One of my favourites from all the songs I've ever written. A track from my 2014 CD, "The End of the Song". "Full of Herself" is a folk-rock ballad with a nine-piece band, and is a somewhat surrealistic look at how a relationship goes south when your lover has an un-dealt-with issue from long ago which she just cannot get past. It happens. A lot. Wrecks everything. Tragic. A salutory tale. Tommy Denander (electric guitar), Alan Morrison (acoustic guitar/lead vocal), Mikael Wikman (drums), Jonas Gunnarsson (bass), Rachel Eddy (fiddle), Jonas Öijvall (keyboard), Ylva Nilsson (cello), Lizette von Panajott & Marie Bäcke (backing vocals). Here are the full lyrics:

I looked inside the broken slide
Which skeltered down your soul
And there I saw the scenes of war
And the truth out on parole
With a trenchant sigh and a broken why
I saw your mask again
So I closed the door and I begged some more
But you never let me in

“I would if there was room”, she said
“But I have no place to spare
I’m trapped by my own circumspence
And I’m coming up for air”
Engulfed by all the jewels she found
Which never saw the light
She wrapped herself in angel dust
From the darkness of the night

Refrain:
So full of her self
No room in her heart
Left high on the shelf
Doomed right from the start

As you delved into your chessboard past
I heard the desperate cry
Of all the locusts seeking food
In the fulcrum of the lie
You act as if your heart stood still
when faced with my retort
But I now know your crutches well
From the place where they were bought

When two decades of desert death
Have parched the sheaves of growth
And twisted round the rusty scythes
Which strewed the field of hope
A torrent is the only means
To cleanse your shrivelled soul
And here I stand awash with love
To fill your aching hole

The one thing that I know you need
Will never be received:
Forgiveness from a phantom child
Is more than you believe
You’d rather build your wall of dreams
With petals dressed in time
Than realise that life moves on
Like the lines of this dark rhyme

Refrain:
So full of her self
No room in her heart
Left high on the shelf
Doomed right from the start

I thrust my spear into the crowd
Of clones within that space
I wondered why they seemed to be
Androgynously placed
With a high-pitched scream in a shattered dream
And a cloud of feathered thoughts
You threw yourself out of my arms
And by a falling star was caught

© 2013, Alan Morrison

The End of the Song

Full of Herself

Here's a track entitled "Lion's Tooth" off my album "The End of the Song". Click on the link. (Lyrics below). I wrote it as a poem when I was a young man after I saw a guy recklessly hacking his garden with a scythe when it was full of Dandelions which he presumably believed to be a "weed". It seemed to be a metaphor for the way that many naively destroy things about which they have no awareness. Decades later, I made it into this song.
Mikael Wikman (drums). Jonas Gunnarsson (bass). Alan Morrison (acoustic guitar & lead vocal). Tommy Denander (rhythm guitar). Hasse Johnzon (pedal steel guitar). Lisa Eriksson (accordion). Lizette von Panajott (backing vocal). Marie Bäcke (backing vocal).

LION'S TOOTH

The Hearless Man works his garden hard
Growing things, colours flowing from the heart
His painted canvas comes alive
Then we see in his frozen hands, a scythe
To slash the ground beneath him

Refrain:
Wasn’t ever meant at all to be this way
Need to see those yellow petals night and day
Silver seeds should spiral through the air in play
Didn’t think I’d live to see it all in grey
Didn’t think I’d live to see it all in grey

The Hearless Man works his garden hard
Growing things, cold steel cuts through yellow flower
Using knife to wield his power—
(Hear it scream) when reverence for the Source is blurred
Beauty fades beneath a broken word

Refrain:
Wasn’t ever meant at all to be this way
Need to see those yellow petals night and day
Silver seeds should spiral through the air in play
Didn’t think I’d live to see it all in grey
Didn’t think I’d live to see it all in grey

The Hearless Man works his garden hard
Growing things—
Then he’ll tear them all apart
Cannot hear all the desperate cries
When he’s in the field he’s drawn and owns with pride
Untouched by all he sees there

Refrain:
Wasn’t ever meant at all to be this way
Need to see those yellow petals night and day
Silver seeds should spiral through the air in play
Didn’t think I’d live to see it all in grey
Didn’t think I’d live to see it all in grey

The Hearless Man works his garden hard
Growing things
Yet he never heard them start

Lion's Tooth

Alan Morrison is a writer, poet, songwriter, performer and occasional actor. Originally from the UK, Alan is a troubadour who could be found in any one of a number of European locations, having lived and worked in France, Sweden, Germany, Greece and Spain.

Everything which Alan writes is a love song in one form or another - either about actual matters of the soul or the heart, or offering a commentary on issues which affect people's lives in the world today. In whatever style he writes, Alan’s poems, songs and sonnets aim to encourage people to think, to inspire them to live, to feel and to love and even to stimulate personal change.

Creating profound, thought-provoking poems and lyrics with fine-lined melodies — coupled with an empathy for the privileges and perils of human passion — Alan creates islands of love and conscience: music from the heart for the soul.

During the past few years, Alan — as a multi-disciplinary artist — has been involved in a number of projects. In 2010, he released the CD album, “Ride my Heart” in Sweden. In the first half of 2012, he was organising performance projects in France, where he was acting in the professional theatrical production of an English theatre company as well as writing and performing the incidental music for the stage in the same production. In July 2012, he began recording his latest CD, “The End of the Song”, again in Stockholm. Containing sixteen top-class musicians playing twenty-one instruments (including a string section, cor anglais and French horn), this CD was launched in Spain in March 2014.

In October 2016, Alan launched his latest CD album, "The Key", with 14 tracks, 22 musicians playing 34 instruments, including the Stockholm Concert Orchestra. Containing many styles, ranging from "progressive pop" to medieval folk, folk-rock, alt. country and the purely lyrical, this album is Alan's consummate work, with a number of songs which are deliberately inspirational, such as the title track, "The Key". This was released at the Sodra Theatre in Stockholm in October 2016.

In March 2015, he designed and published a 200-page eBook entitled “Vagrant on the Hinterland of Time: Poems, Songs & Sonnets”, containing nearly 200 works.

As well as continuing to write many articles and poems, Alan is currently working on a didactic novel entitled "Reluctant Angels".

All the above CDs and Alan's book of poems are available from the webstore on his website. www.alan-morrison.com or directly at https://www.gumstore.com/alanmorrison . To contact Alan, go through alan@alan-morrison.com . He welcomes enquiries.

Full of Herself

Alan Morrison

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