A few hours ago, I was sorting through a box of old papers, when I came across these lyrics to a song I’d composed nearly fifty years ago, at the tender age of seventeen! I have decided to share it with the readers of The Daily Blog as proof that no matter what historical era one is born into, there is always, in the eyes of the young, considerable room for improvement.
Look For The Light.
Beneath the towering concrete thrones
The people creep and crawl,
You watch them through the oozing black
That’s seeping through your wall.
The darkness slithers like a snake
Between the halls of stone,
Your voice in echoes stabs the night:
“My God, am I alone!”
That’s when you look for the light,
Hope for the light,
Have faith in the light to come.
The stench of corpses chokes the air
And hangs the senses high,
While in their red-brick coffins
The split-level heroes lie.
You’re groping through an endless day
Towards an endless night,
While armies of well-oiled machines
March onward out of sight.
That’s when you look for the light,
Hope for the light,
Have faith in the light to come.
The bold blue warriors ignite
The fires they love to hate,
And crying “Law and Order!”,
Take another for the State.
The members of the Parliament
Are eating paper pies,
As sweat soaks through their collars,
They all doze as Justice dies.
That’s when you look for the light,
Hope for the light,
Have faith in the light to come.
You’re running faster every day
To catch the same old train,
With icy faces staring out
From every window pane.
The streets are growing metal bars
To keep us in our place,
And every night the sirens wail,
Quickening the pace.
That’s when you look for the light,
Hope for the light,
Have faith in the light to come.
Chris Trotter 1973
Chris, perhaps it is fortuitous for all, that your dexterity with the pen outran your ability with the guitar.
Harsh, Jason, harsh!
The song wasn’t that bad, actually. Went down well at the New Edinburg Folk Club a few years later.
Still, I have written much better ones in my time.
“Living lives of quiet desperation”-it’s the provincial (South Island) way…
One can imagine where the imagery eminates from. I kept some poems from ‘73 which a school friend had written, and was he annoyed when I produced them, him being a Barrister these days.
An ‘A’ for honesty to Mr Trotter.
Now, now, that’s quite enough North Island chauvinism, Tiger.
When I was seventeen I was living in the Hutt Valley – plenty of quiet desperation there, too, believe me!
And the Tron too, believe me.
Great picture, reminiscent of Picasso’s. ‘ Guernica’, which came later. Have a poem written 50 years ago parked in the suburban soullessness of Luton UK, saying, “They’re not cutting trees down, man, they’re cutting you down”. Ten years later published by Landfall writing, “ Sleeping gods in the mountains, save the children”.
Kelvin, where are you ? Come in Kelvin, come in. Jacinda, what about the wounded children moved round like strategic Chinese checkers?
Pretty apt song that was written in the 70’s now describing the disposia we are in today in the 2020’s.
Ardern was my ray of light and hope back in her first term, that light’s well and truly been extinguished now
Yours and many others, not just snuffed out but buried six feet under.
You’re like a Aladdin’s lamp Chris, just a little contact and out pops the genie in a puff of smoke, maybe hallucinogenic? Maybe that’s just what we need.
Aladdin’s lamp – Idioms by The Free Dictionary
a talisman that enables its owner to fulfil every desire. In the Arabian Nights tale of Aladdin, the hero finds a magic lamp in a cave. He discovers that rubbing it summons a powerful genie who is able to carry out all his wishes.
The gloominess of male teenagers of our academic monastic type. I had a hearty laugh. You should see my poems.
And unlike me you had zero-ish to complain about. Just good prep for the up-coming. The other nine out of ten went for the rich.
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