"Shoes"
These are the shoes
of those whose lives all ended here.
These are the clothes they wore,
when death descended here.
No glory, no story
to be appended here.
-And after all, they're only shoes.
These are the bones
of those who are unknown to me.
Here nothing shows
of what they might have grown to be.
No monument, no sentiment
marks their eternity.
-And after all, they're only bones.
The ways of man
are studied with brutality.
Hold, whilst we can,
what's left of our humanity.
Forgiving, forgetting
Should be the way to be.
-But after all, we're only men.
I am currently listening to a (very strange) CD, the new release from Woolly Wolstenholme's Maestoso, curiously entitled "Caterwauling". The sound and lyrics to the song "Shoes" are a particularly moving part of the album. Although the lyrics are dominated by themes such as war, death, and divorce - it's not all light-hearted fun.. there's also plenty of staring into the abyss of mental illness, as Wolstenhome endured it several years ago. Musically the album uses rock, folk and classical formats to deliver its complex and sometimes demanding songwriting. The recording is rough in places and Wolstenholme can presumably only dream of having access to the recording budgets he once knew as a member of Barclay James Harvest in the 1970s. This is probably the strangest album I have bought in years, yet one on which I hear new things with each play, and which has kept me admirable company while stripping wallpaper over the last few evenings!
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