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Anon

from The Gift by Harvey Andrews

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about

The songwriter has always been with us. Songs didn’t come out of thin air, or from committees. The 20th century was the century of song only because songwriters were suddenly was given the means of reproducing and selling their work like other artists.

lyrics

There's no name on the stone I sleep under today
There's no book that can tell of my time
But you know me so well when you sing roundelay
For you're singing my tune and my rhyme
I am Anon, you know me that way
I had something to say about life in my day
So I made a song and somewhere the sound of it
goes round and round, to be lost and then found
And that is the way that life is
That is the way it is with songs

It was in the alehouse, I would sing with the rest
then I made up a tune of my own
And a full harvest moon put the words in my head
As I trudged 'cross the fields to my home
When I sang it next day, my friends asked me how
Did I find my own song in the blade of my plough
So I asked in return how the stonemason saw
A sweet face in the stone on the old quarry floor
They asked “Is that the way that it is?”
I said “That is the way it is for me”

So they learned every word and they sang every note
Till my song was a work of renown
And within a six month I heard boys from the school
Whistling my tune in the town
And I smiled when I heard what came out of the sky
Coming now from a child as he quickly ran by
Would it pass from that child, when as father he'd sing
To a child of his own? Who'd believe such a thing
But that is the way that life is
That is the way it is with time

It was 20 years gone, when our parson came home
From a journey he'd made far away
He shook my hand hard, said the inn where he'd stayed
Had some men who sang there every day
And he'd listened with joy as one, with a bow
Sang the song that I'd found in the blade of my plough
So he told them my name, but they said that my song
Was as old as the hills, and our parson was wrong
I asked "Is that the way that life is?"
He said "That is the way it is my son"

So I worked and ploughed till my bones bowed and bent
I made up no more verses to sing
And it seemed that my life had been wasted and spent
On the curses my hard days would bring
Soon death came to call with a voice that cried Now!
And the song that I'd found in the blade of my plough
Leaped from my heart as I journeyed on
And I knew it would live even though I was gone
And that is the way that it is
That is the way it is for us all

There's no names on the stones we sleep under today
There's no books that can tell of our time
But you know us so well when you sing roundelay
For your singing our tune and our rhyme
We are Anon, you know us that way
We had something to say about life in our day
So we made our songs, and somewhere the sound of them
Goes round and round to be lost and then found
And that is the way that life is
That is the way it is with songs

credits

from The Gift, released January 1, 2001

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Harvey Andrews Shropshire, UK

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