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The Caretaker

from In Verse by The Drop of a Hat

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lyrics

The winters are bleak here
And your shadow grows weaker
“I love you alone” are words you’ll never speak here

You work as dream-reader
In the library she’ll feed you
But she’ll never understand just why you need her.

And after you walk her
To the old workers' quarters
Along the canals which no longer hold water

The high stone clocktower
No more tells the hour
The beasts in the fields will no more eat the flowers

--------------------------------------

You rise from your slumber
To the window you stumble
The beasts in the field are declining in numbers

From your shadow you’re severed
And he toils and endeavours
To make your escape or you’re both lost forever.

There are boots you must bring him
With a map you hide in them
But your eyes have been pierced so the daylight will sting them.

But you’re sick and you shiver
So, the colonel delivers
The map of the woods and the walls and the river

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Is it just you who suffers?
Cos you think you could love her
if she could remember the songs of her mother

And you hope the caretaker
might help you to wake her.
She could never love you but you still try to make her.

He works in the station;
is steadfast and patient,
but cloaked in a sadness of tired resignation.

Eternal outsider
Condemned to be neither
Woodsfolk nor Townsfolk, he lives on the border

--------------------------------------

The snow, it falls deeper
And the big, strong gatekeeper
is burning the beasts that died while they were sleeping.

The snow, it falls thicker
And your shadow falls sicker
But he’s not as ill as the gatekeeper figures.

The diggers dig earth just
to dig for no purpose.
They dig just to dig for their digging is perfect

As are all who stay there
Perfect in their way there
Except you and your shadow and the lonesome caretaker

credits

from In Verse, released September 15, 2010
Colm Hall: guitars, bass, keys, vocals
Stephen Whelan: drums
Julia MacConvillle: saw

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The Drop of a Hat Ireland

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