Song #24 Strange Appointments

 

STRANGE APPOINTMENTS

 

CHORUS

Strange appointments every day

The strangest people every day

Playin’ on the street

The only way to meet

The strangest people every day

Playin’ on the street

 

“Come to dinner” the man said

“Come meet my wife and family”

Come talk about life and death with me

Come marry me – I love you already

 

CHORUS

 

Man in the distance behind the small crowd

“Come live with me and keep my life afloat”

But who says I’m not sinking?

        Who says I’m not sinking?

Playin’ on the street

 

CHORUS

(1982)

Commentary

Late in 1981 I returned to Kibbutz Gevim to work as a volunteer. There I met Hiske – I heard her singing through the wall. She was staying in the next room in the volunteers’ quarters. We soon started singing together – firstly in The Irrigation Band (true!) – and then busking as a duo on the streets of Israel and Holland. Busking for a living was an extraordinary experience. You become public property and get exposed to the weird, wonderful and extremely vulnerable who all want to be your instant friend. (And at last I was lonely no more!)

Song #23 Sri Lanka

 In 1981 I went on the first of my many visits to Sri Lanka. Courtesy of my dear friend Louise, and Titus and the generous inhabitants of the village of Weligama, it was to become a home away from home for a few years. It’s hard to put into words the joy I felt living there, but the song gives a fair idea of how smitten I was with the place.

Alas real life punctured the idealised version of Sri Lankan life I conjured up in these lyrics. Titus’ premature death in a road accident and a 20 year long civil war put a stop to our magical visits there. (An account of my return to Weligama after 20+ years is HERE.)

 

SRI LANKA

 

(You) surprise me with your smiling eyes

A greeting so warm for me

I’d like to return your openliness

But Western pent-up insecurities die hard

I’d like to look at you as you look at me

But you smile so much

People of the Pearl – you’re charmed with a grace

Rarely spotted in the family of man

Children of paradise with Eden as your garden

No fences, concrete, smog, or canned food

Noble savages and little kings

Princes, princesses, and kings

So regal in your stance; so willing in your glance

To share the joy of home and living

 

CHORUS

Sri Lanka I don’t know thee

But already I love thee

Sri Lanka I don’t know thee

But already I love thee

 

“To the Family of Man we belong”

Twice you’ve told me in these so few days

Respect for your leaders and their path of neutrality

To warmth and kindness, sympathy and charity

I see it in your eyes to me

I see it in your eyes to them – your countrymen

Loved, chided, and left to wander

I can’t forget the children

“Were you once like they are now?” I ask the older ones

Do you know how lucky you are?

To wander these grasses, these jungles and beaches

Unfettered by the world as it groans

Can it last? Will it last? A monument to the beauty of people and places

 

CHORUS

Sri Lanka I don’t know thee

But already I love thee

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

 

(Copyright Michael Coghlan 1981)