The Spirit Of The Music
“As long as you’re true to the spirit of the music
Everything will work out fine”
Those were the words he left me with
As I woke up from my dream
I jumped out of bed to look for the song
That I knew I had to find
I didn’t know its name or its words or its tune
But I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
He was a white bearded, charming Irishman
Sitting on a bar-stool in the corner
Of a large metal shed that was full of guitars
That I’d been trying out one after the other
There were police and soldiers patrolling outside
It was a war zone but I couldn’t care less
With the curves of the guitars and the singing of the strings
I didn’t want to be anywhere else
Then I saw him in the corner and I knew if I could reach him
He could teach me all the wisdom of the bards;
Of the poets and the singers and the troubadours of old
And the secrets of the gypsy guitar.
But as soon as I moved in his direction there arose
Like elemental dragons from the floor
A hundred huge Mexican bass guitars
I went tripping and stumbling all over.
The Irishman looked in my direction and he laughed
But it wasn’t a nasty laugh
For he knew that my dream was about to end
He smiled for he had seen this all a thousand times before
And he said as I stumbled and was bundled out the door:
“As long as you’re true to the spirit of the music
Everything will work out fine”
So I searched through every CD in the house,
Looking for a clue to the song
I didn’t know who wrote it and I didn’t know who sang it
But I knew that I had to keep going
The only thought at the back of my mind
Was the colour of the CD case
It was partly orange and partly something else,
Maybe fawn, or brown or grey.
Then I found a CD whose colours seemed to match
The title was simply “Duet”
It was Kristina Olsen and Peter Grayling,
And I thought maybe this was it
I played every track but to no avail
Until I heard a sequence of notes
And as I listened to the song, some tears came to my eyes
As I remembered the story Kristina had told
Of the charming Irishman she had met
Who had kissed her hand and closed it in a fist.
He had told her to keep that kiss for later on,
And now it was enshrined in her song, Battleplan
A few years later I was sitting on a bar-stool
In the corner of a large metal shed.
I was singing songs and playing the guitar
To a charming Irishman who sat by the bar
And I told him the story of the dream and the song
And of the words of the white-bearded Irishman
And the quest for the song Kristina wrote about the man
Who gave her a kiss to keep for later on
And the charming Irishman sitting near the bar
Said “I know you won’t believe this, but I swear
That I am the man who gave her that kiss
And folded her hand into a fist
And told her she could keep that kiss
And save it up for later on.”
And as he said these words I knew in my heart
That what he was saying was true
And I remembered my dream and the sage advice
So I’ll happily share that advice with you
If ever you’re stumbling, tripping on the bass
Maybe worried that you’re losing your mind
“As long as you are true to the spirit of the music
Everything will work out fine.”