wordz

STRANGE RAIN

Words and nuclear missiles once launched,
cannot be recalled

The words to HIROSHIMA

21 May 2007
Dear Dave,
About the lyrics of HIROSHIMA! there are two lines in the text which are not easy to understand, especially for Germans! ..The lines are in the first verse:

This is the official printing by the German publisher Global:
Where he passed the moon...
Beneath the oddest moon....

in the web there is a version like that:
where he'd pass the noon...
'neath the August moon

Can you tell me which are the correct lines?? - a German English teacher asked me .. because he want to use the song in his English lesson to teach listening to the English language! All the best,
Andreas Hedler

Dear Andreas

...please tell your German colleagues not to feel bad - the words are pretty oblique in English too! They try to project an image of the story, bounded as always by the meter of the music. Here is verse one as I wrote it:

There's a shadow of a man at Hiroshima,
where he'd pass the noon
In a wonderland at Hiroshima
'neath the August moon
----------------------------------
The second line is my way of saying:
where he would pass the time of day ('noon' being a time of day)
ie. the shadow is where he would normally have been going about
his business.
The third line uses an old-time english word 'neath' (I may have made it up but I think it's from Shakespeare. Anyway, it is a compaction of the word 'beneath') to explain that the man lived in Japan (the land of the august moon) and that it was indeed August when all this happened (August 6, 1945).

The picture I want to paint is of someone in Hiroshima passing the
time of day beneath (and in) the moon of august.. The lyric is always in pursuit of the core truth that the shadow is all that remained ... The song came out of the shadow!
I read the bizarre report about the stone steps of a downtown building bleached perfectly white by the blast of the a-bomb everywhere EXCEPT where someone had been at that moment... A shadow etched into stone was the only evidence ... That's where the song came from.

I am of the opinion that what is important in a song is not so much the literal meaning meant by the writer but the feeling or picture the listener gets from hearing it. Because of that I am often reticent to explain MY meaning of a song because it might mess up YOUR meaning, which carries a special validity for you.
But I understand the problem my lyric has created in the land where
my song was so successful. Maybe if you guys had known what it meant you wouldn't have bought it? ....
Dave

TWILIGHT TIME

be not of sad heart
or of imminent fear
The time is not yet here

for this is the age of the twilight time
and the sky is blue and beautiful
and the sun and moon
of perfect duration
and dependable service

and the land and sea, a fixation
as it should be.

And the quarter that starves
knows not of the other half
nor the golden calf

for this is the twilight time
of laughter and song
and careless wrong

before the wrath of the firmament descends
and ends
the age.

For it is written in the stars
that none of us shall turn that page.
Sing on.

I wrote that in 1972. Reading it again in 2007 brings a new vibration to it. The seventies were indeed a time of careless wrong - For me at any rate, I spent the entire decade in pursuit of the elusive pop song as well as the elusive perfect lady companion. But now in our time, as the weather lurches like an off-balance flywheel, with ever greater departures from what we call 'normal,' I am reminded of the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:37: 'As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.'

THE HOUSE OF THE LORD

Hey what you doing in the House of the Lord
Hey what you doing in the House of the Lord
Have you come here to talk about his ways
Have you come here to sing of his praise
Have you come to believe
Are you ready to receive
Hey what you doing in here?

Hey what you doing in the House of the Lord
Hey what you doing in the House of the Lord
Have you come here for a wedding and a cake
Have you come here for a burial and a wake
Have you come cos you should
are you good cos you're good
Hey what you doing in here?

Lifting up my eyes to heaven
Leavin my troubles at the door
Reaching out to feel his hand in mine once more
That's what I'm doing in the House of the Lord

Out on the street there's a man in the rain
there's dirt on his fingers but still some blood left in his veins
And he's trying so hard to find a friend
And he's trying so hard to make amends
Now he's stood at the door,
now hes keeping a score
he say's 'Hey what you doing in there?'

© Dave Scott-Morgan