shaun belcher songwriting

complete lyrics 1996-2003

 

SONGS 2003

 

SILVER BIRCH

1. burning bridge
2. by the water's edge
3. when the ice breaks underfoot
4. this empty space
5. spoil marie
6. shooting stars turn blue
7. down the tracks
8. can't make you love me
9. black water
10. love falls down
11. man the world forgot
12. small town grave
13. california sands
14. solid froze
15. black well blues
16. ghost of Sheryl Crow
17. box of dreams
18. this wind
19. a human coin
20. silver birch
21. part of me is missing
22. love stings and a candle burns

 

 

 

BURNING BRIDGE

I'm alone and the night is cold
Nowhere to run to nowhere to go
I'm alone and I'm far from you
Nothing to do but walk through this snow

And if I could go back
In time and find you
I'd go back to you and make it alright
Cross this burning bridge
Cross this burning bridge I would go
Burning bridge in the snow

But there's only ever one way to run it seems
We're always driving forward in our dreams
Keepin on travellin is all we can ever do
Cos only angels make it to heaven it's true

Now I'm standing on this burning bridge
Looking down at the water as it floods the fields
Thinkin of you and things we never did
and the tears welling under my eyelids

I'll never make it back across this burning bridge its true
Well what the hell was I supposed to do
Once a bridge starts burning it'll never let you through

Sure is pretty this burning bridge in the snow
burning bridge in the snow

 

 

BY THE WATER'S EDGE

Oh how I wish
I could just walk
Around this town
And not feel so down

I watch the sun turn red
By the water's edge
I always remember you
By the water's edge

No matter how long I stand
I'll never guess
Why it was you left
By the water's edge

All that's left
Is floating through my mind
By the water's edge

 

WHEN THE ICE BREAKS UNDERFOOT

Twenty years she'd stayed in that place
Twenty years staring at the same dam face
Something cracked and then she ran
Across the night
From all her broken plans

When the ice broke underfoot

She headed for the sea in a coach
Looked through the trees for something to trust
A face that wasn't as cold as stone
A touch that didn't make her shiver to the bone

When the ice broke underfoot

Well everything's ok and then it's not
One morning the sun comes up but you're not in love
So you pack a few things in a bag and you walk away
Turn a corner and everything melts away like frost

When the ice breaks underfoot

When the ice breaks underfoot

THIS EMPTY SPACE

No this song don't fill the space
This pc screen don't smile like your face
There's only so many things I can do
To fill in the empty space that was you

This empty space

Ain't filled with tears and broken hearts
It comes creeping up in the dark
It's made of all the small things we forgot
That wait to drag you back to the past

Somewhere I pulled off the road
Found myself staring at some telegraph poles
Carrying a million words across the globe
But me and you can't exchange a single word

This empty space

Now this records running in the fade out groove
The voice goes silent under a silver moon
I ain't calling you but I am sad it's true
Sitting here waiting fro someone to fill your shoes

This empty space
Like the space between the clouds and the moon
This empty space in my heart grows cold
Every time I think of you

This empty space

 

 

SPOIL MARIE

I live on my own since we split
My wife looks after her all the week
I get her every Friday evening
It's my favourite night of the week
'Cos that's when I can spoil Marie
Spoil my Marie

Well I take that train every night
Between the cities bright lights
I see the families in their Sunday best
Going out for the night with their kids
Hell it gets hard sometimes I admit
But Friday nights when I forget about ii
Spoil my Marie

Well my wife and me hardly speak
She just stands there spinning her keys
I try chit chat but she just leaves
Cos her new man's waiting in the street
Hell it don't matter to me at all
I just care about my sweet Marie
Spoil my Marie

She's the whole dam world to me
Spoil my Marie
Gonna spoil my Marie.

 

 

SHOOTING STARS TURN BLUE

In the movie in my head
This is how it ends
We're walking through a quiet city
I take you in my arms
Then you kiss me

But them shooting stars always turn blue
Before they get to me and you

God must have used them all up
On all those other couples it seems
Cos there's no shooting stars left
For you and me
Even the shooting stars turned blue

Well the moon is shining
The river's silver too
In fact even the city light's are bright
Every roof flashing in the moonlight
But God forgot the shooting stars
Now what are we to do?
Even the shooting stars turned blue

Hold me that much tighter
Cos the world is turning dark
All our hopes and dreams
Been eclipsed by the way we broke each other's hearts
And standing on this hill looking all around
All I see are a thousand shooting stars
Turning blue
Turning blue

 

DOWN THE TRACKS

It all comes back to me
She was smiling as she walked away
Said I had it coming anyway
Should have known then
That's where I'd end up one day
Somewhere down the tracks

She said who do you think you are
You ain't never gonna be a star
It's obvious where you'll end up honey
You'll never get anywhere today
You'll be crawling on your knees
Somewhere down the tracks

Well I suppose I had it coming anyway
Was in the stars so they say
When you dream you dream alone
Some place I sit on my own
That's the place where I stay
Somewhere down the tracks

When the nights are cold
And the moon is bright
I stare out of this window
At the rails in the moonlight
I know you're out there somewhere
Far from me
Somewhere down the tracks is
Where we'll always be.

 

I CAN'T MAKE YOU LOVE ME

Can charm the birds from the trees
Can charm the honey from the bee
Can make the clouds flow back to the sea
But there's one thing ain't so easy

I can't make you love me

Well I've been around I've seen it all
I've been watching you from the door
Your smile like the sun, your hair like straw
You float around like you had no cares at all

Well if words were all it took I'd be alright
I'd be king and this world would be mine
But words aren't enough to make you smile
For me and me alone in the middle of the night

No I can't make you love me

 

BLACK WATER MOAN

Walking across a bridge at midnight
Cold rain stinging my face
Been walking across this city of shadows
Seems like I just can't find my place

And I heard the black water sigh
Calling out my name
Yeah I heard the black water sigh
Calling me away

Well I been here just a short while
Left the kids with their mum down south
Walked away when things went wrong
Ended up walking for two whole months

Seems like my whole family had trouble
Every one born ended up just the same
Lost or sinking slowly in some foreign place
That's why we got our troubled name

My father he was no different
He drank and he abused my mum
But now he's out there on a sandy bed
He sailed east one day and never returned

So I stand on this bridge mid-winter
Watch the flood spinning the trees away
Wonder if our blood is like this muddy water
Unclean and just flowing down the drain

I hear that black water
calling out my name
I hear it sigh
Wants to wash my sins away.

 

 

LOVE FALLS DOWN

Around and around
We span around
Since we came to this town
Love fell down
Like a leaf from a tree

Down, down, down
Love falls down

And I will live with you
And you will live with me
In a beautiful house
In a beautiful street

Down, down, down
Love falls down

And we will be so happy
It will be until eternity
Everything will be so easy
It grows like a leaf on a tree

Down, down, down
Love falls down

MAN THE WORLD FORGOT

I work in the city
Sometimes I stay late
With the boys from the office
Always the same damn place
Been there for years
Never a raise
Sometimes I wonder what happened to my life
the man the world forgot

I ride the same train
See the same faces
Every morning from nine to nine-thirty
Come rain or shine or sleet
I see a familiar face
In the seat ahead of me
the man the world forgot

Sometimes I stare out of the train windows
At all the new office blocks
And all the rows of desks like mine
And wonder if they are happier than me
The man the world forgot

Now I'm 50 and the years have caught up with me
But the guys have asked me out
There's colour in my hair but my liver's fading fast
I'm staring at a girl half my age and dreaming
Later on the train I turn the handle
And take a leap into the dark

The man the world forgot

 

 

 

SMALL TOWN GRAVE

Well he said when my race is run
Lay me down in the sun
Somewhere under those shady trees
Somewhere people can forget about me

It all comes down to dust
Every part of us
All I want is a small town grave
And flowers that fade
On a small town grave

The businessman, the banker, the delivery-man
The nurse, the cook the woman pushing a pram
Everybody one day lays down
Under a shady tree in the setting sun
In a small town cemetery
When the race is run

 

 

CALIFORNIA SANDS

Every year we had a week away
Same place on the edge of space
Across the flat fields of the Norfolk Broads
To a camp full of red brick chalets that was called

California Sands, California Sands
Ohh Ohh Ohh it's true
Anythin you wanna do, It's all waitin for you
At California Sands

A hundred chalets and a clubhouse
Amusement arcades, fish and chips and crumbling cliffs
It was nearest place to heaven its true
Cos we'd never seen a sea this blue

California Sands, California Sands
Ohh Ohh Ohh it's true
Anythin you wanna do, It's all waitin for you
At California Sands

Eating sticky rock, playing crazy golf
My sister always beat me of course
Yarmouth's beer garden and end of pier show
And a light that bleached our hair

Somewhere now a part of me dreams
Of steel blue seas and 99 ice creams
Something inside yearns for those days
When a million pennies were about to fall in the penny arcades…

California Sands, California Sands
Ohh Ohh Ohh it's true
Anythin you wanna do, It's all waitin for you
At California Sands

Friday always came too soon at California Sands

 

 

SOLID FROZE

Ice for eyes, hand stuck to the lever
Hat rimmed with icicles, hair solid white
He stood like a statue looking out across the fields
Engine stuck to the tracks, boiler cold

The only thing moving was the Northern Lights
Flickering in his dead eyes
Solid froze

The whole damn county disappeared under a drift
Way out west the cattle froze where they stood
It took them two days and a steam plow
To get to the place where he was waiting

The only thing moving was the Northern Lights
Flickering in his dead eyes
Solid froze

First they melted away the frozen train
Left its shadow sculpted in the snow
Then they lay his stiff body down so gently
One arm pointing up at where he was heading..

The only thing moving was the Northern Lights
Flickering in his dead eyes
Solid froze

 

 

BLACK WELL BLUES

Down in the water
So long nobody could tell
When they found her
Her bones were white as shells

White bones in a black well
Blues

THE GHOST OF SHERYL CROW

( in memory of June Carter Cash)

LAST NIGHT IN MY DREAMS
SHE CAME AND TALKED TO ME
SHE WAS DRESSED LIKE SOMEBODY
FROM 1963
I SAID YOU LOOK LIKE DOLLY PARTON
BEFORE SHE BROKE FREE
YOU LOOK LIKE BOBBY GENTRY
BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED FROM THE SCENE

HI HI HI
LO LO LO

SEARCHING FOR THE GHOST OF SHERYL CROW

I BUMPED INTO THE GRAND-DAUGHTER OF KITTY WELLS
I TOLD HER SHE SHOULD LISTEN TO LAURA CANTRELL
NEXT TIME I SAW HER SHE SMILED LIKE TANYA TUCKER
SHE PUT HER ARMS AROUND ME LIKE TAMMY AROUND JONES

NOW THE NIGHT IS YOUNG
AND THE BAND STARTS TO PLAY
I SEE HER WALKING
OUT ON TO THE STAGE

SHE IS AS BEAUTIFUL AS THEY ALWAYS SAID
SHE STEPS UP TO THE MIKE AND SHE STARTS TO SING

 

BOX OF DREAMS

ROCKABILLY E/G/A/

No one told me it would be easy
No one told me it would be this hard
Seemed like it was always this way
We just didn't listen to what they said

Don't drop, don't drop my box of dreams

There was always something about you
Told me you couldn't be for true
There was always something about you
Made me feel you'd what you do

Could it be the two of us were always alone
Could it be we were always both in the wrong
Could it be that there is no reason to believe
Everybody loses everything ends up broken

 

 

THIS WIND

This wind that breaks these trees
This wind that makes your blue eyes sting
This wind that makes you cry so easily
This wind will blow us apart like leaves

Yes this wind, this wind, this wind

This wind that blows in off the sea
This wind that is so cold and free
This wind that ripples the red flag on the beach
This wind that pushes clouds to the mountains to weep

This wind, this wind, this wind

This wind that leaves dust on my teeth
This wind that lifts your plane as it leaves
This wind that carries you away from me
This wind that sets us free

Yes this wind, this wind, this wind

 

 

A HUMAN COIN

How did you get here? nobody seems to know
Did you fall off a truck on a moonlit road
Or was it a pink dawn on the edge of town
When that driver said it was time to get down?

A human coin

You lay in that ditch for hours
Waiting for it to grow dark again
Scared to death of the customs men
Who would beat you and send you back again

Then twenty miles out of Dover
On a freezing February night
You were picked up by another man
Who said he'd give you a hand

He took you home, gave you a bed
You still shivered in the clothes he gave
He asked you if you wanted to stay
Three years later he still makes you pay

 

 

SILVER BIRCH

Wind in the topmost branches
Cold and blowing in from the arctic
Blowing off the cold white mountains
Blowing you on to me
Like a spinning leaf
How long will it take to fall in love
Under the silver birch

Where are the dreams we dream
Do they just fly at night
Like leaves spilling out of our minds
And drifting through the city lights
Heaps of them glitter in the drains
Or like snow on a tennis lawn
When it clogs the drains
The dreams of love turn to mud

Well I hold on to my dreams
As the snows blow through
Like a train headed through some wood
Dreams spinning like leaves in its wake
Spinning around across the cold snow
Below the silver birches
Trust me my love this world is silver
Fall, fall in love
Under the silver birch

 

 

PART OF ME IS MISSING

Down, down, down sinking like a wasp in a jar
Still sticky with the thought of her
Round, round, round like a spinning reel
Where we are is where we feel

A part of me is missing
A part of me is gone
A part of me is missing
Never to return

Empty, empty, empty something lost at sea
Tipped over the side and floating free
Who knows what the time was
When the last bell tolled for us

Was it really worth all the fears
Was it really worth bringing you here
We always seemed to be going backwards
Always chasing something we could never see

Our hearts just disappeared
Somewhere where the mountains
Dipped into the sea
Something was missing
A part of me.

 

LOVE STINGS AND A CANDLE BURNS

Fire light and fire flies
Down a darkened track
And we turn to each other
In the perfect dark

Remember one thing
Love stings
A candle burns
Whichever way you turn
Love stings and a candle burns

So old flames gutter and die
The past dies like a cars headlights
On a darkened highway to an open door
No-one knows what they're heading toward

Out in the meadows
Under a harvest moon
There's that truck we left
Still smoking
Turning red to blue…

Love stings and a candle burns.

 

© SHAUN BELCHER 2003