unreal that's the way I feel

there's more to be revealed

lovers and friends meet again and again

on the dear old battlefield

I will see my memory lightly let me go

I know that we will always be but time pass fast and slow

agelong cradlesong almost had me sleeping for good

if not for the plan of the magic man who finally helped me out of the wood.

Cosmic Boy

Lyrics by Christine McKechnie

I'm calling to you

my cosmic boy

for I want to say hello

and I see you smile

your shining joy

ah you look so high

you look so high

and I shall dance for you

the sweetest dance that I can do

yes I shall dance the sweetest dance I can

ah you're looking so fine now

all soft-eyed and shiney

and when you look how you are

I'm so proud you are a friend of mine

and I shall dance for you

the sweetest dance that I can do

yes I shall dance the sweetest dance I can

all along the soft pink clouds yes

on the rolling clouds endless

Worlds They Rise and Fall

By Mike Heron

worlds they rise and fall within her eyes

she gives the eagle wings

to fly her skies

upon her breath the four winds live and die

and sometimes

its all I can do is bow to her

chorus:

but when the moon is misty through the trees

right now she says I want to be

your girl, your little girl

stars they rise and fade, around her dance

for her the steep is climbed

the gulf is spanned

she lives, she lives, the bards sing, around her stand

and sometimes

its all I can do is bow to her

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Futurefields

Evolution Rag

By Robin Williamson

we're the fish men and the sea apes

look at our tails and scales

and our big tough leader away he wails

he thinks he is the king pin but he's outraced

by the little weedy stranger with the grin on his face

but that is the illusionist the circus man

and the whole man murdering sea is his caravan (it leaks)

eat air croquettes my children dear

if you want to save yourself time and tears

history picnickers follow me

evolution up the slopes of the sea

out on the land out on the land singing hurray

while a million years pass by and we get well on our way

grandma clears the trash left by previous picnic slaves

and with just one swipe of her ragged fins she uncovers the caves

singing Billy go store the map safely underground

he does but what is this that he has found

the map has gone how will we grow old

grandma's tears made the barbecue cold

I find myself saying here's where I came in

the illusionist has vanished like a red hot gin

Painted Chariot

By Mike Heron

only a painted chariot but it took you so far into the rain

and the coachman slapped his fist

on the chariot in the mist

he said look here sonny, can't you see its as real as pain

see this fine chariot, won't you ride it

I'm the coachman, won't you trust me to guide it

and it's only a painted chariot

don't you trust that coachman

he doesn't want you to be free

then you got high, deep sigh, much more, where's the door

hear the old prayers, find the wise players

Adam and Eve

By Robin Williamson

once before the world began

God was sitting in the sky

he began to get some mud together

o I wonder why

first he made a man

and then he made a woman

Mr. Adam and miss Eve

they began to be quite good friends

as I can well believe

o remember that morning

remember that time

take a warning

when you see the sign

Eve was sitting in the garden

when in came a serpent

miss Eve take this apple

give it to your man

give it to your man

I don't want it

o Adam give it a try

o give it a try

friends if you're travelling

never go taking an apple from a snake

if you do I'll tell you true

you make a big mistake

Red Hair

By Mike Heron

stepping out of the grey day she came

her red hair falling like the sky

love held them there in that moment with the whole world passing by

he could look through all of his books

and not find a line that would do

to tell of changes he could feel her make in him

just by being there

so good just to walk in the light

may the moon shine down on love every night

sometimes it seems the only things real

are what we are and what we feel

Version : Glen Row Tapes

Version : Live at Bloomsbury 1997

Here Till Here Is There

By Robin Williamson

where will you go

when days grow short and winds grow cold

and green leaves are shaken

there was a road as once I saw

wound with bright ivies and trumpeting haws

of whitest sand embroidered with flowers

that very few had taken

where will you go

while rivers run and days eat days

and white stars are pining

in hopes more true in hearts more gay

in love that is stronger and brighter that day

in hands that heal in thoughts that play

in all eyes shining

Darling Belle

By Robin Williamson

papa would take me to the park to see the swans

by hansom cab trotting so high

holding his hand to see the swans

hissing louder than rustling dresses of gracious ladies bustling by

see swan ships come sailing in

white as the clouds on a windy day

James I suppose would be in school

James I suppose would be in school

I was I was learning to spell

laughing at loud smells

avoiding the rod of the codfaced master

was it your absence made me quiet at noon

playing British bulldogs on the gravel

was it your presence coloured my dream

I burrowed in cupboards like a mole all saturday

under old chairs and old ladies knees

I framed your half remembered face

with frail white embroideries

calling for you down the mousey garden

calling for you down the mousey garden

o did you meet him at the ball

eighteen years on

tall soldier now and you full grown

Belle did you meet him at the ball

o do you remember me

thin girl with cold hands

you in your scarlet and you knew my name

step to the veranda under the wisteria

in the mysterious November

dancing as if with death or fate

to the moon black ballroom

of the silk skinned lake

kissing me you lifted my skirt

under the willow trees

keep the home fires burning

though your heart is yearning

though the boys are far away

they dream of home

there's a silver lining

in the dark clouds shining

turn that lining inside out

till the boys come home

o did I see you march to the train

did I cry was my nose red

my two day bride can you feel me in your memory

I will be the redness in your iron fire

how could i write

my words would seem sad or gay

we regret to inform you

we regret to inform you

meet me by gaslight in dark dawn

on Waterloo Bridge we will walk arm in arm

hearing the leaves fall with whisper into the foggy dew

when we are dead

when we are dead

now she sits in her brother's window's house

skin like a lizard aura like a daffodil

migrant guest from relative to inlaw

she stares into the embers and remembers

Version : Across the Airwaves

Earthspan

My Father was a Lighthouse Keeper

By Malcolm LeMaistre

Lying on the beach with desire

Rocking to the music of the waves

I was in despair

My heart needed repair

My lover had lied to me but

I was bored by what I saw there

Why? Why! Why?

My father was a lighthouse keeper

Watched the waves getting steeper

Watched the ships going down

In Cadillacs they sailed with the tide

Beneath the pier the sea she stroked the night

I rocked a little then

I moved my body again

My lover kissed my lips

I was digging what I saw there

Why! Why? Why!

My father was a lighthouse keeper

Watched the waves getting steeper

Watched the ships going down

We watched the days slip by and the stars explode

And we watched them once again

Oh the laughter rose a cheer

Oh the laughter so nice to hear

Oh the laughter so good and free

Oh the laughter so nice to see

I lay among the shells and coke cans

In my lover

All the people were eating

And smiling sadly in their big cars

My father looked down from his lighthouse

He saw it all he knew it all

Then he laughed a little

Oh so pretty

Oh so easy

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

Antoine

By Mike Heron

So still the green and golden plain in icy spring

They young French convent girls in white singing

He took the sacrament young Antoine not without a blush

He left the priest the good book the bread and cup

And took with him the voices hanging in the silver space

Not till he'd reached the vineyard rim did he look down

On the gentle valley breathing in the sun

Seeing the eastern slope where she lived he spoke her name

In love beyond his years he saw the mist come down

And knew there would be many mists he'd look through

For this mountain star

Ah if you'd seen me there hiding in the orchard

Rejoicing in my warm salt tears

Holding to my heart the beauty of a sad song

Needing, needing you.

Restless Night

By Robin Williamson

restless night

walking nowhere in the foggy dew

restless years

whispering through

very long clouds

very low clouds

very long clouds

very low clouds

it wakes in me the wound of days

as dawn breaks bleak

I call to you

present the mirror as you comb your hair

horizons rising icy blue

yes and tall walls dwindle

steeples sink into the sea

old keys for old locks splash up a spray

grey thoughts and useless papers they roll and blow away

while the band was playing such a sad refrain

sounds my ears have lost

continue through the rain

Restless Night (original live version)

Restless night

Walking nowhere in the foggy dew

And the whole town is tiptoeing

And whispering through

Very low clouds

Doors (or : stores) are all closed

And the stores (or: stars) are too bright

I would go tell them of the dreams we know

But the night gets in and fits too tight

[alternate :

I would go drown in other dreams

But my light suit fits too tight]

The whole world grows around

Cars and me in the clear night air

And my body gets sad cause I see

No stars here and no stars there

Very low clouds

Sunday Song

Lyrics by Licorice McKechnie

In the church made of living trees entwined

Green and dapple golden trees enshrined us

I heard the mice murmur in the corners

Saw the moles move deep below the ground

Far below the great ships trembled

And a million men almost remembered

For one did

We are bonded

Love is god

For one did we are bonded love is god

Gold is roses and horses

Kissing petals, swishing tails

Love is god oh sweet joy

[Original live version added the following lines here:]

We were having an earthspan of silence

To contemplate supreme being

Venus fell for a while in England

Air was sweet as milk

The boy child's kisses still changed into birds

Grasses were violet swaying like silk

Now my friends are scattered wide

Over planet earth

I have so much to tell each one

Those of chosen birth

My friends who fold their wings away

In the day

Ah strange surprise

Grass being green

On planet earth

Galaxy thirteen

Yes I have so much to tell each one

Of things I truly know

Of our journeying creating golden dawn

Of our sweet and awesome bond

Why we fold our wings away

In the day

Love is god, is god, oh sweet joy.

Additional verse from original live performance:

And I want to tell you now

And letters take too long

So now I give you this, a spirit song

Friends who fold their wings away

In the day

Banks of Sweet Italy

By Robin Williamson

and must you go my flower my gem

my laughter and my hope of joy

to follow fortune through all the world

make luck pursue you my darling boy

the sun shines bright in France

yellow it shines on high Barbary

o be my light of day

tarry not long on the banks of sweet Italy

a golden ring is a precious thing

red stockings and shoes of green

a dwelling place with painted door

a wide white bed to love you in

summer's gone with calm days

ungentle now is Biscay Bay

a cold fear claims my heart

god save all sailors from the cruel waves

Additional verse from live performances:

I followed you through rain and snow

Though you had nothing but your father’s purse

A foreign winter and no other shelter

Drink in your eyes is burning clear (?)

Version : Songs for the Calendarium

The Actor

Lyrics by Malcolm LeMaistre, Music by Robin Williamson

The actor leaves the stage with a rose in his hand

He settles in the back seat his thoughts are like fine sand

Driven through the rain swept streets casting a melancholy stare

Upon two enraptured lovers kissing without a care

The dreams of an actor spill slowly by

Like the thoughts of a dreamer or the casting of a die

Talking to gay fellows of the follies on which they perch

He saw a lovely lady beneath the arches of a church

Cigarettes in the airless twenties

An estate well filled with dust

In the evening reading Swinburne

Eating mightily with some false lust

But a kiss was what we found

On damp but friendly ground

The lady wore no makeup but she stood like a swan

Thin body of a dancer her dress was quietly torn

Her eyes searched his distant heart that lingered in the rain

But his friends caught his iron gaze and carried it away again

Broken hearted in the loveless twenties

Where a wink was like an embrace

Making love on blue Fridays

From across some foggy space

But a kiss was what we found

On damp but friendly ground

Tea was like a mirror a reflection never there

His thoughts upon that ring of love that burned upon her stare

Her eyes her lips her chin her grace the rain upon her hair

Thus it gripped his white gloved heart can anyone be so fair

Untied in the breezy twenties

With a hand held in my arms

Bearing my heart to the hallowed spires

Of this quiet and ancient land

For a kiss was what we found

On damp but friendly ground

[Original 3rd verse from live performances:]

Time knotted in the breezy twenties

With lilacs on the ground

Tennis on wet Sundays

Tea taken without a sound

But a kiss &c

Moon Hang Low

By Robin Williamson

let the moon hang low low down in the sky

the lower it goes the higher we fly

one small candle is just enough light

for endless moments of love bright

and the more I know you the more I know

and the more I love you the more love grows

let the fire burn way down low

in those early hours easy hours

when the world turns slow.

Sailor and the Dancer

By Malcolm LeMaistre

Beneath some shaded planet before this earth was born

We came together and we danced in the early dawn

For my hands contain ten dances that shall bear us into the night

Into the sea and the moon's morning light

Night mimed a bow and broke into the day

Fair sailors and their cautious friends smiled on the sea

That reflected all their gazes and danced with the air

The breezes filled the sails high against the quay

High on the limpid waves the ship it did fly

Rising as a condor into the silvery sky

Passing through the arches that begin his earth

The sailors saw the scenic air as air gave Earth it's birth

Gazing ahead towards today they saw the fields of this world

They watched the first new dancers as their bodies did unfurl.

version : On Air cd (not included on Across the Airwaves)

Seagull

By Mike Heron

Cold morning sun show me where I spent the night

Sun can you find through porthole on the anchored sea – me

Then I'm walking on the prom deck asking the sky

Oh someone won't you hear my cry

Come and stop my questioning, stop my lie

And maybe give me a sign to show me it's alright

Seagull come fly me your song your high song

It's very true there's nothing to complain of here

You know I've tried and not found an enemy to fear – here

There's safety in the warm thoughts all around me

Adventure in the strange port quay

But still a questioning in the quiet of me

Why do I need a sign to show me it's alright

Seagull come fly me your song your high song

All right, out on the rolling, rolling sea

Now.

1973 songs unreleased on official albums

Where are you Living Now, Man?

By Robin Williamson

When I was a younger man my mind was like a sieve

I used to move from house to house, I was never sure where I lived

I changed my house two times a week, I kept it up for years

When I met someone out on the street these words were all I’d hear

Where are you living now, man?

How are you getting high?

Where are you living now, man?

I wish I did reply

I’m sitting here looking at the stars

I’m trying to play the simplest chords I know

You and I we came from very far away

I wonder where we all go

I’m sorry for any pain I brought to you my darling friends

And I’m sorry if I brought you down or messed you around my darling friends

Well I used to scrape a livelihood in a very devious style

I had big bags of sticks and stones, I would sort them into piles

At night when I was coming home with sticks and stones galore

A big policeman stopped me there and he put me against the door

Now what have you got in your bags, what’s inside your hat?

I told him it was sticks and stones, I had my answer pat

We chatted there for an hour or so, I showed him all my stones

This pretty one, that pretty one, he answered just with groans

And just when I was warming to it he had a bright idea

He looked me keenly in the eye, these words he said to me

Where are you living now, man?

How are you getting high?

I started to tell him

He did not wait for my reply

I Know that Man

By Mike Heron

I know that man, I know that man

He’s just too old for you

His hopes are dead

His dreams are fled

Too old for you

Why should you be his pillow or his pill

How come you love him

How come you love him still?

I know that man, I know that man

He’s just too pale for you

He’s not too strong

He won’t last long, too stale for you

Do you really think he’ll make it up this hill?

How come you love him still?

When I was on fire I used to want you then

When I was a man I did not care

I leave you now the keys to the highway

Go on, see how you fare

I know that man, I know that man

He’s just too pretty for you

(indecipherable line)

What will he do when there’s nothing left to kill?

How come you love him still?

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

Oh Did I Love a Dream

By Malcolm LeMaistre

Bored laziness laced his lucid eye

In corderoy suits and old school tie

He left for France to lavish lie

It rained slightly when he arrived

Spring rushed by in ’31

Fresh daffodils on wet windowsills

Laced and chased in chiffon thrills

Image reves ma cher

Oh did I love a dream?

She appeared one night in the smoke-filled air

Flashing and flawless, a faultless frame

From Paris to Rome she tossed her hair

The valet changed but she remained

The heels were high in ’31

A movie kiss a sacred bliss

A sound came from Garbo’s lips

Upon the walk he watched the gondolier

From his fingers a Gauloise limply glowed

His sanguine friends cheered their cheers

But he recalled her dancing, how she flowed

The days were changing in ’31

O loss of laughter lay over the hill

A foolishly fashionable passing thrill

In Greece he saw her prancing eye

Words from lips twirled towards her

For one brief night he held her sighs

But she leaped away in the morning air

The days grew bright in ’31

Our eyes were light and hearts were strong

Life became a swan-song

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

Out of the Dark Waters

by Robin Williamson

Out of this fog, who comes, comes complaining,

Soaked in hermits robes to barren lands.

And touching his lust soft reason on Shank's pony,

And cut throats and gamblers,

Inspect their hands.

Rumbles of law, pick up or hit and miss,

And love is all that pays for one more jar.

And hold their smile on this.

Who from the dark waters,

Lift the sword.

Dance within the ring, false hearts and true.

The mask of little jest secures the pace.

And the ring of tongues deign to perform the perfume,

His mouth against your breast

And his hands about your waist.

 

Brighten up with the world against the meek,

With tongue in cheek and never on your charms

The wing bites where the heart beats with soft alarm

And no more ringlets no

Never taught me how to kill.

Dance lip to lip, it kills another thread.

Depart and bless by dark and spectral dawn.

And hold me smile on this.

Who from the dark waters,

Lift the sword.

Version : Journey’s Edge expanded edition

Beneath The Larked Sky

by Robin Williamson

I was born a wanderer from my mother's heart,

So in to this world I took my eyes,

By ageless rivers I lay my feet to char,

Beneath the larked sky,

Beneath the larked sky,

Blue sky.

Through high towns and villages, my time has named a price,

And upon the lips of song I daily chanced my life.

But behind time's inches and beyond the miles

I see my lover's smile,

I see my true love's smile.

I was born a wanderer from my mother's heart,

So in to this world I took my eyes,

By ageless rivers I lay my feet to char,

Beneath the larked sky,

Beneath the larked sky,

Blue sky.

The world ends it's fear again beneath the north wind.

My heart pulls the evening to the sea like a bell.

Following the whispered words along some endless road,

Hearing more than I can tell,

Hearing more than I can tell.

Torch Song

by Mike Heron

The light in the crooner's life is an old torch song

Flaming up for his first loves -

Misty romancing and moonlighting dancing into dawn

"You are my sweet theme song

You linger when the spotlights fade

With my sweet theme song I've got it made

Just love me

Run to meet me when I come home

Take my feelings,

Show them a new day.

Make me say;

I will sing again

Just like the brown eyes of autumn years

Singing to the yellow moon

‘The dawn is soon coming'

I will touch again

Dreams in the lonely glass at 4 am

And walk onto the foggy street

The chance to meet a dream coming"

version : Conflict of Emotions

Belinda

There was no foolin'.

Stretched out her hand and led me,

Let her long hair fall soft on my cheek

She made it so clear

She would go with me one time

And dance for me a dance so sweet

It took all my love to show that girl the sun

It took all my love to show that girl the sun

Took all my strength just to watch her goin'

Like she was no one

Oh! Belinda I'm glad you closed your door

It could've been rough

If you'd seen me fallin'

All over your dancin' floor

version : Conflict of Emotions

It Takes My Breath Away Yet

I did not meet you soul to soul.

I felt the kiss and missed the words that you spoke.

Your skin so soft and warm on mine,

Sighing like the best was done and gone.

And the way that I was playing it was just one

night with you

Opened my eyes and you were smiling.

Oh darling I'm further and further and further

From the way that I thought when we met.

Isn't it amazing to watch our love growing?

You know it takes my breath away yet.

Went lookin' in the city streets

And in the ways of the country

And all the time what I needed

Oh all the time just what I needed

Was lookin' to find me

Lookin' to find me

version : Conflict of Emotions

No Ruinous Feud

Explorer

By Mike Heron

I can no longer hear you call 'cross the airwaves

Fog on the line has shaken my will not to yield

The one left here, my command all gone down

I'm caught, caught, where the cold dark fingers trace

Where the men who failed, they lie and kiss the dark earth's face

I am lost, lost, by the storm clouds am tossed

Now here comes the snow deep

And I will take a sleep, sweet Margaret my dear

Tell me

It was long and a strong and sweet year indeed

To get lost in

I've seen the survivors when they come home from the icefields

The lace and the ladies' flush and a pearl on the eye

Fine bone china and the log fire spark high

But I'm back in the wasteland low, where the ripe seed never gets blown

What chance I'll see the sun on the lea, hear the cornfield moan

I am lost, lost, by the storm clouds am tossed

Now here comes the snow deep

And I will take sleep, sweet Margaret my dear

Tell me

It was a long and a strong and a sweet year indeed

To get lost in

No one to hear me when I cry

No one to hold me when I sigh

No one to watch me when I die

How will I live again

Down Before Cathay

By Malcolm Lemaistre

Through red forests that lean against the hills

I wandered with my heart in my hand

My cloak wound down to the shores of Cathay

Where the gold lay scattered on the sand

Night was young back before the dawn

Casting kisses at the day

Shipping the sea bestriding the earth

Down before Cathay.

The admirable deeds of Khubla Khan

we admired from the deck

Of our cedarwood ship

Observing the domes that prance from Mandalay

Where the dogs they sleep all the day

We gazed upon the Towers of Tyre

That rose coarse and spicey in the air

But we sailed up the coast to Sidon

Where the gazes are so rare

Where the gazes are so rare

The ship shone its lamp across the silent air

That swirled before Cathay

And there on the sand that courts the amber sea

Our fair bodies we cast away

Night was young back before the dawn

Casting kisses at the day

Sipping the sea bestriding the earth

Down before Cathay.

Saturday Maybe

By Robin Williamson

factory chimney coughs yellow smoke

trucks and trains go rumbling

throw down your key from your window high

your man's out drinking

neighbours thinking evil

lead by the light of your electric fire

your grey slips falls around your feet

and across the sheet your nut brown curls go tumbling

we don't have long before he comes home from the bar

I'll be gone a week of Sundays

meet me by the bronze horse or the clock tower

try to come Friday, Saturday maybe

don't cry now, you'll freak the baby

Old Buccaneer

By Robin Williamson

Sissie wouldn't believe when I told her the old man was gone

the one who lived all alone in the shack on the shore

that's so hard to find, so hard to go past

he used to light our cigarettes and never tell anyone

he had blue tattoos and he'd tell us tall stories from the bottom of a rum glass

he's got things to see on the Spanish main he's gone away for a while

he's gone skullduggering on the Spanish main, he's gone away far away

thought I heard sails creaking as the stars paled

anchor chains clinking as the night failed way out on the bay

no one else knows how he crowed when they crowned him king of the cannibal isles

or how he'd really feel blind drunk at the wheel through a high hurricane

he could dupe the devil at dice and charm charmers with his beguiling smile

how he fell in love in Lima and a schemer stole his pearly girl and broke his heart again

now all the foes he killed call him in to fight with their beckoning bones

and all the gold he stole sparkles in the morning light

his sweet ladies are all alone

Sissie dear let's not go near the church today

the big bells tolling the hearse goes rolling the holy joes pray

as they lay him away

lived one too many winters cold cold weather

had to sail down to the south sea waters warm

his old bones there

let an old man go through

let an old man go through

Alternative 2nd verse from live performance:

I sneaked up to the window

That’s where I could see him there

Hunched up at the table with his ----------

He sat so still and I bent my ear

So I could hear him testamenting to his will

He lied like Judas but I think he fooled them all

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

At the Lighthouse Dance

By Malcolm LeMaistre

Waiting for the queen to come

Waiting for her to show up

While out on the rocks all the ships

Were sinking we laughed as the dance began

Oh how we danced

At the lighthouse dance

Stepped outside took a look

Shook the sweat felt madly sad

I was dreaming of angels

I saw the ships sinking

But one pulled in

I asked the sea captain tell me where you've been

He turned his gaze into the days and he showed me this movie

Oh do you dance you serenader

Oh do you die you masquerader

Oh do you land you space invader

I could see the dance

Through the cracked window pane

Alice smiled at me I felt quite lame

The dance group played I can't recall their name

They played quite well but all their numbers sounded the same

Oh how we danced

At the lighthouse dance

We danced, I grooved, I sighed, I cried

Circus Girl

By Robin Williamson

circus girl, how could you love me

you're so far above me

you hang by your knees and your toes

circus girl can you even hear me

down in the crowd

your silver skirt hangs back over your breast

such beautiful legs and you sparkle and flirt

I don't mind lipstick all over my shirt

you fly through the air

you've got princess hair

I'm really impressed

circus girl you fly higher than the House of Lords

you look serene

circus girl your picture cheers hospital wards

you met the queen

the ringmaster's hat is as black as a Wellington boot

he's mean he cracks his whip

but if he tries to beat you or even mistreat you

I'll give him some lip

circus girl you ride wild horses running real quick

you smoke long cigars and you don't get sick

you dance on tightropes sleep on knives

if I married you would I want other wives

Turquoise Blue

By Mike Heron

On the white sand a footprint

On her back the golden sun

Is playing tunes on this lazy afternoon

It's high summer

The sun's playing tunes

They're so beautiful to see

Only love can sing the harmony

Oh my lover

She knows how to give a gift

She knows how to make a cool breeze sigh

Brings the warmth of summer to my bed at night

And she brings the colour of the sky too

Turquoise Blue

In the distance the birds sing

In the distance the sweet echoing

Of the flute she's playing

On the hazy air

Over there

Oh shimmering day don't take me away

I'd rather be here than anywhere

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (Oct 1972 concert)

Weather the Storm

By Robin Williamson

stormy weather in the world since the day I was born

stormy in the schoolhouse

stormy when I left my home

a few more storms won't freeze me

my love will keep me warm

one thing more I know for sure

I swear we're going to weather the storm

you, you had your soft brown eyes

pretty as I ever saw

want to see the sunset

I know where in the shade of the big boys jaw

dance through the summer

dance through the spring

dance through winter and fall

one thing I know for sure

I swear you are the belle of the ball

I've been around this whole round world

many strange things I see

I know where I'm going and I know who's going with me

never fear I won't be cold

my love will keep me warm

one thing more I know for sure

I swear we're going to weather the storm

Little Girl

By Mike Heron

Everybody knows good times

Everybody knows tears that fall

You and me had something higher than just good times

Something else that I just can't find without you

Without you got emptiness

Without you I've got an emptiness

That is lower

Than just about anything at all

Pick up

Let me pick up

Let me pick up on your lovelight

Please let it shine on me

I want that more

Than just about anything at all

Little girl I love you

Spend my walking hours in thoughts of you

You held your love light high

And it shone

And it shone down on me

But you let it fall so low I could not see

Without you got emptiness

Without you I've got an emptiness

That is lower

Than just about anything at all

version : On Air cd (not included on Across the Airwaves)

Hard Rope & Silken Twine

Maker Of Islands

By Mike Heron

I do my job and it's pleasing to me

It's getting so I can sail upon the roughest sea

On the roughest sea I do alright

On the roughest sea I do alright

But when my work is over and done

I get to being a lonely one

Need someone to take the wheels at night

Someone to navigate till light comes

But most of all I need

A maker of islands

Rested in the golden sunlight

Where the seas are kind

She could make me islands

For my peace of mind

If I could only see her

Look into her eyes

Then I'd lie easy, I'd lie easy, I'd lie easy

In my soul

version : bloomsbury 2000

version : The Glen Row Tapes

Cold February (aka The Cold days of February)

By Robin Williamson

As I beside some winter's fire

Sat writing words strange and steady

Amongst my own internal choir

Came voices to my mind unready

Of those who died on either side

While friends cry o'er their bones unburied

Go sighing through the north east winds

These cold days of February

Some clerk with papers and his pen

Some banker with his poison pity

Some captain careless of his men

These fan the flames that maim the cities

And bigots in the name of Christ

By thorny paths obscure and muddy

Can fear to roam through years of cold

Bewailing how their hands are bloody

Whether they were from here or there

Their race and place I would not be heeding

The men who caused such bitterness

If hearts they have let their hearts be bleeding

Who neither for age nor the young child

Would turn the shot of the arms they carried

Go bear the guilt a weary ways

For the cold days of February

version : On Air cd (not included on Across the Airwaves)

Version : Songs for the Calendarium

Version : The Seed-at-Zero

Glancing Love

By Malcolm LeMaistre / Mike Garson

You used to lie out in some Persian garden

You strode cat lithe the streets of New York

You saw me silent eyed aching in the front row

Heart of fire

To ease your cool desire

Heartless love come and lie beside me

And I'll try to find your glancing love

You flashed cruising through the glances

Cast by chances of romances

With nonchalance you cast your gown

Writhing to the ground wildest dream

You stretched away unseen

You used to lie out in some Persian garden

You strode cat lithe the streets of New York

You seemed so serene as you glided from the screen

Angel eyes

I eased back amongst the sighs

Heartless love come and lie beside me

And I'll try to find your glancing love

Dreams Of No Return

By Robin Williamson

Dreams of no return

Waking in the early dawn

Dreams of no return

Waking in the early dawn

To whom I sourly yearned in my weakest spell

But what I could not know you could not show me

Old hotel the walls weep and the door leans

The blackbird quits the eaves

And the lonesome spider sings

Saw my sweet and soothing prayer

Was air

Why should you care

I never saw the tomb you they laid

There was already too much shade

What could it bring

What if you know

I need no hand of yours

But still I feel you kiss

While I have words to sing

Perhaps you treasure nothing

From before

In the time I had no friends

I held your picture like a tongueless bell

When I really saw I was wrong

I wrote this song to seem a fond farewell

I've been in the north west world

Looking out on an endless view

When you were any reason why

Was I really any use to you

Version : Across the Airwaves

Dumb Kate

By Mike Heron

Dumb Kate she's no Indian no Mexican neither

Come up from San Diego long ago

Settled in Nome Alaska, best place that she could be

Half the people there froze right to the bone

Warm'em up Kate

Nobody does business like Kate do

Dumb as she is

She's so dumb she don't know just when to stop

Dumb as she is

Oh oh she don't quit givin' it

No no she don't quit givin' it

If the corn liquor don't get to you

Kate will

She used to serve tables down at the Last Post grill room

Where they chewed on the beef with a lean and a hunted jaw

While waiting for that slow train

Going where the sun is glowing

She'll keep your blood just moving right till the thaw

Ithkos

By Mike Heron

I sailed out from Sardis just one day past

Ithkos Ithkos

Sailed to meet the dawn on Lesbos fair

Ithkos Ithkos

My merchant's task on this isle is done

I call soft evening forth

To ease up my care

Aphrodite's temple is sweet with sandorac

Bright torches start the night to praise her

Ithkos wipes his mouth and drops the wineskin

Salt wind fresh in his mind

Bark brown eyes has Ithkos

From Sardis newly come

The carmined lips of Lesbos fail to please

And through the noisy night

Just one plaintive song will match his heart

The beautiful Aegean sea

Brings out a weeping need in me

I can't stand by

Like a thief in the night

While that aching lovely light

Shines on

Dreams fade now, a new day rings

Trade pulls the galleon ever on

To rich Sybaris, port of our call

Beyond the blue Aegean

How sweet the sight of peopled shores

To a wanderer as I

Known from here to Lydia far

Pale Sybaris knows not my tread

And fear stalks in my heart

For reason unknown

Gotta come right out and say it

Pale Sybaris I bear you great scorn

Talkin' 'bout your fluted pillars and your muted life

It's worse to me

Than Death's own chariot rollin'

Oh hold my gaze light of day

That my thoughts they will not stray

To Hippolyta

The vows that set her free

Denied me

It was right there in Sybaris famed

That I met with her who's named

Hippolyta

Oh hold my gaze bring not the sight

Of that awful wondrous night

Far outside the city walls

Hte Huntress Dance does call

Hippolyta

And the vows that set her free

Denied me

Version : Circle is Unbroken cd (first version)

1974 songs unreleased on official albums

Jane

By Mike Heron

Jane can’t tell me if her hands

Are trembling with emotion of grief or joy

Jane looks down at her brown shoes

And she knows that the shine upon them should please someone like you

Someone like you would like to take Jane off

To play on sands so white

To buy her boat trips if you could

And to watch her drink tea

Version : Across the Airwaves

1968

by Mike Heron

My friend the nights are longer

Do you think we know anymore?

Do you think we will be sure of all the song there is?

Did we step wrong somewhere?

Did we my friend?

Are we lost? Are we lost?

Are we lost, my friend?

You played your strings like they led to the truth

Sang your words like clear spring light

Let’s do it one more time

And we’ll keep the fire going

Bright sunshine in darkest night

We kept looking long and we kept praying strong

The I-Ching’s talking soft, warm hearts are getting thin

And the voice of water running cold, still speaks so real to me

And I still love to see a rainbow

Version : Across the Airwaves

Version : Incredible Acoustic Band Official Bootleg

Version : Live at Bloomsbury 1997

Version : Where the Mystics Swim

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