Water of Europe
One of 12 new English chansons and three covers on this 1999 solo album.
More details.
Des de Moor
voice
Daniel Teper
accordion
One of a batch of songs I wrote in the early summer of 1993, with the determination to have some new material for relaunching myself as a singer-songwriter at a forthcoming gig. As a warm-up for this gig I arranged some floor spots on the acoustic circuit, starting with the late P J Fahy's Ructions club in Euston. I was dead nervous as I launched into what should have been the dramatic and confident a capella opening of this song, and almost immediately corpsed. I've never been so grateful for an audience's indulgence, not to mention a promoter's. The song is a topical one that I hoped might pass its sell-by date but as I write this (April 1999) the bombs are falling on Belgrade and it all seems depressingly current. This version was recorded on a boat moored on the Thames that rose several meters during the session.
That the journalists occupied.
From the hotel room to the hotel bar
They roam far and wide
Collecting tales of atrocities
From regular soldiers and mercenaries
So long as they're hearsay, undated,
Uncorroborated
And blame the right side.
Believe what you hear and believe what you're willing:
A severed head here and there and mass killing.
We'll print it provided
It's clearly one sided
And something is left to the margins,
At the bottom of the page in the margins.
The sun it comes up on the fairytale towers
Of a city by the Rhine
Where corpulent men at glass tables meet
To draw a thick line.
They're beating the bounds of the civilised West
In the interests of guarding their rich treasure chest:
That's why we've forgot the Ustashe
And found the new Nazis
In Belgrade this time.
Believe what you must and believe what you're hearing
If it helps you to justify Brits interfering.
Those knights on white horses,
The peacekeeping forces,
Are needed for policing the margins,
For drawing a line round the margins.
Lord Death came to a Balkan ski resort:
He was looking for souls to save
Who'd been living together in peace for years.
Proposals he made.
A country dismembered by smash and by grab
And stitched back together on Frankenstein's slab--
He promised to end strife and riot
And bring peace and quiet,
The quiet of the grave.
Believe what you must and believe what you will:
Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia nil
And Germany twenty,
The USA plenty.
It's only a scrawl in the margins,
A footnote consigned to the margins.
The reliable sun rises every day
And wonders will never cease
That remarkable day that the dogs of war
Become doves of peace.
Written: Deptford, London, May 1993
Words |
Music |
© Copyright Des de Moor 1995, 1999
First recorded in demo form on Margins. Later re-recorded for 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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