Travelling Water

Performed by Poke O'Swedgers

Kev McInally - Main vocal
Dave Banks - Backing vocal and guitars
Jenny Banks - Backing vocal and cajon

Music and lyric © David Banks and Davie Roddie 2016, at the Glasgow Songwriting Festival, under the expert tuition of Donna Maciocia.

Version 13_11_17

Travelling Water

Performed by "Poke o'Swedgers"

Featuring: Kev McInally (vocals)
Dave Banks (guitar, acoustic bass, backing vocal)

Music and lyrics © Kevin McInally & David Banks 2017

The Ballad of Contrary Mary (Floo'er o' the Gorbals)

"Holy Ghost" performed by Poke O'Swedgers (feat. Jenny Banks)

Vocal: Kev McInally
Backing vocal and cajon: Jenny Banks
Backing vocal and guitar: Dave Banks

Music and lyrics © David Banks 2014

The holy glow of the blue TV screen light	
	calls to the faithful every night
Filling the sofas and filling the pews
Balancing dinner plates high on their knees
	Bread and red wine, fish fingers and peas
Communicants all in the evening news.

Oh, Holy Ghost, we beseech you, we pray:
	to fill up our heads with the truth every day
to give us our Friends and give us our House
and to give us our thoughts and to give us our smiles
(Keep us amused. Keep us beguiled)
But for Christ’s sake, for God’s sake, don’t let us out.

Oh Holy Glow, be there when we wake
Let us sit round your sofa when our fasts we break
Be there in our daytime, be there in our rooms
Our lifetime’s commitment, our promise, our vow
Our past and our future and our here and now
	A glass fronted black monolith marking our tombs

Image released into the public domain by its author, Wags05 at English Wikipedia.

Holy Ghost

Finite Difference Dream - version 25/6/18

Performed by Poke O'Swedgers
Kev McInally - vocal
Dave Banks - guitars, harmonies, keyboards

Music and lyrics by © David Banks 2018

See the pictures, pretty pictures, lighting up the back of the cave
Hear the voices, beguiling voices, telling me my name is Dave

It’s a dream	Please catch me if I’m falling
It’s a dream	a finite difference dream

Interaction, push and traction, exchange of gauge bosons
Dissatisfaction, reaction, my tiny heart is frozen

See the electron, pinpoint electron, pretending to be a wave
Can’t somebody, Heisenbody, tell it how to behave

Ada Lovelace, Ada Lovelace, you’re my kind of gal
Sweet logician, I’m your algorithm. You can call me Al

Wentworth’s daughter, it was felt she ought to study maths and not poetry
Child of Byron, muon, pion, to save her from insanity
She had a dream, of a subject I hardly dare to mention
Such a dream	... of an analytical engine

At the Planck length, all our field strength fades like the morning dew
Discretisation of your location makes software out of you

See the pictures, pretty pictures, glowing in my head
Decay chain in my brain, ticking down to lead


Background photo modified from Carsten Ullrich - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=851017

Finite Difference Dream

Poke O'Swedgers perform a song entitled Vigo Lane, concerning the joyous life and sad fate of Elsie Marley, alewife of Picktree, County Durham.

Version 10th July 2018

Vocal - Kev McInally
Backing vocals - Dave Banks
Guitars - Dave Banks

Music and lyrics © David Banks 2018 (contains excerpts from traditional rhymes/folk songs)

Vigo Lane

Draft version of a future Poke O'Swedgers (TM) song, version 14/8/18

Music and lyrics by © Dave Banks and Lorraine Lucas 2018

Woke up in the morning with my head full of the blues
And things went downhill quickly when I turned on the news
But I suddenly remembered what my therapist did say
That a Happy Song and major chords will send those blues away

I’ve got an altered attitude, cultivating gratitude
Every day I’ll make a start with a glad and happy heart
You can always lift your mood with a clichéd platitude
But tomorrow’s just a broken dream away

Sat down after dinner with my head stuffed full of dreams
My Happy Song was drowning out the spiders and the screams
I kept on remembering my therapist’s refrain
A happy face and sunny smile will drive away the pain

I’ve got an altered attitude, cultivating gratitude
Every day I’ll make a start with a glad and happy heart
You can always lift your mood to high beatitude
But tomorrow’s just a broken dream away

Sing out a Happy Song and make it Happy
Sing out a Happy Song to last all day
Put on your Happy Face and keep it happy
Tomorrow’s just a broken dream away

Lay me down at bedtime and drifted off to sleep
And cast creation’s cares on my mental rubbish heap
If I hum loud enough, rock my body to and fro
I’ll be happier than Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh (Marilyn Monroe? / Jose Mourinho??)

Guitars and vocals by Dave Banks

Happier Than Hemingway

Vocal: Kev McInally                                   
Guitars, acoustic bass, synth and backing vocals: Dave Banks
Cajon and jingly bells: Rob Dean                 
Mouthorgan: John (“Not now, Arthur”) Belli

Music and lyrics by © David Banks 2016.  
ISRC number UK-DVB-19-000013
Recording rights ℗ David Banks and Kevin McInally 2019
Track 13 from the album "Govanhill Moonshine". https://pokeoswedgers.bandcamp.com
Recorded and mixed/mastered by Steve Swallow

The beard in Hipster Kiss could probably be found standing outside a Govanhill café on the night of the Old Firm derby (Celtic 5 – 1 Rangers), 10th September 2016. 

I was standing outside the cafe, on the night of the Old Firm purge
of dynamite in green and white, when I suddenly got the urge
to smoke, but by my side appeared
an elegant bloke and...I tell you no joke...he wanted to touch my beard.

Oh, won’t you touch your beard to mine? It’s just shared testosterone 
in the Govanhill moonshine; hairy jawbone to jawbone.
I promise to be gentle; but just remember this -
We may never pass this way again, so let me give you a hipster kiss.

A Hipster Kiss! A Hipster Kiss!
He looked quite cute and was real hirsute, 
and he gave me a hipster kiss. 

I was rooted to the pavement, and shaken to my core
Dynamite in the fluorescent light of the nearby coffee store
and artisanal bakery, but now he’d disappeared
This Don Juan, this charming man, who’d asked to touch my beard

Oh, won’t you touch your beard to mine? It’s just shared testosterone 
in the Govanhill moonshine; hairy cheekbone to cheekbone.
I promise to be gentle, but just remember this -
We may never pass this way again, let me give you a hipster kiss.

Govanhill Moonshine

01/03/2019

Hipster Kiss

From the album "Govanhill Moonshine" - https://pokeoswedgers.bandcamp.com/releases

Dave wrote this song while working as a water engineer in Kosova in 2000. Sierra Kilo Base was the call-sign of an unknown Scottish radio operator on the Kosovan humanitarian aid channel. 

ISRC: UK-DVB-19-00005
Vocal: Kev McInally
Guitars, backing vocals, percussion and acoustic bass: Dave Banks
Synthesiser: Dave Banks
Music and lyrics by © David Banks 2000
Recorded and mixed/mastered by Steve Swallow

Diving down from the hillside; potholes kissing my wheels.
Stunted oaks in yellow suits: the air around me feels
like it’s buzzing with an EM pulse. My whiskers stand on end.
My heart’s antenna skips a beat. I'm clear to receive, please send.

Put one hand on your heart and the other on the mic
of your transceiver. You don’t know me, but I like
the sound of your voice on the Balkan ether:
Miss Jean Brodie in a broadcasting fever.

Sierra Kilo Base. I haven’t even seen your face. 
I need to put a trace on you. Before you break up.

Ten channels of chaos, all full of soldier boys.
Romeo seeks Juliet in a haze of white noise.
I’ll take you out on the town tonight. I’ll take you out to dance.
A Tango or a quick Foxtrot and a spot of radio romance.

I take one hand from the wheel and I reach towards the set.
Do I dare to contact you although we’ve never met?
While half the world is listening, from India to Quebec?
Do I have the mettle - brazen cheek and brass neck?

She's picking up an unknown station! Who’s this deviant guy 
who wants her to wilco his request? She's sorry but she can’t comply.
"Please keep away from the airwaves with your intermission
and I’ll try to disregard the irregular nature of your transmission."

Soldier boys are on parade.
Soldier boys all laugh at my escapade.
Victor and Charlie and Oscar and Mike;
Soldier boys don’t understand the things I like.

Sierra Kilo Base. I haven’t even seen your face. 
I need to put a heat-seeking trace on your location...

Sierra Kilo Base

Kev and Dave are a "Poke o' Swedgers". We play a mixture of self-penned acoustic numbers, a few covers and a spot of traditional folk, sometimes with a distinct Scottish flavour. We try to be easy on the ear and sharp with our lyrics.