I was going to play this wonderful song by Gary live, but never found the courage.  So here is what it might have been like if I did, recorded in one take with warts and all:)

Do listen to the superb original rather than this:

https://soundcloud.com/user-359965116/mercy-me-with-all-instruments-and-rough-vocalinstruments-mix

Mercy Me (Gary A. McMahon )

out of rope

C I miss the sun
Am don’t know where he’s gone
F but not as much as I G7 miss you

C I stay indoors
Am pace these floors
F Forgot what it is to G7 kiss you

Em I know time is F running out
Em don’t know what this F song’s about
except G7 growing old
dm7 growing G cold x2

C There’s less time ahead
than Em what’s gone before. 
F What will we do 
with the G7 years left in store?

C Use them or lose them, 
Em that’s what they say. 
F Keep on breathing
till G7 that judgement day 

C And I don’t want F hope
C I won’t F despair
C am out of F rope
but I don’t G7 care

for these C changing F times
the C digital F stew
I C read the F signs 
to get a G7 clue

Em Just another empty F weekend. 
Em Nothing to do but F sleep. 
Em These dark and F wintry days. 
Em How slowly, how mercilessly they F creep. 

Fmaj7 I can’t make the day G anew; Am
Am has it all run out at G last?
Fmaj7 All is silent in this G listless Am room.
Am I live with shadows of the G past.
Of the past  F G

(repeat ‘there’s less time ahead’ section + add)
No, I don’t want hope / I won’t despair
am out of rope / but I don’t care /
I just don’t F (G bass) care. (E shape one fret up, soft)

TASCAM DR-05

out of rope

adieu adieu

(em) back to balance 
a gate in the (c) day

(em) Ten of Swords
at the end of a (c) play

(g) (the) purpose of the (c) cross
(g) (the) pain of our (c) Lord

(g) I don’t know what I’m (c) doing 
or not (bm) doing, of (am7) course

(f) how to get back – (g) back to where? back to where?
(f) how to get back – (g) back to where

thy (c) plaintive (g) anthem (f) fades
(c) adieu (g) adieu (f) adieu
in (c) those next (g) valley (f) glades 
and (c) you and (g) you and (f) you

love to drift
through the clouds

far above
the worlds below

(the) blood of the lamb
(the) promise of the seed 

I don’t know what I’m thinking 
or not thinking, indeed

how to get back – back to where? back to where?
how to get back – back to where

thy plaintive anthem fades
adieu adieu adieu
in those next valley-glades 
and you and you and you

clock the seconds 
afore they go

reconnect 
to the flow

tender is the night 
on a winding mossy way

in love with easeful death 
yet still wanting to stay
how to get back – back to where? back to where?
how to get back – back to where

thy plaintive anthem fades
adieu adieu adieu
in those next valley glades 
and you and you and you

split the heart
of the tree

divided self 
one, two, three

(the) nightingale’s repose 
her last song on the air 

I don’t know why I’m sensing 
but not seeing the rose 

how to get back – back to where? back to where?
how to get back – back to where

thy plaintive anthem fades
adieu adieu adieu
in those next valley glades 
and you and you and you (et vous et vous et vous)

(fade out on adieu adieu adieu x 3)

NB
(uses some lines and variation of lines from Keats's Ode to a Nightingale: 'thy plaintive anthem fades'/ 'adieu adieu'/ 'next valley glades' / 'tender is the night' / 'winding mossy way' / 'in love with easeful death')

adieu adieu

This world of ours is nuts.

So, in an act of utter lunarcy I have decided to marry the moon and bugger off somewhere else.

Herewith my serenaded pledge of love and proposal of marriage.

I have every confidence.

Goodbye everyone.

Goodbye.
__________________________________________________________________________

Selene

Now every sun has set
Dark as it can get
No dawn will bless my crescent dreams
Of touchdown on your crater lips
Sweet penumbrally eclipsed
Selene
Entrust me to Tranquility’s sea of moondust for infinity
Phase my mind with dark-side thoughts pristine
Selene

Unpick your tidal lock
Let that planet run amok
Let’s spin away to astral pastures green
Helium-3 wedding isotope
We’ll solar system-atically elope
Selene
Ultimate caesarean birth, father Theia and mother earth
I adore your ellipsoidal slight scalene
Selene

Your pert axial tilts will carry me, ah won’t you marry me?
We’ll wax and wane as one, making moonlets, the stars between
Selene
_______________________________________________________________________
Photo courtesy of NASA

Selene

When I was in infant school my class was a ragbag bunch of scruffy working class urchins, self included.  National health glasses held together with band aids, hand-me-down clothes, bruises, jam sandwiches.  There was a kid in that class who was very quiet, often absent.  Good at reading.  Good at running.  Kept himself to himself.  Sat at the back, never made eye contact.  Never put his hand up.

Turns out he was very deaf and spending a lot of time in hospital with operations of various sorts.

When he was seven he was given a hearing aid - huge thing the size of a transistor radio that sat in his shirt pocket.  The story I heard was that when he first went home with it his mam took him for a walk down a country lane to try it out.  He was very upset that it was obviously broken - all sorts of odd scratching and buzzing noises.

They eventually realised that he was hearing insects for the first time.  

Imagine that.

Often wonder what became of him.
_________________________________________________________________________

Huge thanks to my two friends here: Paco for inspiring and driving this project with his wonderful music, and Oddrun for lifting my simple lyrical efforts to another level entirely.
__________________________________________________________________________

A Good Boy

A symphony of crushing silence 
Played his timpani of weathered clay
Under lowered eyes that cried defiance
He’d softly make his quiet way
A guiding star that burned with life, but ever failed to shine
Kept his distance, from afar, no avatar to hide behind
He’s a good boy, so they say, in their condescending, pitied way.

Inputs built of aural mud are clinically desensitised
Muffled whispers trundle under cobbled skies of grizzled grey
Dreams and aspirations that never could be realised
He’d tightly close his eyes and lightly kneel to pray
Social cripple loner ‘neath a joker’s plastic smiles
Silent rippled mannequin, cartoon audio spastic child
He’s a good boy, so they say, in their well meaning, hurtful way.

Flip the switch and hear the light
Bear witness to the revelation
A trip to day-sound from his silent night
Demolishing all his expectations
Sweet blushing kiss of angels’ eyes
One of them has turned the volume dial
To flush his muted domicile
And hear the crickets singing on the chamomile

So cast the light fine, on the deafened child’s mind
And let the sound shine as the clearest of days
A new world’s flight is leaving dark behind
Clarity rebound leads the way
Breathe the noise, of those blissful waves
Touch the sense as darkness fades
He’s a good boy,…..he’s a good boy…..

So swing the arc’s beam, bless the lonesome soul
Illumination wakes the inner self
Warmth of seemliness melts the cold
Communication taken off the shelf
Breathe the noise, of those blissful waves
Touch the sense as darkness fades
He’s a good boy,…..he’s a good boy …. He’s a good boy now.

A Good Boy:  MidiSound, Oddrun Eikli, 1234567890

We are pleased to present track 8, the final track, from our latest album, 'Haunting One Seven,' full album available on Bandcamp, we hope you’ll enjoy!

outstation.bandcamp.com/album/haunting-one-seven

Waiting For Someone

life with you (music by john chilton, words by jean rhys and john chilton)  (cover)

Find Seagull's brilliant music here: @farout-music-studio

Find David's sublime guitar work here: @david-dunhamuser589535203
_______________________________________________________________________________

You know, don't you?  Oh, yes you do.  
You know you're being monitored, observed, assessed by something that knows you intimately.  
Knows you better than you’d like to think.  
Your secondary semi-subconscious once-removed.  
That's why you talk to yourself - or pretend to.  
Admit it - you're not really you, at all, are you?  
In fact, you're not real, are you?  You are watching “you”.  
You are nothing but your alter ego's doppelganger temporarily encased in a piece of warm, wet meat.  
A transient instantiation of a mirrored reflection of some lump of sentience from precisely one, of an infinite number of parallel universes.  

It’s called “conscience”.  

Handle with care.  

You were gifted it for a reason.
_________________________________________________________________________________

"…..Neatly packaged, all my doubts, the rationales and bellyaches,
Wracked without, passion in thrall to humanity's handicap diamond stakes…."
_________________________________________________________________________________

Ghost of a Sense

Yes, I know you.
I can feel your presence.
I can touch you, smell you.
I see you not by sight of eye
And yet I ken that you are I
That vespered wraith that writhes within
To test my faith, try my sin
Push the bounds to cause offence
A moral, soul thing, ghost of a sense recalls myself, so well defined
Entrenched, walls behind, built so sound of dust that crowned the pity, falling soft amiss, 
Deep inside the tears I cry as here I find my self-abyss.

Whispers bringing shadows, filled of secrets therein held,
Memories, morose, piece me still, to wear in time, my wasted face.
And now reside, cast aside, to forge and ever meld,
Of haunting, ringing echoes, that will alone their chime erased.

Ah! But you won't twist me, nor bind me fast, to the sandy doctrines of the misty past, 
With its beards and staffs and crinkled testaments.
My future's sprinkled here present with your crass irrelevance and matters not that sat right there, 
The blackest chasm in my simpling world so spare, 
Where space and time have overspilled the leaking psyche of a crippled mind,
That barely copes, unfulfilled, a crooked, limpid moral health of broken shrines
That hopes to find ....
   .......some worthwhile inner self.
___________________________________________________________________________________

Photo by Marten Newhall on Unsplash

Ghost of a Sense ... with Seagull and David Dunham

Thank you Seagull and David for your exquisite musical canvas.

Find Seagull's brilliant music here: @farout-music-studio

Find David's sublime guitar work here: @david-dunhamuser589535203
_______________________________________________________________________________

Oh dear.

We really haven't done very well with what we were gifted. 
 
Have we?

In any sense, under any interpretation, through any lens, via any belief system, under any political prism, upon any philosophical foundation, we have utterly corrupted the entirety of the social, cultural, spiritual, environmental and biological ecosystem that we touch, and which defines and sustains what we understand as "life" on our home planet.

And on every front, by all metrics, under any assessment - empirical, analytical, theoretical, logical, it gets progressively worse.

Every day.

Oh dear.
_____________________________________________________________________________

Deep Inside

When your broken moral compass assaults his eternal soul
When folk apportion token fault upon what little faith I hold
When humanity has knifed itself, and hope bleeds from infernal holes
When night's arrival, day concedes, its warmth displaced by bitter cold

When evolution's vanities lie buried deep in fossil earth
When pagan rite insanities, render cheap, their measly worth
When any good God's lessons die 'neath cloven crackled mirth
When children' hearts bear tender fear from the very instance of their birth

When the simplest of kindnesses stands blatantly denied
When respect for fellow mortal lands gutter-bound, cast aside
When the spyglass is inverted to inspect what’s deep inside
When the court of civil fortitude finds us guilty as described

When the very least of all is but the best that can be done 
When portends toss and nightmares turn, and grace is on the run
When you, my friend must burn your shame, face the shadows of our sun
Then all is lost, accept the blame, for hell on earth has just begun.

Mercy Me (Gary A. McMahon )

DavidHutton