Lyric – “High Wood”

23 June 2013

A complex ride but I finally got there. I had to leave a lot of intended imagery and subject matter out as to be honest it constitutes another song that we don’t have time or space to write for this album.

I still have “The Leaving” to put together and perhaps I can include the missing imagery there. I’m pretty happy with this and Foss and I have only to check the keys to bring it to the Feast for recording tomorrow.

Today we cracked “Perfume River” which considering the live version sitting well on tour has been quite complicated as Calum and Gavin have put in a hell of a lot of work into the intricacies of the rhythmic spine.

“Other Side of Me” is up for scheduling later this afternoon.
This however is my work from the back of the control room as the boys and Calum delve into the body of the backing tracks.

This is lyric to the opening song from the “High Wood” suite!DSC_5764

High Wood

Chill, break of day, a light frost thawing,
Sun, pale and grey, a spectral morning,

Tractors crawl, horsepower straining,
carve the earth the ploughshares turning
The sod that hides where dead men lie,
the lost and fallen of wars gone by,

Gathering the iron harvest reminders of their bloody madness
Whose bones in furrows sometimes rise to plead to be identified.

To join the ranks of comrade soldiers buried beneath the bleached white crosses
Names and numbers cut in stone, the regiment they called their home,
The age they reached the day they died, their memory is all that does survive
In tended graves they rest in peace their battle finally overDSC_5780

The rolling trembling thunder rides the ridge of Bazentin
Detonations scatter clouds of crows
The tree line offers refuge to the wide eyed startled deer
Launch, plunging through the bracken they head into the shadows of the High Wood

The oaks majestic standing proud and tall
Holding their position on a landscape lost in time
The roots dug in the sore contested ground
The gnarled and twisted timbers betray the battle scars of yore

The wood will rise, the wood will fall, the circle is unbroken, the wounds will heal in rings of time, DSC_5874
The circle is unbroken

Half buried in the forest floor decay
Broken rusting weaponry beneath the fallen leaves
The shells that failed still hold their deadly load
Dormant in the undergrowth their promise only stalled

The wood will rise, the wood will fall, the circle is unbroken, the wounds will heal in rings of time,
The circle is unbroken
The wood will rise, the wood will fall, the circle is unbroken, the wounds will heal in rings of time,
The circle is unbroken

In the darkness of the High Wood it’s so dense I can hardly breathe, a stark and muffled silence
I stand alone amongst the trees.
Are they ghosts or moving shadows, are they spirits gone before?
Are these the restless souls still wandering, the ones that were forsaken in the High Wood.

Copyright D W DICK 2013DSC_5822DSC_58402013-01-30 22.52.10DSC_5796