David Heavenor: Music
IN NORTHERN TOWNS LIKE THESE
(David Heavenor)
David Heavenor PRS/MCPS
Album: Another Eden & In Northern Towns Like These
A song about childhood growing up in the coastal town of North Berwick in East Lothian. Our house overlooked the beach with a vista stretching over to Fife past the string of islands from Fidra to the Bass Rock. The long low silhouette of the May island could be seen in the distance next to the twinkling lights of the Fife coastal towns. It seemed like a mysterious other world back then. It's also a song about a child encountering the phoney adult world
IN NORTHERN TOWNS LIKE THESE
In northern towns like these the town clock has been stopped
Since nineteen sixty three when a cub shirt was on his back
But he’s so shy, he’s so dumb
He’s leaning out his window to wait for kingdom come
For he’s never learned to feel
Or reach for the joy
Where the light on this river
Is much more forgiving than light on steel
In northern towns like these he drags a stick along the sand
To trace the Ferris wheel that burns and turns within his mind
Along the May, around the Bass
The Solan geese etch silence on a sea of glass
But he’s never learned to feel
That the light on this river is much more forgiving
Than light on steel
So reel him out
Reel him in
Holy River
In northern towns like these the lovely Nicola will pout
And mind her Q’s and P’s at least until the class streams out
‘My lovely boy, my loving boy
Write me secret letters using active verbs’
But he’s never learned to steal
Steal away to the joy
Where the light on this river is much more forgiving
Than light on steel
In northern towns like these black bible spines unzip
And the whispering India leaves fill up his world with doubt
‘Your name in vain, your name in vain’
His eyes lift to the hills and the blessed rain
For they’ve never learned to feel
And reach for the joy
Where the light on this river is much more forgiving
Than light on steel.
So reel him out
Reel him in
Holy River