Sharp Stories - Words and Notes

1. Song Of The Quarryman

Words Ian, Music Luke

Chorus

Sing me, sing me, sing me the deep pools of blue
Sing me, sing me, sing me the rumbling sorter

Verse 1

Sing me the hard hat
Sing me the reflection of the sun and the snow in the glasses
Beneath the hard hat

Verse 2

Sing me the rumbling sorter
Sing me the distortion of the sun and the snow in the window
Of the cabin of the rumbling sorter
And in the glasses beneath the hard hat

Chorus

Verse 3

Sing me the deep blue pools
Sing me the refraction of the sun and the snow in the surface
Of the somehow gorgeous deep blue pools
And in the window of the cabin of the rumbling sorter
And in the glasses beneath the hard hat

Chorus

Verse 4

He said 'It's an astonishing feeling'
Sun reflecting in the glasses beneath the hard hat
'To think that we're uncovering something'
Sun reflecting in the glasses beneath the hard hat
'Millions of years old'
Sun reflecting in the glasses beneath the hard hat
'And we're the first to see it'
But I couldn't hear him
For the sound of the machine's song
And the sun reflecting in the glasses beneath the hard hat

Middle Eight

Sing me the refraction
Sing me the distortion
Sing me the reflection
Sing me the uncovering
Sing me the refraction
Sing me the distortion
Sing me the reflection
Sing me the uncovering

Chorus

2. Messages From A Russian Heat Wave

Words Ian, Music Luke

I just wanted to go
I just wanted to go
I just wanted to go home

Verse 1

I was travelling in Russia
And naively I thought it was going to be really cold
So I took jumpers and coats and scarves
And I got there in the hottest weather they'd ever had
In Russia for years
People were dying
And I felt like I was dying, as I lay there in hotels
That guide books told me not to stay in
And my passport photo was really old
And I was followed all the way around Russia
By this young man, who used to be me
And all that happened was
As I kept sweating day and night
I just wanted to go home

Chorus

One coverlet is too many
One shopping channel not enough
One tear of sweat down my back
And I know I know I have had enough

Verse 2

My room is entering a period of turbulence
There. By the curtains
This is Moscow fast food
A mushroom pie
Tasting of airports
Fat train conductor in a black dress
Swinging between the carriages
Selling tickets
To the people with buckets
Vadim never speaks
He just drives
Maybe he's counting the trees
I lost count
Fell asleep at seven hundred thousand

Chorus

Verse 3

Every young person in Red Square
Has a bottle of beer
Clamped to his lips
Clamped to her lips
The night porter
At the Pereslavl hotel
Could be the dead grandfather
Of all the night porters
In the world
The Festival of Face Slapping
Talking, when the flies are out
That young man, on my passport photo
Is sneering at the airport staff
His dark hair is an insult to them and me

Outro

This fish has got more bones than me
Vadim doesn't care
His cellar is cool
His vodka has no bones at all
Vadim doesn't care
His cellar is cool
I just wanted to go
I just wanted to go
(Repeat to fade)

3. What He Was Doin'

Words Ian, Music Luke

This is a tribute to my Dad who always kept us informed. IM

4. The Shanty Attacker

Words Ian, Music Luke and trad. arr. Luke

Sneaks up. Dark street. Moon light. Nervous walker. Always man. Old man. Dockland street. Stooped man Who has felt the whipping ocean in his face; the wind drew her map in the corners of his eyes years ago. Long years ago

Moon light. Home walk. Old man. Stagger route. Beer dance. Sway tango. Docks glint. Reflected moon.

Like sliding down a deck it is easy for him to ease his feet down the street's water. It is easy for him to miss the blade of the raised voice.
The shanty attacker. Hiding by the bus shelter. But waiting for no bus. Haul away boys.

Long shanty. Long attack. Raised voices. Moon light. Endless verses. Endless Hauling. Flailing Body. Fish flail. Whale tail. Flap body. Shanty rising. Shanty falling.

'A death by shanty is a terrible death' Melville wrote towards the end of his life, and he sang true. A murder by shanty involves meticulous harmonic skill, endless choruses rising and falling like a knife might rise and fall. And always one more verse. One more verse to make the body twitch

5. Danza Villis

Music trad. arr. Luke

A little known dance tune, recorded in the Villis islands by Ian, normally danced on stilts and accompanied by the Villisian glottal horn. LCG

6.When Silence Is Broken

Words Ian and Simone Abram, Music Luke

On Christmas Eve as midnight approaches, and the darkness clicks over into Christmas Day there's an old story that the animals in the stable where Jesus was born can speak. Just for a few hours, until like many of us they wait for permission to speak again.

Verse 1

A single star
An angel's wing
In the midnight stable
Animals sing

Verse 2

A conversation
Rising like the moon
In the midnight stable
They're talking in tune

Chorus

This night when silence is broken
This night when animals speak
This night when words are spoken
Listen to the songs they make

Listen hard this night. Listen hard for the voices that are normally as silent as stones. Listen hard this night to the voice that's inside you. To the voice that sings from your bones.

Verse 3

The sound of voices
In the winter gloom
So many questions
They're over too soon

Verse 4

The sounds are shaping
The old mouths talk
Soon it will be morning
And day will close the book

Chorus

Middle Eight

Words in the darkness
By the candle's flare
One by one they're rising
Spirits in the air

Chorus

7.Dot's Leg / Souter Creek

Words Ian, Music Luke and Aidan O'Rourke

A little story based on real events, and in the hope that you never stop dancing. IM

The beautiful tune Souter Creek that follows is by the fiddle player and composer Aidan O'Rourke. A big 'thank you' to him for letting us use it here. LCG

8. Border Ballad

Words Ian and Luke, Music Luke

This is about me pushing my grandson Thomas on his swing on the morning of empty skies due to fears of terrorist attack. We kept on playing anyway. IM

Verse 1

Heard the story on the TV show today
Flights are down there'll be some big delay
It's half remembered, half forgot, only half recalled
Like a dream of a tree caught there in mid fall
And only clouds moved
For a while in the sky
And we waited for ghosts
To tell us when to die

Chorus

This is just a border ballad
On the border of madness
And weeping
This is just a haunting tune
On the cliff-edge of waking
And sleeping

Verse 2

Took my grandson out and pushed him on the swing
Looked for planes but we couldn't see a thing
Then a kestrel alone
Hovered high in the sky
Still as an x-ray
Watchful as an eye

Chorus

Verse 3

And as he rose and fell and laughed up on the swing
I hummed a bit and then began to sing
'Higher than the sun
Higher than the moon
Higher than the clouds
Higher than a plane'

Chorus

Outro

We need the world to keep on turning round and round
We need the world to keep on turning round and round
(Repeat to fade)

9. RIP Shepcote Lane Rolling Mills

Improvisation by the Ian McMillan Orchestra

IM

10. Mr Coward

Words Ian McMillan, Music Luke Carver Goss

A story of lactation and numismatism from Barnsley in the 1960s. IM

11. It's Goodnight From Him

Words Ian, Music Luke

A tribute to the late, great Ronnie Barker.

Chorus

It's goodnight from him and goodnight to this
Saturday bath-time, a home win, the bliss
Of a night in the glow of a rented TV
A family spread out on two chairs, one settee

Verse 1

It's goodnight from him
And it's goodbye from me
To a comedy built on dances with words
An eye for the language
An ear for absurd
Interlocutions, grammatical fluffs
And lines that my brother just called
'Sentence stuff'
But it made us all howl
And that was enough

Chorus

Verse 2

So it's goodnight from him
And goodbye to a time
When Saturday night
Clicked round like a rhyme
In the kind of odd song
Ronnie Barker might croon
And the words made you smile
But they fitted the tune
Like the bloke in the glasses
With a face like the moon
Fitted Saturday night
It was over too soon
But it kept us all laughing
While outside the world
Was changing and shifting
He cut through the gloom
The comedy furniture
In our collective front room

Chorus

Middle Eight

So I'll light four candles
And let them burn down
For an actor, a wordsmith, a genius, a clown
And now this tired world
Is just that bit more grim
Close the cell door
Shut the shop up
It's goodnight from him

Chorus