I CAN’T COME TO QUANTIFY THE FEELING
This extraordinary song by Irish singer-songwriter Lisa O’Neill was recommended on The Red Hand Files by a person called Bijan from Sandy in USA. I had no idea this gorgeous song even existed and was swept away by the raw, presence of the vocal and sheer beauty and mystery of the lyric. What a wonderful piece of writing. The child’s understanding voice at the end is a small stroke of genius. So beautiful the whole thing. Thank you so much, Bijan. ‘I can’t come to quantify the feeling’ but I feel like my world has been significantly enlarged. Much love to you. Love Susie. x
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQGUYgNhQa4
Old Note by Lisa O’Neill is among those mood pieces that could be played on top of nearly any montage imaginable and it would work – but listening now, here in the dark, it stirs my own recollections and conjurings of a past that didn’t happen in grainy celluloid but feels like it could – and perhaps even should – have.
Old Note
The wind whistled you in behind the springtime
Float, Old Note, new among my mind
You hold the note, the note just moves to move mine
Let go the note and so move everything
I can't come to quantify the feeling
I was walkin' home half in the dreamin'
The things that I was thinking I was singin'
The wind whistled you in behind the springin'
A star ran rings around the star before me
And spun and swooped and sank in rock beneath me
And mirrored what I've carried since I mеt me
And shot me back into the ground bеlow me
And there I met another note long buried
And sat upon its shoulders was a memory
A home but see, above me's gone so noisy
I almost think I do not recongnise me
Feathered friend, dig up and resurrect me
I long to live among the song of birdies
A lawless league of lonesome, lonesome beauty
Skies and skies and skies above duty
The wind whistled you in behind the springtime
Float, Old Note, new among my mind
You hold the note, the note just moves to move mine
Let go the note and so move everything
I can't come to quantify the feeling
I was walkin' home half in the dreamin'
The things that I was thinking I was singin'
The wind whistled you in behind the springin'
[Instrumental]
Spoken:
[Child’s voice]
It, the song is over
The song is old
The song is over that's why she's sad that's why she's lying down
[Adult voice]
Oh is she sad because the song is over?
[Child's voice]
Yes
[Adult voice]
Maybe why don't you find a new song to sing,
then it doesn't have to be over. You have other
songs that are part of you.[?]
[Child's voice] But peoples say no other songs [Adult voice] What peoples, love? [Child's voice] On the stairs Sing or sing or sing or come around Sing or sing now come my way Where is your legs? [Whispered ???]