No Place Like Home -
Words and Music by
Robert Severin and Merik Spitteler

I’ve packed and locked my suitcase
There’s an hour to spare
I’ve opened all the windows
To the early morning air
The temple bells are silent
Birds are singing loud and clear
It may be music to my ears  
But it’s your song I long to hear
	
There’s no place like home
No place like home
You were always there from the start
There’s no place like home
No place like home
It was always in your heart

I crossed the globe for answers
You had them all the time
The autumn glow of Kyoto
Held some comfort for a while
I wish that I could hold you
To feel you here by my side
I gave up something beautiful
What kind of hopeless fool am I

There’s no place like home…

There is another sky
Another sunshine
But all they do is remind me 
Of the truth

There’s no place like home
No place like home
It was always there in your heart
Home is you

No Place Like Home (English)

We got no time for haters 
Got no room for wasters 
Grifters and the shakers 
Power hungry fakers
Clear away the wire
Raise your voices higher
So they can’t ignore us
Let the whole world hear us
What are we gonna do?

We’re gonna tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls 
They’re coming down, down, down
We’re gonna tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls 
They’re coming down, down, down  
Oh yeah!
Oh yeah!

Puppets and their masters 
Profits from disasters
Dirty money laundries 
Cronies and the phonies 
It’s time to come together 
Their lies go on forever
We won’t let them cheat us 
The truth is all our business
What are we gonna do?

We’re gonna tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls 
They’re coming down, down, down
We’re gonna tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls 
They’re coming down, down, down  
Oh yeah!
Oh yeah!
(Rpt)

Now’s the time to unite 
Lead the way into the light 
Now’s the time to unite 
Lead the way into the light

We’re gonna tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls 
They’re coming down, down, down
Tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls
We’re gonna tear down the walls 
They’re coming down, down, down  
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
(Rpt to fade)

Words and Music:
Robert Severin
Merik Spitteler

Tear Down The Walls Demo

My latest collaboration with the magnificent Empty Mirrors on a reimagined classic by Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention.

Who Knows Where The Time Goes

Lenin meets David Lynch. 

Dance with me a shameless tango
Holy one, your fame will now grow
Dance with me a graveyard tango
Hunger for endless tomorrow

Hollywood, Hollywood
Afterworld in Hollywood

Hollywood, Hollywood
Afterworld in Hollywood

Dance with me a shameless tango
In a glade of fading shadows
Dance with me a shameless tango

Shameless Tango

Elena
Words and Music: Linda de Bruijn & Robert Severin

Elena, sixty-three today
Carries her world in a plastic bag
Hurries to the bus
A one-way ticket is all she has
Her son stays behind
To defend their ravaged home
The ride is short but hard
Into the lone unknown 

Haunted houses, sleeping men
Burning cars, a holed white flag
All her memories of a life now gone
Packed tightly in her bag
Elena wants someone to explain
Who thought that war’s a winning game?

Elena, sixty-three years old
Same heavy bag, ticket and tags
As the woman next to her
Shivers in her rags
Both exhausted and weary with fear
Both survived the day
Leaving everything behind
But what they can't unsee

Haunted houses, sleeping men
Burning cars, a holed white flag
All her memories of a life now gone
Packed tightly in her bag
Elena wants someone to explain
Who thought that war’s a winning game?

She wipes away her tears
But the images remain

Elena wants someone to explain
Who thought that war’s a winning game?



Vocals, guitar, clarinet, piano: Robert Severin
Piano: Rick Flahant
Cello: Alice Allen
Mixed and Mastered by Andrea Gobbi at GloWorm Recording and Carrier Waves Studios, Glasgow, UK.

Elena

I found postcard in a second hand bookshop in Budapest some years ago. It was written in English by a young Hungarian woman, Julia Spitzer,  from Budapest, to her gentleman friend, Morris Levison, in England, dated 12th December 1936. She never sent it. A solitary word in Hungarian, in the bottom left hand corner of the postcard asks: 'Do you love me?' I searched for traces of Julia, online and in the Budapest city archives, but the trail ran cold in 1944. It is probable that she was killed at an execution site, near her home, on the Danube by the fascist Arrow Cross. Lyrics below:

December frost on the cobblestones
Bridges cast in monochrome
Naked trees on the boulevards
Your words take me back in time

Ice drifting through the city’s heart
Floating islands of my thoughts 
About the heartbreak you revealed
On a fragment of your past 

Was there ice that December
When the eagle rode the flames
Could you see the storm coming
Did you face it on your own

Julia, I’ve been looking for you
I want to know 
You found a love that was true
Julia, I’ll keep looking for you
I won’t forget 
The red shades of blue

I wonder if you found out why 
His replies never came
He was used to his liberty
While yours was stolen day by day 

Echoes from the courtyard
Shadows in the stairwell
Did you find salvation
From hell’s carousel

Julia, I’ve been looking for you
I want to know 
You found a love that was true
Julia, I’ll keep looking for you
I won’t forget 
The red shades of blue 

Julia, I’ve been looking for you
I want to know 
You found a love that was true
Julia, I’ll keep looking for you
I won’t forget 
The red shades of blue 
Red shades of blue

Words and Music: Robert Severin

Strings:
Seonaid Aitken - Violin 1
Innes Watson - Violin 2
Patsy Reid - Viola
Alice Allen - Cello
Arranged by Innes Watson

Postcard from Budapest

Red Shades of Blue

Red Shades Of Blue

A song about my father's arrival in Scotland after the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and his struggle with alcoholism. Lyrics below:

Rudi took the westbound train 
His final stop was Waverley
All he had was his uniform
And half a pack of Wills Embassy
He knew there was no way back
Home was out of bounds
Welcomed like a long lost son
On Auld Reekie’s hallowed ground

Rudi’s war was with his curse
Shadows cast by demon thirst
Lured to shores of oblivion
Sweet sirens called his name

He caught the eye of a Magyar maiden 
She saw his easy charm
He wondered if she really loved him
But found the homeland in her arms
Lonely hearts in a strange new land
In the strangest times
She said yes and gave her hand
They cried to Auld Lang Syne

Rudi’s war was with his curse
Shadows cast by demon thirst
Lured to shores of oblivion
Sweet sirens called his name

She said yes and gave her hand
She thought he’d change in time
Now Rudi’s war was also hers
They cried for Auld Lang Syne

Rudi’s war was with his curse
Shadows cast by demon thirst
Lured to shores of oblivion
Sweet sirens called his name
Sweet sirens called his name 
I hear them call my name

Rudi's War

The Cold War ends, a new love begins for me in Budapest. Lyrics below:

September  ‘89
High on Castle Hill
Soviet champagne 
From your paper cup
A solo flute enchants 
A Mozart serenade
And I realise 
You’re here to change my world

Float on the music 
Over domes and spires
Soar together
Above the Wall and wire

These days, these moments in a living dream
I share with you, in love
Are days I’ll cherish all my life
They gave me you, my love

Aromas of the Danube 
Old East German cars
Caterpillar trams 
On their never ending crawl
Looping Lambada 
In subways and dark bars
We made it just in time 
To see an empire fall

The river weaves its history 
Through the city’s thighs
We kiss on its bridges
Queen Autumn paints your eyes

These days, these moments in a living dream
I share with you, in love
Are days I’ll cherish all my life
They gave me you, my love

Sweet refuge
In each other’s arms
Your hair on my shoulder 
Flames of deep amber
Crown you

These days, these moments of a living dream
I share with you, in love
Are days I’ll cherish all my life
They gave me you, my love
My love
My love
My love

September '89

Reflections on a difficult personal decision. Lyrics below:

Green cardboard suitcase
Mothball scented memories
Sepia whispers
Haunt my troubled reverie
Locks long broken
Damp and rust laid claim
Portraits, spectres
A longing I can’t explain

There will always be
A blank page in the album
There will always be
A blank page in the album
The page I left too long to fill

We were outsiders
Always had to spell our name
Family values
Repression, guilt and shame
There’s no refuge 
From what can’t be unseen
There’s no point in blame
Forget what might have been

There will always be
A blank page in the album
There will always be
A blank page in the album
I couldn’t bring myself to fill

So long children
I’ve run out of time
This had to be 
The end of the line
I can’t be another 
Link in that chain

There will always be
A blank page in the album
There will always be
A blank page in the album
The space I’ll never fill

Blank Page

Inspired by a remarkable film, Voyageuse, by Glasgow based film maker, May Miles Thomas, about her Hungarian mother-in-law, Erica. Her family found refuge, from Nazi persecution, in the UK in 1938. Erica lived the latter half of her life in Edinburgh where she died in 2004. She had been widowed for over thirty years by that time. The song is in Erica's voice, placed towards the end of her life, and addresses her late husband, Gwynne. Lyrics below:

From cruel Carpathia 
To cold Calton Hill
By way of Jupiter 
An alien, still
You made the pieces fit
But I lost you so soon
To make some sense of it
I tried to believe 

The world will still be beautiful 
The world will still be beautiful
When you are gone
When you are gone

Sunrise gold
On the old limes’ new green
Blackbird sings
Its welcome to spring
My voyage is near its end
I’ll return to the stars
Time has failed to mend
This tear in my heart but the

The world will still be beautiful 
The world will still be beautiful
When we are gone
When we are gone

I searched for you in my dreams
I found you once in thirty years
A moment’s joy in the void
I miss you so much

You made the pieces fit
I miss you so much

The world will still be beautiful 
The world will still be beautiful
Beautiful
Beautiful

Words and Music by Robert Severin
Produced by Robert Severin

The World Will Still Be Beautiful

The most celebrated wartime diva from Budapest, Katalin Karády, reflecting on her haunting experiences at the hands of the Gestapo, forty years later, as she adds the finishing touches to a hat for one of her regular clients, Nancy Reagan, in her milliner's salon in Manhattan. Lyrics below:

She works behind the curtain 
In her salon late at night
The milliner to the stars 
Holds the pillbox to the light
She smoothes the chiffon ribbon
Under feathers and the lace
A confection in scarlet 
For the First Lady’s date

It brings to mind one she wore
In a film about doomed love
Made in black and white
But she called for matching gloves
Shown back home again
After thirty years taboo
Her hits on shortwave
It feels sweet but bitter too

Time heals
But the healed heart still hurts
They say time heals
But the healed heart still hurts
  
She yearns to see the Danube
But fears she can’t go back
Her sleep is often broken
By ghosts of men in black
Nearly killed for being human
Her light refused to die
Home is now Manhattan
Her client’s due at nine

Time heals
But the healed heart still hurts
They say time heals
But the healed heart still hurts

Actress by accident
Diva by design
Voice of a dying age
Chanteuse of the lost

They say time heals
But the healed heart still hurts
Time heals
But the healed heart still hurts

Words and Music by Robert Severin

Time Heals (But the Healed Heart Still Hurts)

Time Heals (But The Healed Heart Still Hurts)

First go at making electronic track using Logic Pro.

The recording of the erhu, a traditional Chinese two stringed instrument, was made at Apliu Street market in Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong.

Sham Shui Po TSA Wk9

She loves to rock 
Every Friday night
Dancing to the beat
Her moves are out of sight
I try and catch her eye
But I’m not the coolest guy
She’ll never be my baby
‘Cause she’s Soho Belle

Soho Belle 
She’s the jukebox queen
Soho Belle
Rockin’ in blue jeans 
Soho Belle
Dancing in my dreams
I guess she’s no-one’s baby
‘Cause she’s Soho Belle

French cigarettes
Shoes cool Italian
Continental style
A smile worth a million
She could be in movies
All she wants is groovin’    
She’ll never be my baby
‘Cause she’s Soho Belle

Soho Belle 
She’s the jukebox queen
Soho Belle
Rockin’ in blue jeans 
Soho Belle
Dancing in my dreams
I guess she’s no-one’s baby
‘Cause she’s Soho Belle

She doesn’t wanna know 
If the beat’s too slow
She’ll never be my baby
‘Cause she’s Soho Belle

Soho Belle…

Soho Belle Demo

I'll keep your photo on my phone
But you’re coming off my home screen
Reading through your message
It's clear we're history
I could make your dreams come true
That’s not quite enough for you
I can’t keep a wanderer
But I can’t stand you loving her

I can't be your second choice
Not when you're my first
Don't ask if we can be just friends
This is where our story ends
I ain’t gonna argue
One and one don’t make three

If you’ve got wings you gotta fly
But don’t go near the sun
Life goes on, even mine
I hope that she’s the one
I’ve got plans and no regrets 
Even though we’re through
Some you win some you lose
But I can’t stop loving you
Loving you

I can't be your second choice…

I won’t wait, call or plead
Break my heart, I’ll break free
I’m breaking free

I can't be your second choice
Not when you're my first
Don't ask if we can be just friends
This is where our story ends (Rpt)
I ain’t gonna argue
One and one don’t make three
I ain’t gonna argue
One and one don’t make three

One and One Don't Make Three (Nashville Mix)

I'm a songwriter, singer, guitarist and also play the clarinet. I released my debut album 'Postcard from Budapest' in February 2020. I am engaged in a number of diverse collaborations with other songwriters from around the world. A recent co-write resulted in a Nashville release in January. I have a single, "Elena", coming out on February 24th, inspired by the story of an older woman fleeing war. Writing is well underway for my new album, due out early 2024.

Robert Severin

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