Gareth Calway - Bard On The Wire
A bard on the wire, a voice in the wilderness, a home page for exiles trying to get home. Everybody is an exile. Maybe artists just realise it. "Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried, in my way, to be free."
Pages
- The Meanings of Christmas (EDP feature)
- Doin' Different
- Blog
- Perspectives on Literary and Linguistic Theory Part 2 Linguistic Theory
- Boudicca Britain's Dreaming
- Perspectives in Literary and Linguistic Theory Part 1. Critical Theory.
- Poem of the Month 2016-2020
- Tom and Harry
- Margery Kempe
- Doin’ different. (my 8th poetry collection) Poppyland Press 2015
- Exile in his Own Country (my 7th poetry collection) Bluechrome, 2006
- The Merchant of Bristol (my 4th poetry collection)...
- Britain's Dreaming (my 3rd poetry collection) - Fr...
- Boudicca
- Poem of the Month 2007-2015
- A Job To Remember
- The Merchant of Lynn's Tale
- A Robin Hood Lesson
April 11, 2024
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry. (Sonnet 66)
March 25, 2024
Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned. Avalon.
And little the faith I had yet in Arthur,
The Angel campaigner, strong as light,
His sun-bright stars above the wicked forest
Seeming to fade. Rusty the scabbard,
Still magic the sword. And, once more, he came.
I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession.
At last I understood. The flincher from spears,
Medraut, was part of Arthur, his shadow,
Chancel and gargoyle had to be cancelled
Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned:
Avalon. And I’ll run no more.
I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession.
Night and this nunnery will fall. Ravens
Will flock on the gore. Let others keep
A glimmer, a glorious page, of Logres alight
Until the dawn. My confession’s done.
Still my heart waits for hoofbeats.
(Still, my heart waits for hoofbeats…)
On our forthcoming Arthur album "King Arthur and Me- The Opera" , this is a song with tune written and sung by Maz in the role of Gwenhwyfar. Here it is as spoken word in the style of the old Welsh elegies/ eulogies on the death of a beloved lord.
March 11, 2024
Rosemary Lane
March 08, 2024
Lancelot and the Grail Maiden (the remake)
A most enjoyable collaboration with Bhas Allan who created the visuals for our atmospheric ballad. Lancelot and th Grail Maiden is about how the desperately grail-seeking but never quite finding Lancelot was seduced by the Grail Maiden (aided by the magic of Morgan le Fay who made her look like Guinevere) and thereby bore his son Galahad, who would replace his father as Arthur's Best Knight, find the Grail and thereby fructify the Wasteland. And that, Ron, is the paradox of our entire post-lapsarian exisence.
‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
‘Thither away with me
To the rich wooded valley and holy well
My Waste Land dies to be.
‘Look! into the burning wilderness sun
Above the shadeless tree,
The high hawk of summer, hovering still,
The shadow of what will be:
‘The Shadowless One who waits above
To be born to you and me,
A Knight of Truth out of traitor arms
And infidelity.
‘Galahad the Pure, God-armed and winged
To bless our impurity
Unbearably born to steal your quest
And all of your shining glory.
‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
And turns him a face so free:
His forbidden love, the queen of his dreams,
The end of all Chivalry.’
A faithless false knight in a failing light
Fallen under a spell to see/ be
A Knight of Truth out of traitor arms
And infidelity.
Says he, ‘My heart is set on the grail
And wholly raised above!’
Says she, ‘It’s broken, and half is set
On your true adulterous love.’
‘I am her champion, she is my king’s,
I am their faithful knight!’
‘The Grail can’t be had for half a heart,
You can have that queen tonight.
‘Whisper my name, any name you like,
Any lover you want me to be,
A night of Truth in my traitor arms
And in fidelity.’
‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
‘Thither away with me
To the rich wooded valley and holy well
My Waste Land dies to be.
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd
The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips
February 27, 2024
Blackwaterside
February 05, 2024
The Parting Glass
Quite pleased with this.
lyrics
I have spent it in good company
Oh and all the harm I've ever done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
Of all the comrades that e'er I had
They're sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They would wish me one more day to stay
But since it fell into my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
But since it fell into my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
Good night and joy be to you all
credits
Songwriters: Trad / David Anthony Downes
Maz - lead vocal, acoustic guitar
Gaz - bass, glass, foot drum, hi hat, shaker
February 01, 2024
Fatea showcase Spring 2024
Fatea Showcase Sessions Spring 2024:Skin
Fatea is proud to announce the new Fatea Showcase Session Spring 2024:Skin is ready to download
Once again we've looked at the fantastic releases that have come through the Fatea office and put together an eclectic mix of some of the best rising names across the acoustic spectrum for your enjoyment.
Featuring 16 incredible artist we think you'll be amazed and captivated by the strength of the songs that will be available for you to download on the Fatea Showcase Session Spring 2024:Skin compilation. www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk
01. Filkin’s Drift - The Girl I Left Behind Me
02. Hevelwood - The Banks Of The Dee
03. Siobhan McCrudden - Iron Goddess
04. Harry Bird - Cerberus
05. Elena Duff - The Forest Song
06. Holly & The Reivers - The Three Danish Galleys
07. Piskey Led - Ashton Famine
08. Annown - Like The Roses
09. Lauren South - Tiny Boat
10. Wychbury - Geordie
11. Foxbridge - Sirens Used To Sing
12. Ellie Walker - My Heart Beats On
13. Luke Giles - Boating Up Sandy/Nancy Blevins
14. Veronica Drozdowski - Out
15. Peacock’s Tale - Lancelot And The Grail Maiden
16. Holly Carter - Stella
"Skin" is the 64th download in the Fatea Showcase Sessions series and will be available from February 1st until April 30th 2024. This is the 17th series of releases
The download comes to you at no charge. Support the artists involved by listening to the download and then more of their songs, buying their albums, going to their gigs, writing about them on Facebook, publicising them on Instagram etc.
The 2024 Fatea Showcase Session Front Covers are artworked by Jon Loomes
#download #music #fatea #free #singersongwriter#americana #folk #instrumentals #enjoy
- Share like a good 'un let's get these artists heard
January 31, 2024
Woke King Arthur
The title track from our forthcoming Arthur project "Wake King Arthur" and one that contrives to wake him up from his long sleep and come and save us from the appalling mess we are in at the moment. When a British government proudly adopts a motto like "Stop The Boats" as its shining motto and ideal you know we have fallen a long way from the Lost Land of chivalry and mercy, of might defending justice, which thrilled and inspired me as a boy. Wake me, wake me He come out on top, he beat Hordes of heathen, he pluck Swords of lightning from the BC AD 6 and 6/9teenth Century Justice might and mercy king of all chivalry. Wake me, wake me He Arth and Ursus, he yoke Rome and Logres, he ride Wings and horses, he steal Grails from Annwn as a Norman knight a bird of prey an earthed angel tree, Celtic god a Dark Age white horse galloping free. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. Wake me, wake me He ever present, he a Church-hilled dragon, he the King of Europe, never Heard of England, he a Druid henge a hollow hill a forest a sea British May King ever changing eternity. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. (spoken) You who think you defend This lost land of Logres From drowning migrants For your offshore profits You're not Arthur's Britons Follow your money GO! He fights invaders who claim Lost Land acres from the Drowning migrants, for their Offshore profits, he’s the Lose yourself to save yourself they don’t want to see Release the Pax Britannia brand of Arthur-ity. Woke King Arthur In the Twenty first Century.
January 30, 2024
International Burns Night, January 25 2024
January 25, 2024
Evoking Spring From The Clued Ouija Board. No? Yes!
Colonel Mustard, in the Dining Room with smoking Revolver,
Asks where any secret passage to Happiness is.
"There's no Way Out," sighs Eve Lady Peacock, "no 4-cornered flights
From this Clued-Ouija Board, just the Night Train to Dis.”
DIS APPEARS! The plot convenes. Its Argus vision pans. “We indict!
In every room. With every weapon... The Snow Queen of Has-beens,
The Black and Cock Robin, breakfast cereal murderin’ … MRS WHITE!" …..
"I ’AD TO BLEACH THE ’OUSE OF ALL THE BLACKS, BROWNS AND GREENS!”
“You’re not Lady Peacock!” Mustard tears off her mask,
“What have done with my Lady P?” “I AM her and shall forever be
Eng-land as it is in Heritage! Your Lady Daily Male, your buried Hastings,
Your Mustard-servin’ Cod-Psycho Private I, survivin’! Your ‘Me.’ Marry Me!”
Mrs White is marched away and Winter goes with her.
Spring is back on the menu, multi-coloured and diverse.
Dis approves as Jack Green is betrothed to Miss Scarlet;
Dis agrees as Poirot blossoms and a primrose Jane demurs.
Dis untangles the Brown Lady, reveals Parvati-Proserpina
In a Wife-of-Turnip-Townshend ghost-disguise!
Dr Black blows his trumpet, England's foundations rock,
Green Eyes dances Blue Eyes into the sunrise.
January 19, 2024
Dodgy Bob
With his Norfolk neighbour brother in law, the Lord Lieutenant of the county Viscount 'Turnip' Townshend until 1730, and thereafter alone, he ran the growing colonial and trading powerhouse of Whig England as it began to dominate the globe. Like Townshend he refused to moderate his strong Norfolk accent. Unlike Townshend, he was an eloquent and charismatic speaker. And unlike most PMs he presided over a growing economy and a 20 year peace. He developed the 'cabinet' system of government, used his study at Houghton as his office and (it is said) always opened his letters from his estate gamekeeper before those pertaining to the affairs of the nation.
Doomed to permanent Opposition, the Tory wits - Fielding, Swift, Johnson, Pope to name but four of the most fearsome satirists to ever sharpen a pen - hated and despised him. You can find belittling and demonised versions of him in Lilliput and at least one of the other lands Gulliver travels and biting laughter at his expense in the satires and commentaries of all four geniuses. But, warts and all, he was an epic man in every way: magnitude and length of office, ambition, personality, grandeur (Houghton Hall is his fitting monument) corruption, power politics, man/ King management, the dramatic sustained rise, the sudden fall ( "Who Killed Cock Robin?" became a popular song at the time) and - increasing as the years went by - his own physique. He was so enormous in physical size by his death that they were unable to force his three hundredweight bulk into the stone coffin in his family tomb at Houghton and he reportedly burst before they finally managed to do so.
An (extra large) folk ballad is a perfect fit for such a mortal. If some of his faults are unattractive, many of them are entertaining - a 'dodgy' Norfolk builder brilliantly running an Empire. He has flawed greatness and grandeur but it is comic rather than tragic. He is more Adam than Satan. And, like all hopeful mortals, in the end he comes a cropper. We love the Egyptian* figures Warwick brings to our "Pharaoh of the Flaw" and the Flanders and Swann* which move this folk ballad away from the understated and dignified sinking of a Sir Patrick Spens towards the comic trapdoor exit of a Falstaff. We hope you enjoy him as much as we do.
lyrics
Knight of the slightly drooping Garter,
King of Bankrupt Hall,
Lord of the Backstairs Tower Tryst,
Stout Adam of the Fall.
Richeldis, Julian, Sawtrey, Nelson,
Boleyn and Boudicca tall,
Margery, Fanny, Turnip, Kett,
Old Tom Paine and all-
Norfolk and good our heroes stand
With something pure about ’em
But none more Norfolk nor more good
Than Dodgy Bob of Houghton.
Sir Robert Walpole, King of Sink,
The Pharaoh of the Flaw,
The not so bumpkin Norfolk dumplin’
Loophole in the Law.
The first Prime Minister and still
Unequalled in that office;
The backwoods front-man, laughing loud,
The Prince of Peace – and Profits.
The Age he named is hero-free,
No children need to know.
They keep it off the syllabus,
No killers boldly go.
No Bonnie Charlie anthems, saints,
No bagpipe calls to arms;
Just German Georges 1 and 2,
Enlightenment and farms.
The beau, the rake, the dandy, fop,
The mistress-paying knights,
The hypocrite with itchy palm:
‘All thesemen have their price.’
Sir Robert Walpole, Count of Cash,
The Pharaoh of the Flaw,
The not so bumpkin country speakin’
Loophole in the Law.
His Babel built ‘too far from London’ [12]
Under a Norfolk bushel
The Neptune and Britannia Rampant
Counting House as Castle.
His bust and Caesar hairdo placed
A British cut above
The classic Mantle he assumed
Of Wisdom, Justice, Love.
Removed the timber duty while
He ordered his supplies,
Avoided Finished Buildings tax
With one unfinished frieze.
Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Ease,
The Pharaoh of the Flaw,
The ruddy cunnin’ Norfolk rulin’
Loophole in the Law.
Our burly boisterous backhand Bob
Was bawdy in his cups
Had heart-to-hearts with kings and queens
Yet kept the common touch.
And when the South Sea Bubble burst
And drowned both Whig and Tory,
He saved the country with a speech
And rode the tide to glory
Avoided War for eighteen years
Of Profit weighed with cost,
‘They ring the bells, they’ll wring their hands,’
He said when Peace was lost.
Sir Robert Loophole, Laughin’ Bob,
The Prophet of the Flaw,
Three hundredweight of Killed Cock Robin
Loophole in the Law.
credits
Warwick Jones composed the tune and plays it.
Gaz sings lead vocal, pitches in on the final chorus, plucks a minimalist bass line, hits a snare and bashes a hi hat.
Maz sings harmony vocal.
Warwick Jones writes:
"This, like most of the tunes that I composed for the “Doin different” ballads, had the guitar tuned to DADGAD as opposed to the conventional EADGBE.
Bob Walpole was originally done without the capo and started in a sort of D minor key for the intro which then changes into a D major key for the verse.
Using the capo on the second fret for the version on the video, this equates to E minor turning into E major (Cole Porter eat your heart out….).
The “E minor” is not a conventional western scale but is more of an oriental version.
A classically trained musician would probably be able to tell me exactly what I was doing, but I just played what felt good.
The two different “modes” for verse and chorus just seemed to naturally fit the narrative."
January 02, 2024
Who Killed Cock Robin? A Norfolk Noir. All 9 episodes. Farewell Performa...
Don’t go to school
Stay in your homes
Keep the 2 metre rule.
From the council estates
To the posh ones with parks
From high fashion high finance
To its slave kids in the dark
From the poles to the equator
Supermoon into eclipse
From the fjords to the deserts
Temperate zones to the tropics…
Can’t breathe…
Come and heal us with your caring
Then go back where you came
You’re not from round here
We don’t know your name.
From the centre of the cosmos
To Little England in the Styx
From the heart of Little England
To each human breath’s limits.
The world has come
To Little England in the Styx
Little England is the world
We’re all together in this
Except we have no test kits
We shut down too late
We didn’t quarantine
We didn’t track and trace.
We didn’t take the test
Now we’re top fo Death’s calss,
Lord Hee Haw dressed as Churchill
We are such a silly ass.
Blitzing Brits for Blighty
As the Beast in the East
Spits his cold War into Salisbury
The we go off piste.
Covid’s knee in the throat
Of your healer and your bro;
In this world war for survival
Every ally is your is foe.
Can’t breathe…
Except we have no test kits
We shut down too late
We didn’t quarantine
We didn’t track and trace.
We didn’t take the test
Now we’re top of Death’s class
Lord Hee Haw dressed as Churchill
We are such a silly ass.