Woke King Arthur

The title track from our forthcoming Arthur project "Wake King Arthur" and one that contrives to wake him up from his long sleep and come and save us from the appalling mess we are in at the moment. When a British government proudly adopts a motto like "Stop The Boats" as its shining motto and ideal you know we have fallen a long way from the Lost Land of chivalry and mercy, of might defending justice, which thrilled and inspired me as a boy. Wake me, wake me He come out on top, he beat Hordes of heathen, he pluck Swords of lightning from the BC AD 6 and 6/9teenth Century Justice might and mercy king of all chivalry. Wake me, wake me He Arth and Ursus, he yoke Rome and Logres, he ride Wings and horses, he steal Grails from Annwn as a Norman knight a bird of prey an earthed angel tree, Celtic god a Dark Age white horse galloping free. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. Wake me, wake me He ever present, he a Church-hilled dragon, he the King of Europe, never Heard of England, he a Druid henge a hollow hill a forest a sea British May King ever changing eternity. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. (spoken) You who think you defend This lost land of Logres From drowning migrants For your offshore profits You're not Arthur's Britons Follow your money GO! He fights invaders who claim Lost Land acres from the Drowning migrants, for their Offshore profits, he’s the Lose yourself to save yourself they don’t want to see Release the Pax Britannia brand of Arthur-ity. Woke King Arthur In the Twenty first Century.

A Dream Too Real To Live (First Take)

"Throw back, throw back, Excalibur!"
I begged Bedwyr - and twice more -
"Throw back, grown black, Excalibur
That I might live forever
That Light might strike forever!
In wicked shifting thickets, the thorn
Of my heart's bursting must be:
Rose-clad, at home, and sleeping,
Or gone is the dazzling dream
That Artos, once man Arthur,
(Mis-mothered where life faltered
On long-fought malice Mordered)
Is God, is lord immortal:
A dream too real to live, thrown
Out of your world and hurled, look!

A Christ sword to Word your sky!"

From our forthcoming Matter of Britain set "The Lost Land," this interpretation of the famous moment in the Arthur legends when the Mordred-conquering but broken king of Logres commands Bedivere (originally Bedwyr, first friend) to throw his enchanted sword Excalibur ('lightning blade') back into the Lake form whence it came, takes a number of things for granted which alas one cannot. First, that the Arthur legend is not the property of the English (as often believed) but of an older Celtic Britain which fought them for what became known as "Logres" the Lost Land - (modern Welsh Lloegr, England) - hence our use of a haunting Welsh tune. Second, the (to me) attractive Celtic 'otherworldliness' of the lyric is due - as in the verses of our "Morgan le Fay" - to my alternating use of two of the most common medieval Welsh meters (Morgan uses the other two) known collectively as cynghanedd (literally 'harmony')

The required intense focus on word-sounds and patterns here and in its sibling piece Morgan cast a spell over my composition which allowed magical thoughts to form. This in turn affected the choice of tune and the overall performance.

The Ballad of Breck's Isle!

The Ballad of Breck's Isle    (click to hear it)

"No man is an island but a part of the main." John Donne

As our sandy shores rock Euro-vision
With our white Cliff-Engelbert noir
And seize back control from green Brussels
And win a No Deal with Nil Points

The UK will win Eurovision again;
Cilla, with Ringo's hair.
The Tories will be Winston Churchill again.
(Except that they never were.)

You can keep your French shtick, your double Deutch,

Your Dolce-clad discothèques

Your  tiqui-taca, your Peps and your Klopps

Your Lattes and Pilsners and Becks.

You can keep your fromage, your Nordic noir,

Your Breughel and Brendan and Brecht,

Your Christendom, culture and 'civitas,'

Let me live on the Isle of Breck

Where coiffure d'Albert is Albert's of Heacham

And le bistrot a gastritis-pub;

Where mange tout de chef is Chav's All You Can Eat 

 And pure white folk rules at the club.

As our sandy shores rock Euro-vision

With our white Cliff-Engelbert noir

And seize back control from green Brussels

And win a no-deal with 'nil points',

England will win the World Cup again,

Harry Kane will be the hot Spur

The Who will be Number One again

(Except that they never were.)

You can keep your Rioja, your Pinot, your Brut,

Give us Spitfire and Bombadier

And Broadside and Bomber and Brexile Bitter

And rationing, hatred and fear.

It's the new party line, the new Civil War, 

Breaching kin, class, friend and Union

Eyes right, all salute the all-white flag

Of our half-mast donkey-led kingdom.

Full steam ahead to Breck's Isle, Ahoy!

A hundred percent right and sure

Or 52 on a confident day

Which it might not be anymore.

As our sandy shores rock Euro-vision

With our white Cliff-Engelbert noir

And seize back control from green Brussels

And win a no-deal with 'nil points',

Wales will win the World Cup/ beat the All Blacks/ again;

Real Madrid/ Warren Gatland/ the Spur;

The valleys be home-grown and funded again

(Except that they never were.)

100 percent for a four point turn

Going back where we weren't before

Back from the Front and that Normandy beach

Home to Brexile's doughty white shore.

We will fight in the plazas where families dine out,

Kick over their wine and cuisine;

We will never surrender our country and cod

And chip on the shoulder and Queen.

We are the champions of Europe we were

And will be, by running away

Backwards up Winston Churchill Drive 

Though his soft 'Will' has shrunk to hard 'May.'

As our sandy shores rock Euro-vision

With our white Cliff-Engelbert noir

And seize back control from green Brussels

And win a no-deal with 'nil points',

Northern Ireland will win the World Cup again,

A backstop midfield be the Spur,

Our Lost Lands will be Arthur's England again

(Except that they never were.)

Note

'Breck' is Middle English for breached, broken. 

A corner of a Norfolk field that is forever Europe