A Greek Bouzouki song composed 30+ years ago in Zakynthos, Greece.
Accordion by Martin Wilks

The story of the life and love of a megalomaniac, and the millions who perished in the pursuit of his insane ambitions.
Words, music, arrangement, recording and all instruments by Gary Rudd. Copyright Gary Wayne Rudd 2024. All rights reserved by the author/composer.

Goodnight Josephine orchestrated

aA sadly prescient prediction of the future; written and recorded in Transylvania during August 2016.

After You've Gone

After you've gone, I'll disappear for a thousand years
After you've gone, don't expect too many crocodile tears
I'll run away with that girl you suspected my heart was secretly set upon
After buying her that ring you selected, the one that now you'll never get to try on

After you've gone, I'll get a tattoo of a poisonous snake
After you've gone, I'll throw your birthday gifts into a lake
Then I'll delete all those pictures you sent me, except the ones you'd rather I hid
And email all those males who resent me, to dish all the dirt that you did

After you've gone, I'll cut my hair and grow a tyrants' beard
After you've gone, I'll misbehave and act a little weird
I'll accept your gift of my independence and declare myself a sovereign state
And stop dancing on your attendance, adopting affectations you'll hate

After you've gone, I'll write a song denying how I feel
After you've gone, I'll make believe our 'happiness' was real
I'll pretend that I'm fine here without you, like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz
Believing I was a fool to ever doubt you - although I'm the one that you're cheating on

After you've gone – you'll criticise me for the way I talk, you'll criticise me for the way I walk
You'll criticise me for the way I'm singing this song, all wrong
After you've gone, after you've gone, whoa-oh, after you've gone, after you've gone...


After You've Gone

He's Been At The Floss Again

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THE MEN WHO DON’T FIT IN
by Robert Service (1874-1958)

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.

They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.

And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t fit in.

…by Robert Service from The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

The Men Who Don't Fit In

John Barleycorn 2020.mp3

Experimenting with all my musical influences

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Last Chance Salon