I lived in Crete last summer. We had an apricot tree in our garden. It produced the most incredible bounty and my landlady asked me to pick the fruit for her. She then bought me cakes, jams, and sweets all made with the fruit. She wrote a little poem about the tree bursting into flame, and asked me to adapt it, add to it, and put it to song. 

LYRICS-
One month ago, the fruits were pale and green,
on my apricot tree,
An invisible hand, with a brush, painted them for me,
like the Madonna's cheeks

Of Raphael the great, so his nymphs-before unseen-
Bloom in flame before me,
Sowed for Dong Feng, And Titania in The Dream,
Gold and pink surround me

Moon of the faithful, Egg of the sun. 

From above and below, takes the miracle machine,
of my apricot tree
Hard not to think it was planned; its perfection clear to see.
Blessed; enjoy it's bounty. 

Moon of the Faithful. Egg of the Sun. 

And suddenly the wind blows, sways an arm,
And drops a golden apple, from its palm,
This sunlit orb will feed the roots below,
And feed the fire to keep the flame aglow.

Apricot Tree

I'm currently living in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia where there exists a popular local legend of a chamois buck whose golden horns are the key to a vast treasure hidden somewhere in the Julian Alps.
This is my musical re-telling. 
The legend can be read here -wildflowereurope.org/slovenia_blog/…g-golden-horn/

LYRICS - 

Once upon a time long ago,
There lived a girl high in the mountains,
Daughter of an Inn Keepers Wife
Possessions few, Father departed.

She loved a hunter boy from the hills
And though he was poor, his love was pure and unbounded
He travelled long and far every day to gather for her wild flowers
Not all that counts can be counted.

Up high in the Alps he knew how it would be
His shining gold horns the much coveted key
And though he’d be pursued, this goat refused to flee
Yes all this from his perch Zlatorog could foresee.

And then the merchant came,
Bringing with him wealth to teach these poor folk to feel shame
Met with much acclaim,
From the young girl’s mother who sought his Venetian name.

She can’t be blamed 
For wanting the best for her daughter no
But she was unashamed,
In bragging to the man of her daughters great beauty
So that he, with his loins all a flame,
Proposed that he and the girl should be married,
But then what of true loves claim?
And what of our hunter and the flowers he carried?

Our lovers they were distraught, with the wedding date set,
The hunter boy begged, and the mountain girl wept,
But the mother insisted, that her wishes be met,
Her daughter would marry and never know debt,
And so the young hunter vowed, that he’d equal the wealth,
that the merchant man had, he’d achieve it himself.
To kill the golden horned goat, what was the hunter boy planned,
And with the treasure this bought he’d win back his lady’s hand.

Up high in the Alps he knew how it would be
His shining gold horns the much coveted key
And though he’d be pursued, this goat refused to flee
Yes all this from his perch Zlatorog could forsee.

So up he climbed. 
His love in mind.
His aim to find.

So atop Triglav’s Peak, The hunter boy met his prey,
Beheld his Mighty Goldhorn, Majestic coat thick and grey
And with regret in his gut, a broken heart in his breast,
And with his lady in mind, he put himself to the test
He took gun, muttered a prayer, closed his eyes and then the trigger was pressed.

And as the Goldhorn’s blood, ran down and touched the Earth,
The soil was fertilised and the great mountain gave birth
(To a) single Triglav Rose that spouted from the ground
Where the blood from Zlatorog ran fast and thickly down.

But as the hunter boy approached
He found the goat eating the Rose
But little knew he what power there grows,
And so the goat was healed and there arose.

Once upon a time long ago
There lived a girl high in the mountains
Lover to a boy never seen
After that day that he departed.

He died in the pursuit of her hand,
For though he was poor his love was pure and unbounded,
And so she gave her life to the Lord, ending her days as a nun
Not all that counts can be counted.

Zlatorog

A lot of my friends are unhappy. They can't get what they want from life, and a lot of the ones who have got what they thought they wanted still aren't happy. 

I wonder if the three main expected routes to grown-upsim (mortgage, marriage, career) are as fulfilling -or as compulsory- to life as we think. Perhaps. Or maybe they are, and we're too keen to do it all too young. 

Here's a song about that.

(DISCLAIMER: If you have a mortgage and a career and are happily married, i envy you. I'm not dissing your life, but a lot of people who have what u have, aren't happy, they're shackled. Id be one of those. But that's cos I'm a child) 

LYRICS - 

I’ll grow up if you can tell me why I should,
Because I’m looking at the life you’ve built and it don’t look so good,
A mortgage ain’t security: it’s just a ball and chain, 
That keeps u working like a dog and makes a prison for your brain. 
A marriage is the easy part. It’s how to make love stay
That is the real accomplishment that two thirds fail in today.
Your job takes up most of your time, and what is time but life
So find one in which u are satisfied with people that you like. 

Cos we are the most blessed children ever to’ve been born.
More opportunity, right of voice, freedom to travel than any have had before. 
And with these gifts you stay at home, work in a job you hate,
Toil endlessly for menial things, then later curse your fate.

The price of bricks has grown beyond what I can now afford,
And whilst id like somewhere to call my own, I think I’d end up bored.
Cos there’s a big wide world to see, I’m making my way round.
And in so doing there are homes away from home that I have found. 
But sure when I am older maybe then I’ll build a nest,
Somewhere to keep my books and my guitar and lay my bones to rest.
But for now I get quite stagnant if im too long in one place
So I’ll stick with my enchantment in my childish escapades.

We’ve got time to fall in love and out again,
So if you really are the one for me, lets first become best friends.
We’ll watch how much we piss each other off as we age.
Cos in the restlessness of youth this is impossible to gauge.
Don’t anchor down before you’ve seen the beauty of the sea.
And then resent these harbour walls you chose and built me up to be.
But rather choose me from all others, as your own first best in show,
And then we’ll scream it from the rooftops so that all the neighbours know.

I’m not against making a home. I do believe in love.
I know events occur sometimes as if thrown from above. 
It’s healthy to feel urgency, to meet your aims in life
But mine stretch further than a standard house and job and wife. 

If you’re living for the weekend, then you’re dead five days a week,
And whilst each man must earn his bread there’s loaves, not crumbs for those that seek,
And if its crumbs and it’s enough, better you live a life of glee,
Than slaving dead Monday to Friday in the corporate bakery.

Life Choices

Friends got married two years ago. Asked me to play at their wedding. I picked this cos it always reminds me of my parents dancing when i was younger. Tried to make it my own a little bit as I'm not an incredibly beautiful black soul man and this is what i got.

Lets Stay Together - Al Green Cover

Cover of the Beach Boys 'Lonely Sea' by Duncan Wigman

Lonely Sea (Beach Boys Cover)

An acoustic cover of George Gershwin's 'Summertime' by Duncan Wigman

Summertime - Gershwin Cover

A warning of the dangers of excessive optimism

LYRICS - 

Rose tinted glasses that keep the eye cheerful,
Will surely see plenty to turn the eye tearful.
For when all is rosy and pink as the dawn,
Where the eye lies on shadow a temper is born,

And the view before blooming, 
With countenance high,
Now sees red in the eye.
And this new all consuming 
Lust for blood is not shy,
And it doesn’t care why. 

And a temper clouds thick in a heady red mist
And you curse and hurt her who just now you had kissed.
The higher the peak makes the lower the trough,
And the higher you reach gives more distance to drop.

Our senses are relative, and all that which seems
Much more good and more happy, push both the extremes.
Go higher, see lower, the richer the light
The rosier day but the darker the night

And the view before blooming, 
With countenance high,
Now sees red in the eye.	
And this new all consuming 
Lust for blood is not shy, 
And it doesn’t care why

And the girl you’re abusing
She’s outside your life lie
But you’re making her cry
And her heart that you’re losing
She’s the best of your life
Now she won’t be your wife. 

Too much of any good thing
Unsettles nature’s pendulum swing
After winter must come spring
Gather honey; brave the sting.

Because she was your world and you pushed her away 
Couldn’t handle the happiness coming your way
Because you made a choice to see only the best
That did nothing but fuel all you’d tried to suppress

So herein lies a warning,
Just don’t try to deny that there’s clouds in the sky
Love is blind and confusing
But there’d be no reward 
From a single edged sword. 






Rose Tinted Glasses

A song about doing things to excess. 

LYRICS - 

He’s ten years old, on holiday
In the arcade, he’s there to play
The two and ten pence slot machines
-Just one of many recalled scenes
His mind’s eye sees when it looks back
For clues of how life spun off track
And how the signs were there that early
-An insight revealed prematurely. 

The complete unseen astonishment
That all his pocket money was now spent.
His early elementary rationale, 
Completely eluded and subdued somehow
By pure desire, quickest thrill
-A warning light, alerting kill
This trait before it becomes the norm
Should be stopped before patterns form. 

Nip this pleasure in the bud
Before it mixes with the blood
Of character; governing will
That this younger self, at ten years old, possesses still.
Inbuilt in his psychology was an addict’s personality. 

He wonders did he have a choice.
If he’d listened to that inner voice.
Or is this hard-wired character-type
-The cards you’re dealt that circumscribe. 

Now twenty eight and making all the same mistakes
And wondering if he’s left it too long and too late
To make a change, begin again, start a new slate
But it’s easier to pretend nothing’s wrong and sedate. 
The things he’d put his body through
A recreational abuse
That became habit, desperate need
Revealed despair, depression, greed. 

Four girls he’s loved over the years
Four friendships ruined; drenched in tears
For him it never was enough
He’d bleed them dry with a junkies love.
We wake, we eat, we work, we sleep,
And in between we try to seek
Some stimulus to make it seem
Worth repeating this shit day after day, week after week. 

And now I stand amazed, aghast
My mind’s eye turned toward the past
To comprehend how others live
In moderation, able to give
Their time attention and energy 
To what’s mundane, trivial to me
An addict’s life so far I’ve led
A life I’ll lead till soon I’m dead.

An original song by Duncan Wigman

Addictive Personality

An original song, inspired by Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' -

"She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year; the disastrous night of her undoing ... the dates of the baby's birth and death; also her own birthday; and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would had disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation?... some time in the future those who had known her would say: "It is the--th, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died"; and there would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement. Of that day, doomed to be her terminus in time through all the ages, she did not know the place in month, week, season or year."

LYRICS - 
Hidden, it lies sly and unseen
Amongst all others of the year.
Nothing to distinguish between 
Our Death day and all others here.
Why do we not feel a chill 
On each encounter with that date?
Blessed or cursed: how would you feel
To know and recognise your fate?

Each year we note our day of birth
In youth with joy, later with dread.
The flow of time, all peoples curse
To see behind but not ahead.
Why can we not, know the truth
Of our own life, how long we’ve got
And if we could, would then our youth
Be spent in ways that now it’s not. 

Should we not celebrate, be thankful 
That our day is not yet here?
And pray that when she comes it’s tranquil, 
And when we see her we will not fear.

Getting stuck between Carpe diem
And living each day as if there is no tomorrow
With putting in extra time now for future reward 
That without we’d feel greater sorrow.

Amongst the days each year we mark
The dates we each commemorate
There lies a day concealed and dark
That spells the end of our known fate
What happens then? Is the end
A turning point of our known lives
Another chapter round the bend
Where spirit lives on and survives. 

Words and music by Duncan Wigman




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