We’d just returned to our hotel room after a morning spent floating through a cave system in Waitomo, NZ. The glowwormsthere are astonishing, so we crashed out on our bed feeling amazed and exhausted, with nothing more to do than drink and watch tv for the rest of the day.
We cracked some ice and cruised the channels until we found Top of The Pops. The next 3 minutes blew my mind. The host introduced Guillemots, a band I’d never heard of, who launched into a number called madeup lovesong #43. It was electric! Fyfe Dangerfield pounded his rose petal covered keyboard, shouting and whispering in his red suit beneath a crop of wild hair. The imagery in the lyrics was just as wild, ridiculously joyful and naïve, making it an epic 3 minute performance. Perhaps I wanted to recreate it for myself. I was inspired to fill a poem with the same shining sparks and dragons, the same fearless, exuberant energy that I’d just experienced. I called the poem Love Song #5, giving a nod to its origin, but I had to cover the flip side as well, the inevitable heartbreak that comes after such an outpouring of love and emotion. Lament #31 quickly followed, its title suggesting that more poetry came from the heartbreak than ever came from the love. And now, thanks to Jen, the lament is a song. It’s a beautiful song from a piece I’m glad she chose. Because I once wrote a poem about those glow worms and it was rubbish.
lyrics
Poem:
the moon looks as sad as a panda
if this is the freight that comes with love
bring on the reckoning, let it be without words
I am wasting my talent on this, harbouring all I can
against good advice, let us slip away into the dunes
I will shine the torch on the whorls of your fingers
swear such exuberant vows, like teenagers we could
hoard our secrets, pin a hot fence around our hearts
or imprison ourselves in a prison tree that grows
the longer we refuse to confess, tonight the blues
hammer the flowers, bring the whistlers down
did the greats ever smoke as much as this
who will be your lover now
credits
from The Night's Insomnia,
released April 21, 2017
Jen Lush
Music composition and vocals.
Chris Parkinson
Electric & acoustic guitars, bass guitar, vocal harmonies.
Richard Coates
Accordion, keys, iPad.
Produced, recorded, engineered and mixed by Chris Parkinson at My Sweet Mule — A MSM Production. Mastered by Mick Wordley at Mixmasters.
Jen Lush is known for her spacious and emotive, starkly modern folk songs wrapped around expansive storytelling. From her
2017 album of poem-songs ‘The Night’s Insomnia,’ to her 2021 album ‘Let Loose the Beating Birds’ Jen and her stellar band have appeared at festivals and venues throughout South Australia, Victoria, NSW, WA and Tasmania. New album 'Hum of the mettle' is out now....more
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