On the occasion the release of his latest long-playing record, ‘Thanks for the Dance’, here’s a song of thanks for Leonard Cohen. A Singer Sang a Song To you, far off but sailing near, to you, so close you disappear, and you, whose distance is unclear – a singer did not get […]
This is the final lyric that wasn’t used in Life Cycle. You can get an idea of how it would have sounded by listening to ‘The First Turn‘. A mother addresses her baby, that has just turned itself over for the second time. Life Cycle will be performed on Saturday 2nd February at King’s Place. […]
In the second posting of lyrics that weren’t used in the final version of the song cycle I wrote with Emily Hall, this is something a little bleak. A new mother considers her former self. Life Cycle is being performed this Saturday, February 2nd, in London, at King’s Place. The funeral I’d like […]
This Saturday, Life Cycle – music by Emily Hall, words by me – is being performed in a new orchestral version by the Aurora Orchestra. This is happening at King’s Place. The wonderful Mara Carlyle is singing, and the brilliant John Reid is playing piano. In advance of that, I thought I’d post some lyrics […]
Today is the launch day of New Poetries 7, the occasional Carcanet anthology of new and not-established poets. I am very happy to be one of them. Most of the poems by me included in the anthology are lyrical. But the opening few are from a sequence I wrote the day Donald Trump won the […]
I’ve done quite a bit of lyric writing for the composer Emily Hall. Click on her name for a previous blog about our collaborations. Emily has now issued the three main song cycles we’ve done as very beautifully designed and printed scores. A recording of Life Cycle, made by Mara Carlyle, Oliver Coates and John […]
