Passing
The Curator
A collection of songs dealing with the effects of the passing of time, relationships and ultimately lives. Mostly in a slower tempo and a minor key, much of the music is played by Alistair Murphy but has contributions from most of the Half Life ‘collective’. Highlights include Courtiers, looking at the cult of personality of modern life – the need for many people to define their lives in the lives of celebrities and heroes. On the Tide, an atmospheric song of loss, with echoes perhaps, (don’t say it too loud!) of the Moody Blues. Your Name, a final return to the subject of many a Halflife song, the 80s, viewed from the calmer waters of the 00s.
Courtiers (5.13)
Waiting (and Yet) (2.14)
Winter’s Wolf (3.55)
Let Me Be The Answer (3.59)
Warmth On My Pillow (3.30)
Your Name (4.05)
Jigsaw (5.40)
Life Goes On (2.30)
Wild Horses (5.26)
Holding Out For More (2.55)
On The Tide (4.07)
Each Door Must Close (2.27)
Alistair Murphy : Vocals, Keyboards & Guitars
Mark Fletcher : Bass
Jeremy Salmon : Guitars & Drums
Laurie A’Court : Saxes
Diana Hare : Vocals
Jim Halsall : Harmonica
Recorded and Produced by Alistair Murphy
COURTIERS
Well, you've taken every fence
Although the highest ones have left you sprawling
No, there can be no defence
For the accidents that are your calling
The chosen ones have found their form, the guides they had to meet They've fallen on their feet, while you're just falling
Oh if you could find their way, trace their path, have their good fortune
Oh yes, if you knew who they knew, had what they had
Oh, such sweet torture
Meanwhile sitting in the stands, trying to catch a sight
Reaching out our hands, for we're all Courtiers
Jesters, shysters, their foot-soldiers, Christmas puppies, all time losers Innocents and victims too, at the tail end of the queue
Stop, your life is passing by, there, no reason why, you can't enjoy it
But time and time again you find, the illusion, fine, you can't destroy it
We're waiting by the road, we're waiting in the rain
They, coming round again, for we're their Courtiers
Nuisance Callers, whores and stalkers
Stallers, crawlers, touts and hawkers
Fighters, fences, late-night brawlers
Beggars, bawlers, back-street prowlers
Saints and sinners, thieves and judges
Innocents and victims too, and we're still waiting in the queue.
Well, you've taken every fence
Although the highest ones have left you sprawling
No, there can be no defence, for the accidents that are your calling
The chosen ones have found their form, the guides they had to meet They've fallen on their feet, while you're just falling
(Where are we falling to?)
WAITING (AND YET)
I’m standing alone now, the storm overhead
I’ve been here before, wondering what I had said
I don’t know your reasons
They’re lost in your head
I know I am waiting
I’m waiting and yet...
I’m holding to something, that will come round again
When the rain passes over and the clouds slip away
You don’t know your reasons
They slip through your hands
I know I am waiting
I’m waiting and yet...
WINTER’S WOLF
Something about the way you hold yourself has made me doubt
And though your words are warm I know your fire’s burning out
I don’t know you, this world can’t hold you
The wolf that ushers winter in, is waiting in the trees
The ice is on the outside but the inside’s frozen more
I’m watching as the world is slowly passing by my door
Hell can’t hold you, no one owes you
The wolf of winter licks its lips and vanishes from view
I don’t need you, I don’t want you too
I don’t want you, I don’t need you to
Stay away too long
There’s something in the breeze that right now is blowing down my lane
It’s the sound of distant laughter and the calling of your name
Heaven’s dropped us, the wheel of fortune
Winter’s wolf pricks up its ears and listens to the wind
I don’t need you, I don’t want you too
I don’t want you, I don’t need you to
Stay away too long
LET ME BE THE ANSWER
Each hour is slowly passing and the days are quickly gone
And in the cold air, they’re lining up like soldiers
And though they smile they’re feeling old
You’re waiting for an answer and in the darkness nothing calls
But in a new light of a morning, without warning
You may suddenly feel whole
What’s done is done there’s no turning back the page
The letters in the sand will always tell
The tale of all the errors, the wrong choices you have made
And still are making
Let me be the answer, and the question too
I’ll be the knocking on the door
I’ll be your sunshine, and your shoeshine
At the seaside, with your water rushing in
THE WARMTH ON MY PILLOW
When all's said and done and dusted, entrusted and ready for home
I find myself here, where ever is here
I could not have made it alone
You're a light through the trees, you're the snow on the fell
A voice in the street, with a story to tell
Be the warmth on my pillow in the cool of the night
We're all on the move with nowhere to go and no one to show us the way We eat where we can, we sleep where we fall
Pause where there, somewhere to stay
I've walked to your town. I've stopped in your street
Thrown stones at you light, used your step for a seat
Be the warmth on my pillow in the cool of the night
There, a man at the corner, it, late and he, heading for home
Now some should warn you, that it, me at the side of road
I'm holding, I'm holding my breath
You're holding my world in the palm of your
If you look in my eyes, I can't fail the test
But should you say no then I'll understand
The lights going off, at the corner
The sound of the music is drifting away
I'll chance what I have,
if I haven't a chance then that's a price I'll have to pay
You're a light through the trees, you're the snow on the fell
A voice in the street with a story to tell
Be the warmth on my pillow in the cool of the night
YOUR NAME
Don’t you see, what it is you’ve done?
Even in your prime, when you knew that you had won
Just a moment’s doubt, just a second’s pause?
As you faced your rebels down, when you’d won your pointless wars
You heard it on the news, you shared it with a friend
You seek out your applause, you mean to justify your end
Leave it where it falls, lay it down to die
A kiss to show your love. a tear to say goodbye
If I were you, I’d take my self away
Find a cottage in the hills and hang my head in shame
Kneel down by the door with my hands behind my head
Think of what I’d done, and wish that I were dead
But you wanted more than that, a reason you won’t find
The people that you hurt, being cruel, you were that kind
It never seemed to dawn upon your vacant mind
There was no way ahead for those who fell behind
If you were me and your spirit was set free
Would you understand these words, seeing all that I could see?
Would you question your beliefs, your view of history
Would you turn your face away and get down on your knees?
Or would you hold your head up high, puff your chest up tight
Evil burning in your eye, madness holding out its light
As you’re walking down your road, curtains moving as you go
Children calling out your name, but it’s not a name you know
JIGSAW
I waited when there was nothing to wait for
Holding my breath, though breath wasn’t called for
Called out your name
And I couldn’t believe I’d be waiting so long for you
Sat in my room and tried to show patience
I held on to hope in the dark and the silence
I waited once more for a knock on the door
That was never to knock on my door
Hold on to what we have
We can’t let it slip away
I stopped in the street I could see you were standing
Talking with friends with your heart in the sunshine
When you reached over with a smile on your lips
Was it doubt that I saw in your eyes?
And what did you see as we stood there together
The end of a moment or the start of a lifetime
A reason to hope or the final hurrah
As I turned and I walked down the road
Hold on to what we have
We can’t let it slip away
I sit at a jigsaw, the pieces before me
I have all the edge bits but the sky isn’t easy
And as I get closer I cannot believe
That all of the pieces are here
I’m turning them over, piecing together
Offering them up and pressing them closer
Over my shoulder your hand may appear
Holding the pieces I lack
Hold on to what we have
We can’t let it slip away
LIFE GOES ON
I lit a candle for you in an empty room
We’ve burnt so many candles
In the winter and in the summer, in the evening gloom
I don’t know what to say, don’t know how to say it
And now I am waiting
And there’s nothing in this life that’s left worth breaking
And with every glass that’s raised, the heart is failing
And turning away
The sun climbs higher, the day comes crashing down
I hear a bell that’s ringing in another time
In some quarter of a different town
Life goes on
How could it be any other way
In a bar they’re meeting
Strangers still, exchanging their first greeting
Everywhere the mystery of love’s repeating
As it always will
HOLDING OUT FOR MORE
I played this tune, sometimes for you
It had no words then, yes that’s true
It stayed in my mind but I didn’t have anytime
To choose a melody or the rhyme
And I’m waiting on it now
Got all the time in the world
And there’s something that I’ve found
That the world’s a little grey, now the night’s a little dark
The day’s just started but it’s done
I’m holding tight, I’m holding on
In this twilight before we’re gone
And for everything that’s been
For your light that keeps burning, burning
I’m holding out for more
ON THE TIDE
You called to say you were safe
But you didn’t want to stop and talk to me
You told me of your flight
Your journey through the night, how you felt free.
And every man’s an island and the water in the harbour
Is rising in the moonshine and the wind is blowing hard
And across the sound
The mainland is fading in the gloom, in the gloom.
I waited for your call in the last days of the Fall and in the rain.
I remember waiting for, a letter through my door but nothing came
And on the hill the clouds are lining up like metal soldiers
It tells of our ills and all the time we had to waste
Even if I had the chance I wouldn’t know the way to tell you
What to say, how it’s been, since you’ve been away
How the night is sister to the day
And the hours, that like the tide, they drift away
I watched the ferry go in the last days of the snow and watched its trail
Of smoke that cuts the sky, like a casual goodbye to no avail
And time will bring release to all the prisoners it is holding
I can even hear the keys and muffled cheering of our wing
When the silent guard arrives he takes the blankets I have folded.
But no keys can release the locks that hold me
Though I walk on my way
It’s our lives, that like the tide, they drift away.
EACH DOOR MUST CLOSE
Somewhere in this story, somewhere in this show
Though they held each other closely
There were always things that neither one could know
But for every moment passed beneath these gables
And every open doorway that we chose
As our lives are drifting slowly into fable
Each door must close
Didn’t know where you were going
Didn’t really say goodbye
And there’s still no way of knowing
If there’s any part of us that’s left behind
But I hear you when I know I’m being selfish
And I hear you when I know that you’d be proud
And I cannot help but know you think I’m foolish
I hear you now
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