Songs: Without Music

By: Murphy, Paul

SONGS - WITHOUT MUSIC

The first volume of Irish folk-punk singer/songwriter Paul Murphy's lyric anthologies. This superb collection is mainly drawn from the period 1982 to 1997, with a few bookend pieces from either side of those years for context.

Much of the work herein covers the artists' performing years, and places an equal emphasis on his social commentary material, life reflections, and his love songs and ballads.

Many of these songs have found fresh audiences through his Internet performances, showing the uniqueness of his prose and alliteration have yet to be eclipsed in certain arenas: 'Bitter Realities', 'Urban Paranoia', 'Candle', 'So Many Times Before', and especially 'She Cried A Million Tears', remain at the pinnacle of their respective subject matters. Is there a better document of unrequited love than 'Maybe Tomorrow... Maybe Next Year', or a more harrowing dark-night of the soul prose than 'Sadness'?

On the more tender side, the epic ballads, 'The Fair Angel Of Sherborne' and 'Lady Helen' - each running over 20 minutes on album - stay high-watermarks of the genre.

Emotive, empowering, though-provoking, heartwarming and heart-rending, and occasionally, unsettling, this anthology showcases a master of the songwriting and prose-poem mediums at his peak.

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Menelaus And Paris excerpt]

Tonight won't give me any answers
She won't tell me why you saved me just to let me die again
I've been stone-walled and incriminated
Heaven-bound and intimidated
Somewhere I can hear the mission-bell chime
Somewhere, there's just one more mountain to climb

Your eyes don't look at me any more
You either look right thru' me, or you turn your face away
I've walked the sword and been compromised
Stranded in a land where there's no sun rise
Somehow the circle came to me complete
Somehow, I had one more mistake to repeat

Your words don't give your feelings away
You took my heart down to Poverty Row, and you left it there
I've been sold doubt and lied about
Shoot down the moon before I'm all cried out
Somewhere, there's a shadow calling your name
Somewhere in the dark, I'm doing the same

Show me how you know we can't go back
In spite of all you've done to me, my soul will always be yours
You're a flash-flood of switch-blade emotion
The White Queen of refused devotion
Sometime soon you'll come crashing to a halt
Sometime soon, you'll see who was at fault

I read evil in the mind of the man you once saved
I could live with it if he loved you, but he treats you like a slave
There's a bad deal on here, that no-one can win
If I can't meet the odds, don't let the wheel spin
I don't know what you are to him, but you're more than that to me
You'll always be much more than that to me....
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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DM9S2JK4
• ISBN13: 9798345597491
• Release Date: November 2024
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"