The Singers Tale april 2021 Moira ©

In loving memory of Harry Becket Elton Dean and Stan Adler

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2003

v1

I wanted to whisper a word or two, I couldn’t find your ears.

I needed to see you to tell you a secret so why why did you disappear?

Who do I give the words to? They were meant to be only for you.

Forming my mouth in a closed line of silence is a difficult thing to do.

v2

In my youth and young womanhood it’s so easy to drown it all.

Drinking the thoughts to indifference bending the mind into shapes undefined.

Whatever my moira, slip sitting and whistling the days away,

go away old feelings, away.

v3

So what happens to language tangled in mind with no reason to be there at all?

Words jostling for space in a place overcrowded all useless and driving you mad.

Is there a place for releasing unspoken old feeling ?

Telling the shoutings and whisperings, unexpressed meanings, killing them dead?

v4

I could crush them all into bottles of wine, blue flowers or a trip to the south

sun on my skin, a smile, a song, once the words have been wiped from my mouth.

Oh, it would be so peaceful to forget a skinful of thoughts

to change what may be to what is.

Oh, bliss this is to unthread the words unsaid.

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Musicians

Carol Grimes, vocals;
Ian Shaw, Hammond / Rhodes, vocals;
Greg Wain, guitars, vocals;
Steve Watts, double bass;
Stan Adler, cello; RIP
Mark Fletcher, drums, percussion, fire extinguisher;
Annie Whitehead, trombone;
Josefina Cupido, percussion, vocals;
Elton Dean, saxophones; RIP
Harry Becket, trumpet RIP

1. New Coat of Paint [Tom Waits] (3.01)
2. Into My Arms [Nick Cave] (4.24)
3. Who Knows Where the Time Goes [Sandy Denny] (6.08)
4. Moira [words Carol Grimes, music Ian Shaw] (3.50)
5. Scars [Fran Landesman, Simon Wallace] (4.13)
6. Gold in Them Hills [Ron Sexsmith] (2.56)
7. Better off Dead [Randy Newman] (2.51)
8. USA [Shane MacGowan] (2.49)
9. Two Grey Rooms [Joni Mitchell] (5.08)
10. Blues for Louis [poem Carol Grimes, music arr. Ian Shaw] (4.48)
11. You Don’t Know What Love Is [Don Ray, Gene DePaul] (5.48)
12. Mother [John Lennon] (5.14)

All songs arr. Ian Shaw

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