Favourites

Verse 1
The station lay empty,
The last train was there,
A cold wind was moving

Verse 1
Four in the morning,
The whole house asleep,
I opened your doorway

[Verse 1]
We slipped from Calais before first light
The Channel grey
The gulls in flight

[Verse 1]
We caught the wind off Madeira
Morning warm
The water clearer

[Verse 1]
Three weeks out
And the nights grow long
The engine hums the same old song

Verse 1]
I slipped the ropes at break of day
The harbour lights were turning grey
A gull cried somewhere overhead

Verse 1
I know the word for sorrow,
I've never shed a tear.
I know the shape of loneliness,

Verse 1
Something in your eyes tonight
Doesn’t feel the same
There’s a quiet in your smile

Verse 1
Danny slammed the front door
Said, “Silvy, I’ve had enough”
She shouted down the hallway

Verse 1
Baby, baby, can't you see
What your love is doing to me?
Every time you pass my way

Sacrifice – Song Description "I'd do it all again, if only you'd been standing there at the journey's end." The bitterness running through this song comes from a specific place, and it isn't that the…

The Songwriter's Song – Song Description "I'm looking for momentum. I'm looking for the flow." What I think this song gets right, more than anything else in it, is that the long waiting isn't wasted…

More Than a Photograph – Song Description "Only hearts will ever know." The photograph in this song isn't wrong about anything it shows. It's just incomplete in a way that doesn't become obvious until years…

The Lighthouse Keeper's Wife – Song Description "A light upon a distant rock can mean the world to all." The devotion in this song never once gets spoken aloud, and I think that silence is…

The Bench by the Harbour – Song Description "The wind says nothing. The sea says more." I don't think the bench in this song functions as a memorial, exactly, though it would be easy to…

The Story That Matters
Verse 1
All the noise will fade someday
Voices

Verse 1
Morning mist
Village air
Boots on gravel

Don't Start – Song Description "Can you hear the trumpets? Can you see the skies filled with wrath?" This is the angriest song I've written, and I've never tried to dress that up as something…

Thoughts of people …
Verse 1
What’s it all about
Why am I here

[Verse]
Piles of papers yesterday's news
Lots of words journalists choose
Mostly lies or wild exaggeration

Fast City Living – Song Description "Lost in motion, this bustling town." I wrote this one quickly, almost in a single sitting, without the slower, more deliberate process I gave most of the other songs…

Guitar Man – Song Description "He knows it worked when He laid that finger on your brow." This song credits the guitarist's talent to something given rather than something purely earned through practice and discipline,…

Did we lose our way.
You were meant to stay.
You left, didn’t say goodbye,
left me, with tears in my eye.

O Land of Hope – Song Description "From sea to shining sea, Your hand has guided me." This one sits slightly apart from the rest of the collection, and I've left it there deliberately rather…

(Verse 1)
It’s okay to be
Right at ease,
To smell the grass,

Again watching Angie – digging allotment
The harvest is over
The spade digs deep
Into gods earth

The Drifter – Song Description "And someday they would know him as a man called Bob Dylan." The joke sitting inside this title is doing real, substantial work, not just providing a punchline. It says,…

Flames inspire thought…
[Opening Verse] (Soft, tender)
Oh, love, thy name is heaven’s call,
A whisper, a dream that embraces all.

(Verse 1)
Hey there, girl on the train,
What’s your trouble, what’s your pain?
You sit there glum, that’s no fun,

This song was created after watching a modern day cowboy film – an Indians arrow went into a young woman – the arrow had a poisoned tip – a slow death came – she explained…

Still Here (But Not Really) – Song Description "A shadow wearing skin." The frightening part of this song, to me, isn't really the numbness it's describing, difficult as that numbness clearly is for whoever's experiencing…

Growing line on wall – measuring as we grow – funny idea really
Verse 1
Just a boy, only nine years old
Four foot tall, reaching, bold

Where’s my heart…” immediately create the feeling of someone searching for what has gone missing inside themselves. Passion has faded, joy feels distant, and life has become heavy — mentally, emotionally, and perhaps spiritually. The…