Water of Europe
One of 12 new English chansons and three covers on this 1999 solo album.
More details.
Des de Moor
voice
Julia Doyle
double bass
David Harrod
piano
My former colleague 'Mixmaster' Morris used to complain that there were not enough songs about the city where we both lived. This is my own attempt to redress the balance, which took some effort to write and went through several versions before I settled on the present one in July 1994, a snapshot of London in one of the unbearably sweltering summers of the early 1990s.
saluting the seas
sets flags bobbing.
Along the shores
ex-stevedores
watch gulls mobbing.
Salt sweat is soaking.
Inland, estates
get good rates
on EU funding.
There's no more joking:
Sleaze City's choking
on the ozone.
The last leaking hulks
Have long furled their sheets
At Woodpecker, Evelyn,
Crossfields and Pepys.
To Leicester Square
through hot air
the starlings and pigeons
the city traps
come begging for scraps
and pickings.
A thick haze is cloaking
Westminster, where
from Parliament Square
they're long gone
back home to Woking.
Sleaze City's choking
in the ozone.
A child from a sleeping bag
Stretches a hand:
Paradiso e inferno
On the corner of The Strand.
At Fordham Park
dogs piss and bark
by lists of givers.
There's whole careers
in chasing arrears,
still shivers
though shirts are soaking.
Sleaze City's choking
in the ozone.
Written: Deptford, London, July 1994
Words |
Music |
© Copyright Des de Moor 1999
From the album Water of Europe (see left).
All rights reserved. No material on these pages can be reproduced in whole or in part in any form, except for short passages for the purpose of quotation or review, without prior written permission of the copyright owner.
More lyrics |
Heart of a Heartless World
To Those Born After (Bertolt Brecht; Hanns Eisler)
Joey's Dreams
Margins
Water of Europe
Big Sister
Sleaze City
Sharp Contradictions
Ordinary Joe (Andrew Brooks/Michael Hodges)
My Father Said (Jacques Brel)
Grandmother was a Hero
Avocado
Last Orders Please
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