8. Lean On The Tiller - Track eight from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Lean On The Tiller

Kingfisher sitting on the prow of the boat

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

Kingfisher sitting on the prow of the boat

He’ll keep a-fishing, I’ll keep afloat.

Lean, lean, lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

Ten fine swans with plumage fine

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

Ten fine swans with plumage fine

Swim on the river in a dead straight line.

Lean, lean, lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

I’ll lean on the tiller like you lean on a gate

From the crack of dawn till the evening late

Watch my wash as I wend my way

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day

Fish close in for scraps from my platter

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

Fish close in for scraps from my platter

Here comes Mr Pike watch them scatter.

Lean, lean, lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

Cormorants sitting on a telephone line

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

Cormorants sitting on a telephone line

Eyeing those fish all looking so fine

Lean, lean, lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

I’ll lean on the tiller like you lean on a gate

From the crack of dawn till the evening late

Watch my wash as I wend my way

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day

The sadness in this cabaret

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day

The sadness in this cabaret

See the mink that swims this way.

Lean, lean, lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

I’ll lean on the tiller like you lean on a gate

From the crack of dawn till the evening late

Watch my wash as I wend my way

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day

There’s more to tell about life on the river

Lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

There’s more to tell about life on the river

But if I told you all you’d shiver and quiver.

Lean, lean, lean on the tiller all the livelong day.

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

Like most of the songs in this collection this is mostly from first-hand observation. Some people think this song is just about the natural world. It is partly that, but I also wanted to work through some thoughts on being in the right or wrong place and time. I am often in the wrong country at any given time, but thankfully I do have some choice in that. Seeing families being rounded up by the authorities after being forced out of the back of a lorry at Toddington Services on the M.1. was a less happy experience. I have written about that already in this blog. This is one of several watery songs on the album.

The musical challenge for "Lean On The Tiller" was to come up with a song where the lyrics told a story, conformed to a shape and the music had the feel of an American folk song - don't ask me why, because I don't really know why, except I have had a lot of pleasure over the years singing traditional songs from many times and places including a lot from American tradition. Could it have been a response to meeting Peggy Seeger, who greeted me by describing me as a "colourful pirate"?!

"Cormorants sitting on a telephone line ...?" Definitely cormorants, but they may be sitting on a power line!

7. Be Home Soon - Track seven from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Be Home Soon

Fifty feet of steel,   Travel where you will

Plough a furrow through the Fen, 

Go wherever you feel

That's home.  No place like home.

Sleep in your own bed.  Don't leave your room.

Every night a new place.

Be home soon.

Feel that engine roar.  Watch the river part.

Glide your way to somewhere new, hope in your heart.

That's home.  No place like home.

Stoke the fire.  Cosy nest.

Don't leave your room.

Every night a new place.

Be home soon.

New pace of life - four miles an hour 

The weather shows no mercy save for wind and sun and shower

That's home.  No place like home.

Closer than you've ever been

Don't leave your room.

Every night a new place.

Be home soon.

Perch and roach and bream, your aquarium

The raw and arching sky, your solarium.

That's home.  No place like home.

Hang the rest, do your thing

Don't leave your room.

Every night a new place.

Be home soon.

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

At an open mic evening some years ago I heard four or five young performers each singing one of the four songs they had knocked up that afternoon. I felt completely de-skilled. It takes me months and sometimes years to shape a song to the point where it becomes something I am willing to sing. Some years ago I set myself a task that, on my next clear day, I would start and complete a song in a day. I sat at the table with no idea about what I was going to write, so I wrote about what I could see around me. I can't say the song has remained untouched since then, but with the deletion or addition of a word or two and the addition of the simple harp part this is essentially what I came up with on that day. I like to think that  the sound of the song conveys the momentum and engine sound of cruising on the inland waterways at three or four miles an hour. I have often felt that living on a boat is like all the best bits of camping, only even better, because I can spend every night in a different place while I can still be in my home surroundings.

6. Cruiser - Track six from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Cruiser

Every day on your way as you drive home from work

There’s a place that you go where the gentlemen lurk

There’s some would deny they are manly at all

You know different, you’ve heard the call.

Everyone there has this thing on his mind 

And it gnaws and it chews at you.  Much of the time

You can deny who you are, but you lie to yourself

Save for this contribution to your mental health.

Then you poison your body with his body, poison your heart with his mind,

Poison your soul with his lack of control, every time.

Stop the car by the trees you won’t be alone.

Hide your wallet, your keys and your mobile phone.

Take off your tie and fold it up neat under the paper on the passenger seat.

Then you wait and you watch and pretend not to see, 

Read a book, have a smoke, or simply feign sleep,

While you check out the talent through nearly closed eyes.

Such abundance of choice Mother Nature supplies.

Then you poison your body with his body, poison your heart with his mind,

Poison your soul with his lack of control, every time.

If no one approaches raise the game

The rules of the hunt very rarely change.

Leave the car, lock the door with barely a sound

And into the wood where you hope you’ll be found.

Find a place in a space where the cover is good.

Then you stand and you wait in this threatening wood.

Take a leak, feel relief, your heart skips a beat

At the crack of a twig and approaching feet.

Then you poison your body with his body, poison your heart with his mind, 

Poison your soul with your lack of control, every time.

Look away.  Then a glance.  Then the flash of an eye.

Then you turn to display and the tension is high.

Recognise, as you rise, here’s a partner in shame;

How he looks doesn’t matter since he won’t know your name.

Look around to make sure that there’s no one else there.

Slowly close in and continue to stare.

You don’t know who you are, but you know who you aren’t.

You can’t fight it off, so continue the dance.

First a touch, just a brush, and you feel you will burst.

But that’s cool.  Then at least you’ll be over the worst

And you won’t have to stay in this terrible place

With a chance, just a glance and he’ll remember your face.

So go with the flow and you feel the relief

Of the thrill as you spill in the cheery belief

That you’ll never come back, but you know it’s a lie

And you’ll always be drawn no matter how hard you try.

Then you poison his body with your body, poison his heart with your mind,

Poison his soul with your lack of control, every time.

Nod your goodbyes and you get in your car.

Then you drive to the pub for a quick half-jar

Just to steady your nerves, get your reasoning straight 

As to why you’ll arrive home tonight slightly late.

What to do?  Where to go?  You are living a lie.

What you do might be fun, but it’s obvious why

There’s no sense of pride, just this burden of shame

And you’re looking for a love that still won’t dare say its name.

Then you poison her body with your body, poison her heart with your mind,

Poison her soul with your lack of control, every time.

Only fair, if you care, every once in a while

That you go to the clinic where they’ll add to the file

That they keep on your health in your fictitious name

And where the staff know the score in this sad, sad game.

They’ll listen and nod while you make up some tale.

As they check out your piss and your blood you regale

Them with the story that you don’t know how you got in this state,

But they know they can never trust a smiling straight.

So poison a body with a body, poison a heart with a mind,

Poison a soul with lack of control, every time.

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

I heard a discussion on daytime radio many years ago when a nurse working in genito-urinary medicine stated that people in her line of work often passed on the advice to younger colleagues, “Never trust a smiling straight man.” Despite appearances "Cruiser" is not an anti-gay rant. The song is a recognition that there are powerful and malign influences out in the world forcing some men (and undoubtedly some women) to explore their sexual identities in secret. Sadly people often end up getting hurt when this happens. 1967 did not see the end of persecution; rather it ushered in an intensification of entrapment activities by the police. It took them a while to realise that, in 1973, short, neatly-combed hair, shiny black shoes and regulation spotlessly clean and pressed pale blue jeans was not entirely a useful look for covert operations in public conveniences. I'd like to think we are the last generation to have to deal with this. I suspect we may not be.

Since I discovered it many years ago I have searched for an excuse to use a diminished seventh chord. It seems to fall into place in this song and convey some of the drama in the story. 

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.