I Remember – Song Description
“Not the lessons, not the rules, just the little things.” Written deliberately in short, broken lines rather than full, tidy sentences, because I don’t think memory ever really arrives the way a well-constructed paragraph does. It arrives in fragments, mostly out of order, with the genuinely important things — whatever a school was actually trying to teach at the time — largely missing, and the completely unimportant things, a private game nobody else understood the rules of, still sitting there fully intact decades later. Any song about childhood memory that tried to tidy that pattern up into something more coherent would, I think, be quietly lying about how remembering actually works. So I let this one stay fragmentary on the page, resisting the urge to smooth the lines into something that would read more gracefully but feel less true to the actual, slightly chaotic way this kind of memory tends to surface, usually uninvited, usually in pieces rather than in order.
Verse 1
Walking…
To school…
Summer mornings…
Winter rain…
Same old pathway…
Every day…
Little footsteps…
Little shoes…
Don’t step…
On the drains…
Nobody knew…
Why we played…
Those little games.
Verse 2
Green grass…
Morning birds…
Cricket square…
Freshly cut…
Crows and pigeons…
Owned the park…
We just wandered…
Through their world…
School could wait…
Just one more minute…
If only…
It could.
Chorus
I remember…
Funny…
What remains…
Not the lessons…
Not the rules…
Just the little things…
That stayed…
With us…
All these years.
Verse 3
Horse chestnuts…
Soft breeze…
Conkers falling…
At our feet…
Hidden nests…
In the hedge…
Quiet wonders…
Every week…
Nothing special…
Everything…
Looking back…
Now it was.
Verse 4
Oak desks…
Chalk dust…
Morning light…
Window panes…
Teacher talking…
Dreams were drifting…
Far away…
School bell ringing…
Home at last…
Simple days…
Passing by…
Far too fast.
Verse 5
School dinners…
Mashed potatoes…
Cabbage…
Swimming slow…
Ladies smiling…
Doing their best…
More than…
We could know…
Ordinary…
Every day…
Now those memories…
Never fade.
Verse 6
Easter mornings…
Church bells…
Spring flowers…
Open doors…
Stories told…
Of hope…
And love…
Children listened…
Without doubt…
Every word…
Found a home.
Bridge (Lift)
We never knew…
Those were…
The days…
We’d carry…
All our lives…
No photograph…
Could ever hold…
What lives…
Inside…
Our hearts…
Final Chorus (Key Change)
I remember…
Funny…
What remains…
Little moments…
Soft as rain…
Ordinary…
Every day…
Somehow…
They became…
Everything…
I remember…
Still…