5. Pansy Potter - Track five from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Pansy Potter

Mrs Potter was a witch (all the children knew).

Migaldi Magaldi, raggle and taggle!  At night upon a broom she flew.

Scrawny, skinny, grubby pinny, screeching scared me. Big boys dared me.

I’d seen them in their bravado, gathering outside and calling,

“Pansy Potter!  Pansy Potter!  Smelly old witch in a caravan.

Come and chase us with your stick and catch us if you can.”

The curtains twitched, the door flung wide.  

The miserable woman hobbled outside.

She waved her stick.  She cursed and cried and everyone turned and ran.

“Scarper, boys, as fast as you can!”

My mother said to keep away.  Then spoke to her one day.

Migaldi Magaldi raggle and taggle, old Pansy screeched, “Scum overspill!”

Mum thought it best to avoid a scene and, with a tear she turned away.

It wasn’t that she didn’t care … the boys came back and started calling, 

 “Pansy Potter!  Pansy Potter!  Smelly old witch in a caravan …

She always made me curious about life in a caravan.

Migaldi Magaldi raggle and taggle! I’d chant her name as I ran

“Pansy Potter, Pansy Potter,” round and round in my head.

“She’s a gypsy,” my best friend said, 

“And she knows spells to strike you dead!”

All the boys knew, but still they came.

So brave they were to chant her name …

“Pansy Potter!  Pansy Potter!  Smelly old witch in a caravan …

My best friend and I tried it once, we hid by a bush and called her names.

Migaldi Magaldi raggle and taggle, Stupid kiddies’ games!

I didn’t feel brave and I couldn’t see why the big boys liked to make her cry.

I caught a glimpse of a widow who just wanted to be left alone.

Decades ago the trailers were cleared, the gardens dug up, the site was sold.

The boys had grown up and to a man they followed the town development plan.  

They honoured a creed that clearly states, “You must speculate to accumulate.”

But what about Pansy? Is she ever given a thought?

No memorial marking the ground where she walked.

It’s hallowed. Your feet are cursed.

Mrs. Potter, whose grandma were you?

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

This story (except for the "Migaldi, Magaldy" bit which is a later affectation that I liked to say out loud - though never in company!) is almost a verbatim recollection from my childhood after moving out of London as part of the London Overspill migration into the first Garden City. I suppose these events happened when I was about seven or eight. As an adult I revisited my childhood haunts to find many, including this one, had been replaced with bricks and mortar.

The lyrics definitely came first with Pansy Potter. Although I had always intended it to be a song I read them out at a gathering of friendly poets who patiently explained why it would never work as a poem! Following a radio broadcast during which I listened to two composers discussing the difficulty of setting Shakespeare to music I had attempted writing a song with lyrics in pentameters. The composers were right, but that song may well appear on another album. The musical challenge I set myself for completing this song was to compose the song using mixed meters, but mainly focussing on one used less commonly. I settled on squeezing the words mostly into a 5/8 metre with forays into 6/8 and 4/4 from time to time. Of course this created a bit of a challenge when it came to working out how to play guitar and drum rhythms in 5/8 - not something I do much of beyond this song. Maybe I should now I know I can do it.

4. Dear Mr. Carter - Track four from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Dear Mr Carter

Dear Mr Carter, 

May I thank you for your letter of condolence that you sent me on the sixth of May.

You could not have been politer, but you're clearly not a writer when you muddle up your pronouns in this careless way.

Are you singular or plural?  “Royal Wes” sometimes obscure all sense of meaning undermining what you mean to say.

But despite some reservations you mean well, although I fear your near dismissal.  Your epistle isn't clear.

Dear Mr Carter, 

May I thank you for your letter of condolence that you sent me on the sixth of May.

It was nice to get your letter, but I hoped for something better than your startling vignette that I had passed away.

It wasn't even recently, but rather more indecently you wrote that I'd been buried long ago and so I say

That, as an agent of the council, is it right that you renounce all normal courtesies when writing day-to-day.

Dear Mr Carter,

May I thank you for your letter of condolence least expected of deliveries this year.

Almost churlish now to mention, but there is a wee convention that a letter to the buried might seem insincere.

Plot XYZ280 my abode, but still quite weighty my concern that still you spurn it to address me here,

Mill Road, Walpole St Peter, undeniably a feat of intuition.  Recognition somewhat queer.

Whether Walpole now or Gayton it is clear there is a weight on my shoulders since I don't know which is my abode, my domicile or dwelling and the strain is surely telling.

There must be some administrative way to ease my load?

Dear Mr Carter,

May I thank you for your letter of condolence that arrived here Thursday, May the twelfth.

Now I'm dead what are my options beyond council tax reduction?  I don't mean to cause a ruction, Let's just blame my health.

As you note I've been ill lately you know I would be greatly obligé if you’d delegate me a rebate by stealth.

No confession would be needed if you heeded my request to do your best to add a little to my wealth.

Dear Mr Carter 

May I thank you for your letter of condolence from the bottom of my beating heart.

And the leaflet you enclose will come in handy, I suppose, in my repose and heaven knows will give a flying start

To my life in the hereafter.  If you'll please excuse the laughter while I sing about a grafter who will soon depart

From his office at the council if he doesn't soon renounce all stupid letters.  THAT WOULD MAKE A DECENT START! 

Exasperation’s what I’m feeling while i’m reeling from your spieling 

In the matter of bereavement and my family’s needs.

Experience embarrassment occasioned by this harassment.

Stick to writing mission statements - crap that no one reads! So

Dear Mr Carter

May I thank you for your letter of condolence that you sent me on the sixth of May.

I so want to be offended, but least said is soonest mended.  You intended no offence, so I ought to say

That, when writing people letters, better show them to your betters before posting as a roasting is unsightly, rightly.  Pray

Remember recently bereaved become aggrieved when we receive some pointless note, sent out by rote (and lest my fingers seek your throat) don’t you dare try to wish me a nice day. 

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

Less than a week after my father’s funeral I received a letter from a local council officer offering condolences on the matter of MY death - apparently I had passed away some months previously. The letter enclosed a selection of useful leaflets about the council’s burial and crematorium services - undoubtedly considered to be of great use to the interred. The letter was not well-written and clearly invited a response, which I never got round to writing. A few months later, though, this song was hatched. It is the only song I have ever been requested not to sing in public. The request came from the line manager (it may be that this line manager was not appointed until after Mr Carter wrote his letter) of the council officer who wrote the letter, and who - perhaps unwisely? - identified herself in front of an audience one evening. When one is already in a [six-foot deep] hole perhaps one had best stop digging. Naturally I take great pleasure in singing the song often and in telling the story. Names and locations have been changed in the both the song and this description to protect those innocents who may have reached a ceiling of competence early in their careers.

The song is one of the few that made it into the key of C minor with a couple of breaks that modulate into its relative major of Eb with an offbeat strum throughout. I am particularly pleased with the lyrics of this song which are full of rhymes and half-rhymes within as well as between lines.

3. Time To Go - Track Three from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Time To Go

Goliath said to David, “Hey, man, it’s time to pay!

You’ve lived here free for centuries and, if you want to stay,

Dig deep into your pocket and give me what you owe.

And, if you don’t deliver, hey man it’s time to go!”

It’s time to go, time to go

Loose the ropes, pull the pins.

Adieu, adagio.

It’s time to go, time to go.

The tigers won your freedom, but now it’s time to go.

David turned in wonder at the brass of such a thing.

It’s true he’d always been here,

But listen, here’s the thing.

When, long ago, adventurers stole the wetlands from the poor

To stop the Tigers wrecking wrote free passage into law

You can’t tell us it’s time, time to go

Loose the ropes, pull the pins.

Adieu, adagio.

Time, time to go.

The tigers won your freedom, but now it’s time to go.

That statute stood for centuries.

Each time the law was changed

The one remaining constant is the freedom we retained

To travel unimpeded on the drains that gift you land.

Travel with no toll to pay, rejecting out of hand 

That it’s time to go, time to go.

Loose the ropes, pull the pins.

Adieu, adagio.

It’s time to go, time to go.

The tigers won our freedom, we’ll choose when it’s time to go.

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

I spent a lot of 2017 and 2018, including eight days in Committee Rooms Two, Four and Five in the Palace of Westminster, speaking against and fighting a Private Bill going through Parliament. You may know that a Private Bill is a mechanism through which private interests can have access to the means of changing the law usually in pursuit of commercial advantage. The process for proposing and opposing a Private Bill is somewhat different from those of Private Members' Bills or Parliamentary Bills. A few of us who live on boats on a bare minimum wage were up against big business and landed interests. They eventually got the Bill through, but not before we’d managed to secure some twenty amendments and undertakings that would, if adhered to, make the new laws less draconian than they started out. It wasn't a bad result for a muso, a postie, a delivery driver and a care worker pitted against a barrister, three solicitors, two accountants and two chief executives. The fight continues as the waterways authority attempts to achieve its goals through introducing new bylaws.

I wanted to document my experience through song, but couldn't really think of a way to do it until the tried and trusted David versus Goliath metaphor came to mind. The tigers in the song are the "Fen Tigers" who opposed the drainage of the Fens in the seventeenth century which they could see was going to result in the loss of a way of life. As a way of stopping them wrecking the embankments leading agitators were offered inducements such as houses in nearby towns and the promise that navigation on the newly created and restricted waterways would remain free for non-commercial traffic in perpetuity. The law we were fighting threatened to remove that benefit amongst many other rights and freedoms.

2. Blame It On Me - track two from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Blame It On Me

Blame it on me and call me unreliable

The country’s deep in debt and who else is to blame?

The evidence of my collusion seems to be deniable;

Multi-national interests play the banking game.

Let’s talk about debt.

You know the cash we need to borrow to pay off for stuff we’ve bought.

Straightforward and yet

We’ve got it all in such a muddle that a puddle becomes a lake 

 Then an ocean of sweat.

So the banker sells the debt on, like it really is a thing.

When everybody knows it’s all a scam.

Like a pass-the-parcel nobody would ever want to win.

Sell it on, breathe again.  Then you scram     And then you …. 

Let’s talk about home.

Supposed to be safe as a castle.  It’s modest, but it’s your own.  

The family grows.

You proudly watch as they grow older and before you know what’s happening This is what goes -

The place you’ve lived for forty years, you’re told is under-occupied.

You pay the tax or move, but there is nowhere to go.

The government has stitched you up and you know they mock you by

mishandling the shortfall.

Frankly no one wants to know and so you ….

Let’s talk about waste.

You know, the stuff that proves we’ve been here and that we don’t want to see.

Just flush it away

Or you bury it or burn it and the residue will turn up on your doorstep one day.

Money changes hands to make the most of our excess.

Profit for the greedy from our profligacy.

You’ll never see the fires burn in the gardens of the rich.

You're the one whose lungs are trashed.

Ain’t life a bitch.   So go on …

Let’s talk about tax.

You know the share that you and I give to the man to keep things smooth.

Let’s look at the facts -

You and me, we’re simply too small to set up in offshore havens 

Look at the list of names in the polling booth. 

Were we international would pay our share?

We’d register head office in a place where no one goes.

Amazon and Google, Starbucks and all the others

Tell us it’s all legal.  

Meanwhile everybody knows you’re gonna …

Let’s talk about health

When you’re feeling good it’s groovy.  You’re the king of all you see

Apportioning wealth - it’s a game but when you need help

You become a punter in a postcode lottery.

The NHS once shone like jewels in Britain’s post-war crown

On principle health treatment came for free

But now it’s nearly all sold off, you’d better not come down

With something you can’t treat yourself because you’ll soon see how they …

Blame it on me and call me unreliable

The country’s deep in debt and who else is to blame?

The evidence of my collusion seems to be deniable;

Multi-national interests play the banking game.

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

Whatever goes wrong in society is always blamed on the people at the bottom of the pile. Unfortunately the last few years have proven that I could probably have written an extra verse to this every day. I have had to sit on my hands and force myself not to add verses about education, human rights, public transport, water companies, MPs' expenses, unemployment, climate change, the widening pay gap, electoral reform, species decline, plastic pollution ...

Once again this was a case of words first, melody next and then the chords. Originally the final chord was an Am. One night I sang it with a fine songwriter named Fraser in the audience, who suggested the Picardy third. It grew on me.

1. Grey - Track one from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Grey

Untroubled I am by a burden of genius

I struggle with words to find something to say.

Life potters on - a distraction from boredom,

An attempt to stay solvent and living each day.

I'd like to be original; I know I'm derivative.

I wear my influences on open display

I grew up in colours I liked it that way.

Now I look in the mirror

And only see grey.

Look out of the window

Watching the river flow by

Look up to the skyscape

Clouds making shapes in the sky.

Make rhythms and colours from sounds that surround me

Watch how the wind shapes the river.

It changes each day.

Turn back to the blank page

Ink out a doodle.

I’m thinking in colour, but everything’s grey.

I hear my friends talking like proper songwriters

Of choruses, verses, key changes and all;

Of intros and outros and middle-eight solos,

Of descending bass lines and dominant chords.

I just tell stories or capture a moment

And fool myself it’s my inimitable way.

I imagine the colour in all that I say.

Then I look at the writing and only see grey.

Look out of the window

Watching the river flow by

Look up to the skyscape

Clouds making shapes in the sky.

Head full of music.  It’s all just the same tune.

The rhythms are boring and everything’s in the same key.

Turn back to the blank page

Ink out a doodle.

Another creation that nobody needs!

If I get close to finishing something important

I'll go and make supper though cooking’s a chore.

I could be at practice, or even rehearsing,

Or finishing something I started before.

I've books upon books of half-started writing

Or half-finished music that sits in a drawer.

The songs I’ve completed don’t leap off the score

I've started to practise them ten times or more.

Switch on the computer

Download the e-mails and weed out the spam.

Log into a forum,

Post in a thread, show how clever I am.

Share things on Facebook (too much information)

Leaving a trail through a garden of weeds.

One game of Tetris, one hand of Spider

Leaving a legacy nobody reads.

Sitting here pondering all my shortcomings

The list's getting longer and so is this song

I'll never be finished so maybe it's better if I simply stop.

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

"Grey" describes my method for writing songs. However it may sound, it's not a completely haphazard process. While writing a song always takes me a long time - particularly writing lyrics - most of the time I don't like to think about chords until the lyrics and melody are in place, although naturally there are exceptions. I find that the songs I have written using a chord sequence do not give me the musical satisfaction that I get from those songs where I have to fit the harmonic accompaniment around a melody. A melody sometimes requires me to find, and even learn how to play, chords that don't always at first fall naturally under my fingers. Sometimes a melody insinuates itself at the same time as I am writing the lyrics, but I prefer to be able to focus on the lyrics first so that they have an integrity of their own, before I begin work on the music. I wouldn't consider myself a poet, but I guess many of my songs have begun their lives like poems. "Grey" took a while to emerge. It also had several more verses, one of them was even good enough to be in the song. However, the song was long enough with three verses, the final three lines and the choruses, so I edited out a lot of the text. Having to decide to lose a verse from a song is a bit like having to decide which friend has to be asked to leave an over-crowded boat!

I chose this as the first song on the album, because it sets a tone, opens up the songwriting process to possible discussion and the choruses mostly refer to what I see when I look out of the window, namely whatever waterway I happen to be navigating at the time. Living afloat, water seems to feature in a number of my songs, sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically.

Of A New Album

"Head Above Water" by Marshlander (2019)

Marshlander by Mark The Artist 

Dear Friends - I write "friends" because I am pretty certain that most people who find this page are known to me personally! If other people read it I don't think I know who you are or really how to find out, although I would have to give some thought over any ethical boundaries of that one if I did.

For quite a lot of the past year I have been focussed on completing an album of some of my songs. It is the first time I have undertaken a project like this and it has been an interesting and challenging process. Twelve years ago I recorded five tracks of my compositions with my ceilidh band, but I didn't actually play much on the tunes apart from a few percussion overdubs. It was nice to hear my music in a replayable form, but I've never got around to recording much that was actually played by me.

For the album, "Head Above Water", I used a small studio in The Fens, Grange Farm Studio. It is a purpose-built facility housed in a converted barn and has worked with some illustrious names in the music world. The engineer, Isi Clarke could not have been more helpful. My rig is hardly standard and she tried out a few configurations for microphone placement achieving a good sound in the end. I was, though, specially happy with how she captured the guitar sound.

Now, many months later, the fruits of that labour have ripened and several other things came to the boil at the same time. An artist local to me, Mark The Artist (whose work I have admired for about thirty years), asked recently if he could paint my portrait. It was an honour to sit for him. The result was so good I felt it would make a brilliant front image for the album. It was not a foregone conclusion that he would agree, but I am delighted that he did. The rest of the design was done by another friend who lives nearby, artist/photographer/musician Dan Donovan, who took some photographs back at Grange Farm.

I really wanted to include the lyrics in the pack, but even though Dan tried many formats, he could not fit even three songs of the eleven on the album into the available space! I guess I am a little wordy at times ... I would still like to be able to share the lyrics with people who like to read lyrics - maybe eventually in the form of a separate booklet or songbook, so I shall put them on here as blog entries to follow this one. If you are interested in a cd copy of my album, "Head Above Water", released in May 2019 click the "Buy Now" button below which will take you to a secure page on PayPal. If you prefer you could stop me and buy one at a gig somewhere or send an e-mail request to marshlander(dot)musician(at)gmail(dot)com
(substituting the correct punctuation where I've put brackets!) and I'll send a PayPal invoice to your e-mail address. When you pay the invoice you'll be asked for a delivery address. The cd is £10 plus £1.50 postage and packing within the U.K. Obviously it could cost more to post outside the UK. I've made a point of keeping the use of plastic to a minimum (i.e. just the cd itself) and the packaging is recycled materials and good old parcel string. I'm not sure what is acceptable in other countries, but I'll try and find out if it appears necessary.

The album contains eleven tracks and runs to a total of one hour and fifty-one seconds with the following list of tracks, all written, composed, performed on voice, guitar, drums and harmonica by me, Marshlander. I've deliberately kept this album to the orchestration you will hear if you see me play live.

The eleven blog entries after this one contain the lyrics and a few words about each of the songs on the album. Each track listed below also links to the relevant lyric page.

1. Grey
2. Blame It On Me
3. Time To Go 
4. Dear Mr Carter
5. Pansy Potter
6. Cruiser
7. Be Home Soon
8. Lean on The Tiller
9. Damn You, Enchiladas 
10. In Your Place
11. Say I'm Sexy

EDIT:
Of course if you prefer, the album is now available on Bandcamp as a download in pretty much every format you might want.

Of Happy Sails & Cooling Pipes

Following the previously mentioned abandoned journey I came to a decision. It was time to get the boat re-blacked and three engineers had quite independently mentioned that my overheating problems may have been caused at least in part by having insufficient cooling capacity for my engine.  The liquid cooling system is sealed, as is a road vehicle's. A car, though has a radiator which is further cooled by air when the car is in motion. My boat has a "skin tank" through which the hot water passes to be cooled by near contact with the lower temperatures of the river. The boat engine has tended to overheat after about four-hours of travel. The suggestion has been that it takes this length of time for the coolant to be raised to a temperature where it can no longer be cooled in time for its next race around the system. The engine continues to heat already overheated coolant and eventually blows. That's the theory anyway. I tried it out on a number of marine and motor engineers and they agreed it was a workable theory. The boatyard had a "fix" it applied to a number of boats i.e. the fitting of extra cooling pipes. Since the boat was coming out of the water anyway, this seemed to be a good time to have the work done.

I had a few days of living in my van and cooking outdoors under my canopy. All rather risky for October, but I was lucky with the weather. I cycled sixty miles that week too between the boatyard and the farm and in, out and around the town near the yard ... plus one other cycle ride I'll get to in the next essay.

My last River Canal Rescue engine inspection suggested that I needed to check the security of the engine mounts. The inspector attempted to adjust the mounting bolts, but couldn't get at the two forward ones. At the boatyard they could only get a spanner on to the mounting feet after taking out the calorifier, which had to be done to extend the cooling system. Getting a spanner on to the mounts was only part of the difficulty, nothing would turn so the mounts had to be cut out with an angle grinder. It was then there was further evidence of the Bodger's influence. The BMC 1.5 engine was not the original engine. It is much older than the rest of the boat. Presumably insufficient allowance had been made for the slightly different dimensions of the replacement engine and the allegedly adjustable mounting feet for the engine had been welded into place in some kind of attempt to shoehorn the engine into position. Unfortunately it was the wrong position and the engine was not square on to the prop. Had I been confident enough to take the boat out more regularly over the past seven years I would by now have probably had to replace the drive-shaft, the gear box, the engine or all three. I suppose every cloud has that good old silver lining. As it happened I needed four new mounting feet and a new coupling for the prop-shaft. It may have been a £1500 job, but that is much less expensive than it could have been.

The boat was in the boatyard for a week and I couldn't wait to get it out and give it a spin. On the first day I was able to have the boat back there were winds exceeding 20mph. I usually avoid travelling in winds like that but I took a chance. Getting out of the yard was going to be the first challenge because boats are moored right up to the narrow entrance alongside the main navigation of the river. Also everything is very exposed in the Fens because there are relatively few trees and stronger winds can make manoeuvring a challenge. However, I managed to get out of the marina with an almost textbook turn (one of my proudest moments) and, for the next three days, the boat ran like a dream. The temperature stayed at a steady 78-80ºC and there was none of the clanking I often got after running the boat for an hour or two. The throttle was more responsive too. This was the boat I had hoped I would be cruising in nearly seven years ago when I bought it to replace the old and broken down Springer for which I had paid so dearly and on which I had lost £12,000 in two years by the time I sold it!

I decided to go the long way home and head for one of the nicest local moorings relatively nearby at Benwick, adjacent to the graveyard. I had been craving a plate of steamed vegetables for days. That would give me chance to spend the night near the village where I could buy some fresh vegetables. Living in my van on a campsite for nearly a week my camping stove is not up to the job and I ran out of gas anyway.

After a couple of hours cruising I rounded the bend to where the mooring is and immediately saw I could not moor there. Another boat had beaten me to it. There was nothing for it but to move a bit further on and try and moor against the bank. With the strong cross-winds this was not an easy task. When I found a place that was not at the end of someone's garden the wind proved too strong and blew the bow across the river while I was trying to get the stern in close to the bank to disembark. I was almost jammed between the two banks and naturally a digger driver and a small child were there as spectators - that is the law in boating!

There was no choice but to try and straighten up and find somewhere less exposed. I found a spot just before a bridge on a bend. There were also some bushes nearby to deflect the wind a little. Unfortunately I was not close enough to the village to buy the fresh vegetables I had been planning for supper, so it was more improvising with whatever I could salvage. I wasn't sure if this mooring were part of someone's garden, but I didn't have much choice with the failing light. I'm glad that no one seemed to object. I couldn't get as close as I'd have liked with my gangplank. I used to have a longer plank salvaged from a reclaimed scaffold board, but that one rotted through. During the great 2016 repaint, Gary at the boatyard found me a spare plank which he painted up in the colours he was painting the boat. That was really helpful, but the length is rather short for Fenland navigations where mooring close to the bank is often difficult.

The following day was much calmer and the sun was out. It was beautiful. I thought I would try the Facebook Live function for the first time and broadcast several shortish videos. I downloaded those from Facebook and edited them in Final Cut Pro into the following nine minute wonder. Most of these were taken on that journey between the bridge near Benwick and Stonea, a journey of four hours or so. Obviously, I haven't got to grips with FCP because the captions I added to explain a couple of things I stumbled over during my improvised narrative did not appear when I put the video up on YouTube. Oh well! For information, the name of the lock I couldn't remember was "Horseway Lock" and St German's Pumping Station is the largest in Europe and can move one hundred tons of water per second according to this website

I planned to stop at Stonea overnight and intended to treat myself to a delicious home-cooked meal at the The Golden Lion 

That plan didn't quite work out ...