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Empty
I wrote this song about homeless people on the streets of Edinburgh towards the end of the Hungry Ghosts period. When we won a songwriting competition at the Edinburgh Festival, our prize was studio time, so we recorded this version (Tricia Thom, vocal; Sean Doyle, bass; Pat McCann, drums; Stephen Malloch, violin; Norman Lamont, guitars). Another Edinburgh singer-songwriter, the excellent Nobody Jones, used to do a cracking version of this.
Listen:
Empty
Empty, empty
Polystyrene cup
People go by, they don't look down
I get tired looking up
Empty, empty, empty, empty, empty
Empty, empty
Doorway for the night
Empty in the morning
In the cold and cutting light
Empty, empty, empty, empty, empty
Castaways, waifs and strays
Hostel dwellers, Issue sellers
All those people seemed like another world
But the company don't need a man
So the woman don't need a man
So the children don't need a man
And where does that leave a man?
Empty, empty, empty, empty, empty
Empty, empty
Pray it don't come true
That one day there may come to be
More of us than you
Empty, empty, empty, all empty
Castaways, waifs and strays
Hostel dwellers, Issue sellers
I sympathised, but I had a place to go
But the company don't need a man ...
Empty, empty
Feel I'll blow away
And rise above these stony streets
Light as paper ...
Norman Lamont 1995
June 24, 2007 in Singletons | Permalink
