1 post tagged “bombing of coventry”
This song began in 1986 on Teesside with one of my band - Steve Ingledew showing me some keyboard chords in a
flattened key. I worked these in with another sequence I had that became the chorus. Another band member of Trev and the Collective Unconscious - Steve Gillgallon helped formulate the bridge. We needed some words and a title. My mother had sent me a copy of the Coventry Evening Telegraph with articles on the bombing of Coventry with memories of what it was like in air raid shelters in the centre of Coventry as the bombs were dropping all around. From 7 pm at night until the morning the bombs dropped. The scariest moments were in the early hours of the morning when they started dive bombing the city. This formed the theme for the piece and the words. The words were never finished or added although I performed it a few times at poetry.THE 1986
About the bombing of Coventry.
After the planes came
With bombs for our city.
After the night-raid’s
Nightmare intensity.
In the wake of the heartbreak-
Life-quakes
Sorrow in the heart-shocked
Fear-shelled
tomorrow.
Chorus
You – must carry on – Rise from the ashes – Soar in the sky
You – mustn’t give in – have faith in your future – pride in your past
You – must carry on – Rise from the ashes – Soar in the sky
You – mustn’t give in – Just like the phoenix – Never say die.
The Sirens sounded
The scramble for shelter.
Survival in crisis
Fear jammed the senses.
The drone of the bombers
Descending like demons
Menacing our skyways,
Our streets are exploding
Sudden cadence of brick-fall
Operation – Moonlight Sonata.
Bridge
This is for those who fell in the moonlight
While the bombers raged and the ….
In the silence
Of heart-stopped
emergence
From shelters
The seeking of loved ones
In rubble hid carnage.
A spirit was rising
Hardened by hammers
That called forth the flames
In the shape of a future.
From the embers of darkness
Fingers reach for the light.