1. |
Rainmaker
03:25
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The sun may be shining, the day may be bright
But something inside you says it can’t be right
You call the Rainmaker
You call the Rainmaker
And when the Rainmaker comes it’s not easy to send him away.
Your home life is blissful - you’re loved and adored -
But something inside you tells you you’re bored
You call the Rainmaker
You call the Rainmaker
And when the Rainmaker comes it’s not easy to send him away.
When the Rainmaker comes, it’s torrents he sends
Bad things always come in threes and plagues come in tens
But you called that Rainmaker
You called the Rainmaker
And when the Rainmaker comes it’s not easy to send him away.
In no time at all you regret what you said
You look up and curse at the grey clouds ahead
But you called that Rainmaker
You called the Rainmaker
And when the Rainmaker comes it’s not easy to send him away.
You get more than you ask for - you get what you deserved -
The rain has lost its novelty (it’s getting on your nerves)
But you called that Rainmaker
You called the Rainmaker
And when the Rainmaker comes it’s not easy to send him away.
When the Rainmaker comes…
The ground is all mud now, the sky is still lead
You’re cold and you’re squelching, you wish you were dead
But you called that Rainmaker
You called the Rainmaker
And when the Rainmaker comes it’s not easy to send him away
So don’t get depressed at each bright sunny day
The rain will come in its own good time, so meantime make hay
Don’t call that Rainmaker
Don’t call that Rainmaker
For when the Rainmaker comes
It’s not easy to send him away
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2. |
Song for Headingley
04:13
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The day is done, the sun has kissed
The distant trees in a yellow mist
It’s heavenly, if just for a short time
Like Moses bushes burning cold
The trees stay cool in the winter sun gold
For the World is old, and it’s only a matter of time..
This is the time I love,
You are the one I love
For you are love
My song ascends through the evening
To the mother of time
The one whose one can feel me here
This age, this planet,this town, this year
And can hold me dear
In this tiniest moment in time
The sun has gone, the evening’s fine
People go to parties with bottles of wine
And Headingley will dance to the music of time
Some will dance while others sleep
Wondering at the hours they keep
And some will hit the bottle for oblivion
These are the ones I love
These are the ones you love
For you are love
And love will find fulfilment in the fullness of time.
(Se-ou shearim rashekhem, vehinnas-ou pithe olam)
My song flies over the distant hills
Across the valleys of indolent mills
For the songs I sing have wings
So upward they fly
And I’m content to watch it fly
And disappear in the moonsilvered sky
And I watch it take my cry
To the mother of time:
“ You, the changeless, you, the ageless
Lover of prophets, fools and sages
Lover of the aimless, who are just passing time
You share in this inanity
Our joy, our fears, our humanity
As you have your life and being
In matter and time.”
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3. |
A Wonder
03:18
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Did you know, when you first met
That you would spend your lives together?
How could you know
All those many years ago
Whether your love would last and grow?
Or did you feel, in some great Somehow
A love that time could not intimidate
That would see the years go by
In the twinkling of an eye
And hardly notice?
Did you know, when you first kissed
You’d fall in love and keep on falling?
How could you tell
In the moment you first fell
Your love would last - and last so well?
Or did you fancy, somewhere deep inside
There’d be a lot the fall could take in its stride
Though the world would grow to change
Into something oh so strange
It wouldn’t matter?
Could you tell, all those years ago
That we would have this celebration?
Who could have told
That your love would not grow cold
Would last the course - and win the gold?
Yet I suspect you never had the fear
That your great love might one day disappear
For how could you be scared
When it’s so long since you’ve not shared
Your life with a miracle?
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4. |
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Ricky sets off on a three mile jog every morning
And then he’s in his car for a three mile drive to work- it’s bezerk!
He’s crawling along with no realisation dawning
This is no way to be
(And it’s probably not much more fun for his Merc.)
And as a cyclist goes past
Does he tumble at last
To the fact he’s missed the point?
Or is he far too obsessed
With his heart getting stressed
And his nose, well, out of joint?
Maybe there’s a still, small voice that’s calling:
“This is no way to be
There must be less to life than this”
Anne leaves the house, she gets the children into the Rover
And then they’re on their way on the twice a day School Run
- Oh what fun!
She would let them walk but she’s afraid they’d get run over
“Too many cars these days”, she says,
“It’s time that something was done”
They hear, on Classic FM, a dedication to them:
“Love to Clara, Louise and John”
Although the children suspect
She could have told them direct
If they didn’t always have that radio on
Maybe she will learn why they find this galling
This is no way to be
There must be less to life than this.
Neil owns a company - selling arms to Britain
And times when Britain won’t buy he’ll sell them overseas -with great ease
It’s all above board - there are no agendas hidden
Our boys in Whitehall say
It’s the price to pay for healthy arms industries
And if the customers turn
From a friendly concern
To an International Threat
He makes a bomb on the fear
By selling more arms back here
And so the firm does better yet
Maybe you’ll agree this is quite appalling
This is no way to run an Ethical Foreign Policy
This is no way to be
There must be less to life than this.
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5. |
The Grinder
04:29
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I loved the smell of coffee and I loved the way it roused me from my languor
But now it’s not just caffeine that rouses me, it’s something more like anger
I loved to hear it ground - I loved the sound
Not so much now, not after finding
We’re in it much too deep
It’s not just beans it’s also people that we’re grinding
Does it worry you at all
Or cast a pall on your elevenses?
Does it leave a nasty taste
Through being laced with such injustices?
Do you catch the dodgy smell
And suspect that all’s not well?
Wake up, wake up and smell the coffee.
The Big Boys in the trade are always paid, for them there’s never any crisis
But those who grow the beans don’t have the means to stop the plummeting of prices
We’re led to think the Market’s hard and stark, blind and impartial, unforgiving
And yet it’s never Nestlé or the rest who have to struggle for a living
Does it worry you at all..
Am I naïve to think that those who grow our food and drink should be rewarded?
And ask is there some plan deciding which things can and cannot be afforded?
There’s always funds for arms, but its the farms
And those who work the land that need us
And yet we somehow carve the pie
To starve, until they die, the poor who feed us
Does it worry you at all..
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6. |
Inside
03:10
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It isn’t pride that makes you hide
The things that hurt you so deep inside
I know it’s more to do with knowing I can’t take it away
And so you refrain, you won’t complain
Won’t be a bore, won’t be a pain
And anyway what is there anybody else can say?
It seems it’s those who grumble the most
Who carry the least
It’s those who hide their pain inside
Who shoulder the burden
And as for me, I realise
I cannot claim to empathise
But only know: I know there’s more to you than meets the eye
When friends despair, say life’s unfair
I touch your shoulder, I stroke your hair
Because I know, we know,
You know the way that life can be
The things that gall them seem so small
It seems they’ve hardly lived at all
To wince at pinpricks
When you’re smiling through your real agony
But you know pain, however light the cause, is no less pain
So you bite your tongue, you know it’s wrong to say “Tell me about it”
It’s then your silence says so much
I wish I had a healing touch
But only know: I know there’s more to you than meets the eye.
I’ve often planned to take your hand
And tell you that I understand
But, hell, what do I know of anything you’ve had to bear?
So all along I know it’s wrong
I’m just a singer, it’s just a song
And if it doesn’t help, at least you know it’s not I don’t care
And I admire your strength and skill to carry the part
Of the girl of good cheer
Who won’t spoil good beer by crying into it
A sense of fun, a lust for life
As bright as a button, and sharp as a knife
They don’t know half of it
There’s more to you than meets the eye.
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7. |
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There they were, standing there at the crossing
Waiting for the green man
But I knew they hadn’t a prayer
They’d not pushed the button, didn’t realize
The lights just won’t change otherwise
They were waiting for a miracle, just standing there
Now I’m not one to be dismissive of miracles
But though I’m loth to doubt them
Still I know something about them:
I know amazing things do happen
But you have to meet the miracle part way,
Miracles require a start
You’ve got to raise your staff to make the Red Sea part
Cast your nets upon the other side-
You’ve got to change your way of thinking
But if you wait for someone else you’ll be waiting a long, long time.
There they stand on either side
In so many disputes the same problem worldwide
They refuse to move from their well-thought-out positions
So nothing changes-It’s stand or fall
And the talks about talks about talks always stall
Because they can’t agree on the pre- pre- pre-conditions
“Why just can’t the other side see reason?”
They just can’t see any reason
Why the other side can’t see ... reason
But still amazing things do happen
When they dare to meet the miracle part way
But miracles require a start
And that can be the hardest part
Changing water into wine’s not as hard as changing heart
But if you wait for someone else you’ll be waiting a long, long time .
Here we all are, standing here at the crossroads
Waiting for some intervention
To save us from The End
Holding out for Gaia, God or the Green Man
A deus ex machina,to put this planet back on the mend
We’re homo not so sapiens , struggling to understand
It’s down to us to be Gaia’s hands and we’re still all fingers and thumbs
(me miserum!)
But still amazing things can happen
If we learn to set the miracle on its way
All your dreams and wishes, life and all its riches
Cast your fears behind you, dears,
For only five loaves and two fishes
But if you wait for someone else
We’ll be waiting till Kingdom Come.
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8. |
Trotto Bromoso
01:19
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9. |
Mists of November
04:10
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November dances with a wild legless dance
Swirling skirts of mist
That are finer than chiffon or taffeta
Mists of November
Gold on the wetland
Scarlet of rosehip
Leaf on the water
And all of this arising from less
Than the tiniest atom of a thought
November traces with her ice fingertips
Teasel and web
Work more intricate
Than lacework or filigree
Mists of November..
November paints
After taming the sun
Working his gold
Puts the gilt on the gleam of a chimney pot
Mists of November
Fill me with empty
I’m overburdened
With thoughts of no matter
And all the thoughts that make me feel me
Are untouched by the truth of me in you
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10. |
Interlude
04:04
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11. |
Sleepwalkers
02:40
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Poets, pacifists and peaceniks
Are unafraid of their dreaming
Well they know that life can be more than it seems
But the world is run by those who won’t wake up
And have forgotten their dreams.
Comics, questioners and Quakers
Will never be content with half truths
There’s no forbidden land their minds won’t go
But the world is run by those who walk blindly
Too blind to know that they don’t know.
Sages, sisters seers and seekers
May catch a glimpse of an ideal world
Though they’re last to mistake it for the way things are
But those who’d “bring them back to the real world”
Forget the world is as we make it.
So never mind who asks the question
Once the question has its being
Though it threatens to shake you from your dreamless sleep
Be glad of different ways of seeing
And let the dreamers awake you
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12. |
Ebredj Fel!
01:35
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13. |
The Dangerous Angels
03:20
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The Dangerous Angels have come
In the day of a planet’s eleventh hour
And sent it in reeling confusion
Revealing their mixture
Of God and Incompetence
The Dangerous Angels set sail
In search of a noble discovery
Crushing lands with their clogs
As with vermin and dogs
They unravelled the work of millennia
But the Dangerous Angels have songs
Eclipsing the song of the nightingale
And strange beyond bounds
Through including the sounds
From the intricate tools of their making
The Dangerous Angels have come
Eroding divisions of night and day
They have tainted the night
With their dim orange light
And have darkened the day skies
With poison
The Dangerous Angels set to
In turning the poor planet inside out
They have smothered the soil
With the fruits of their toil
As they leech the deep veins of their minerals
But who am I, who am I to say
That my brothers and sisters are aberrant?
We are fruits of the Earth
And we share in its birth
And perhaps may be part of its process
And I know that the paths that we tread
Are not always resulting in ugliness
For our ways also cause
Parks, canals, purple moors
And the boldness of rapefields of yellow
The Dangerous Angels waste time
Ignoring their responsibility
With their eyes they could see
How the world needs to be
But they just cloud their vision with trivia.
So now will the Angels respond
To the voices among them who prophesy
Will they open their eyes
And prevent the demise
Of the planet that gave them a living?
The Dangerous Angels have come
And last bell of midnight is beckoning
Does it mean with its call
It’s the end of us all
Or the Angels are earning their wings?
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14. |
August Song
03:44
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I
The growing wind rakes through the burdened trees
And Sunlit Clouds sail in the melancholy breeze
They’re cutting wood in the Marina, as the autumn nears
But still it’s warm enough to sit around
And feel the evening spread its shadows on the ground
And feed the first part of their kindling into chimineas
Then in our ears there roars another budget plane
To lay more tarmac on the southern coast of Spain
Or turn brave Prague into a pub crawl -O Pioneers!
But my Marina friends don’t need to be up there
For here and now is where they know that they can share
A glass of dolce far niente
In the laden summer air
- For your friends are summergold
And I hold that if you have more friends than worries
You’re a step ahead of the game
II
Down in the valley rolls the River Aire
A home to heron, cormorant and swan
Your name in some forgotten language
Means “fast flowing one”
How old your path is I can hardly say
Before the English Channel flooded- long before
And hippopotamuses wallowed
In your prehistoric clay
You wind forever on like some eternal truth
And give me comfort
In these scary days of change
When I, along with Merry England,
Miss the certainties of our youth
You must have seen so many changes come and go
The Forge and Abbey grow and crumble into silt
Eight hundred years of Leeds – a ripple in your onward flow
With your waters ever new
Though you’re older than the ancient tongue that called you the fast flowing one
Journey on.
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15. |
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Tengo el aroma de los flores, tengo el trinar de los pajaros
El sol y la luna, la cerveza, los amigos, la comida
Tengo mi parte en la lucha, tengo mi parte en el cultivo
Lo que apprecio por encima de todo es sencillamente mi vida.
There’s a man on a push bike
Passing cars in a traffic queue
It’s a brilliant thing to do
Gives an air of transcendence
And his grin is resplendent
It’s a smile that so clearly tells
He’d rather be no-one else
There’s nothing like living.
There’s nothing like living
Though my life is no better than
Someone else’s allotted span
- Not a great thing of wonder
Still, I’ll never go under
Not give up on the life I know
It only goes to show
There’s nothing like living.
There’s a woman on Briggate
Sells Big Issues to passers-by
And she twinkles a studded eye
When you stop for a natter
She’s a great line in patter
But it still isn’t hard to see
There’s nobody she’d rather be
There’s nothing like living
Far away from Managua
In a village called San Roque
I once heard Don Goyito play
To his friends and his neighbours
And he sang of his labours
In the land that he loves and knows
And the pride that he plants there grows
There’s nothing like living
In the old Fiery Furnace,
Shadrach, Meshash, Abednego
Said “Nomatter how red we go
In this hot situation
This is our celebration
Of the Life that is all about….”
And next morning they coolly sauntered out
-Still very much living
There’s a man on a banjo
And he isn’t a household name
But it isn’t the search for fame
Drives the blood in his sinews
So long as music continues
He’s contented his work is done
And no less than anyone else, he knows
There’s nothing like living.
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Robin Fishwick Leeds, UK
Robin Fishwick is a singer, musician and composer, playing frequently at local folk and open mike sessions in Leeds,
Yorkshire.
His songs, varying from the wry to the contemplative often reflect his Quaker values.
He plays a range of woodwind including renaissance instruments, recorders and xaphoon. His stringed instrument of choice is the timple of the Canary Islands
... more
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