The Ballad of James Meere
Lyrics and Music: Tim Dennehy
This is dedicated to those who live on or outside the margins of society. In particular the song is a tribute to the travelling singers and musicians who were such a feature of life in Kerry in the 1950's. Here's to their observations, language and creativity and their indomitable spirit. James Meere, a fictional name, personifies our inner turmoil and our search for the truth within. I hope you may find in him something of yourself.
Waking in my concrete-bedded doorway
Another day, another quest, another dream
Listening to the seagulls' cry of mourning
Yesterday seeps in unsteady stream
When I did what I've done for half a century
Walked alone, thought a lot and drank
To the health of whatever came into my memory
Despised, dismissed as just another crank
There's a song in my soul that seeks to surface
As I wander through country and through town
And the cry in my heart's, the cry of freedom
Freedom from the chains that tie me down
Born in the year of nineteen twenty
To parents who did their best for me
Educated, segregated and dictated to a lot
I said farewell to facts at bare fifteen
For football, cowboys, hide and seek held no appeal for me
I never seemed to fit that scene somehow
But a fantasy to tread the boards was nurtured and inflamed
While the moon on the water eased my brow
And a song deep in my soul sought to surface
As I wandered through country and through town
And the cry in my heart was one of freedom
Freedom from the chains that tied me down
And so there was revealed a new beginning
Of thoughts and feelings oftentimes suppressed
Where Nature spoke more eloquent than humans
And objects bare more beautiful than dress
And where those who spoke the most said very little
There were those, whose very silence spoke in tomes
And all loners bore the label, "treat with caution
He talks to birds and trees, he writes strange poems".
I began to devour all drama Shakespeare to Synge
Took part in local plays without success
For the flame that burned within me I could never shape to words
And words on paper I could manage less
But I found relief in travelling with my bag, my book and beer
The hedgerows, roads and mountains were my stage
Reciting precious lines to the soft attentive air
My pillow as night fell, the window ledge
And how I envy the poets and the artists
Who can liberate a thought and make it sing
Who bring sanity to a world now blind with madness
The leveller of peasant and of king
And as you pass me on your way to match or racecourse
Spare a penny and a thought for old James Meere
Still fired by all the fantasies of stage and screen and hall
Who sang this song for you that you might hear
It was a song in my soul that sought to surface
As I wandered through country and through town
And the cry in my heart was one of freedom
Freedom from the chains that tie me down