In this section

• UK Songwriting Contest judging explanation
• Songs

         I

He would drink by himself
And raise a weathered thumb
Towards the high shelf,
Calling another rum
And blackcurrant, without
Having to raise his voice,
Or order a quick stout
By a lifting of the eyes
And a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;
At closing time would go
In waders and peaked cap
Into the showery dark,
A dole-kept breadwinner
But a natural for work.
I loved his whole manner,
Sure-footed but too sly,
His deadpan sidling tact,
His fisherman's quick eye
And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible
To him, my other life.
Sometimes on the high stool,
Too busy with his knife
At a tobacco plug
And not meeting my eye,
In the pause after a slug
He mentioned poetry.
We would be on our own
And, always politic
And shy of condescension,
I would manage by some trick
To switch the talk to eels
Or lore of the horse and cart
Or the Provisionals.

But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew
Others obeyed, three nights
After they shot dead
The thirteen men in Derry.
PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,
BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday
Everyone held
His breath and trembled.

II

It was a day of cold
Raw silence, wind-blown
Surplice and soutane:
Rained-on, flower-laden
Coffin after coffin
Seemed to float from the door
Of the packed cathedral
Like blossoms on slow water.
The common funeral
Unrolled its swaddling band,
Lapping, tightening
Till we were braced and bound
Like brothers in a ring.

But he would not be held
At home by his own crowd
Whatever threats were phoned,
Whatever black flags waved.
I see him as he turned
In that bombed offending place,
Remorse fused with terror
In his still knowable face,
His cornered outfaced stare
Blinding in the flash.

He had gone miles away
For he drank like a fish
Nightly, naturally
Swimming towards the lure
Of warm lit-up places,
The blurred mesh and murmur
Drifting among glasses
In the gregarious smoke.
How culpable was he
That last night when he broke
Our tribe's complicity?
'Now, you're supposed to be
An educated man,'
I hear him say. 'Puzzle me
The right answer to that one.'

III

I missed his funeral,
Those quiet walkers
And sideways talkers
Shoaling out of his lane
To the respectable
Purring of the hearse...
They move in equal pace
With the habitual
Slow consolation
Of a dawdling engine,
The line lifted, hand
Over fist, cold sunshine
On the water, the land
Banked under fog: that morning
I was taken in his boat,
The screw purling, turning
Indolent fathoms white,
I tasted freedom with him.
To get out early, haul
Steadily off the bottom,
Dispraise the catch, and smile
As you find a rhythm
Working you, slow mile by mile,
Into your proper haunt
Somewhere, well out, beyond...

Dawn-sniffing revenant,
Plodder through midnight rain,
Question me again.

Casualty - Seamus Heaney

Songs

Well, here are a few. I'm a rubbish guitarist so my friend Dan Cox has done all the arrangements and playing. I'm also a dodgy singer but you'll have to live with that. Words are OK

Note: in 2007 I entered eleven of the songs below into the UK Songwriting Contest. Five became semi-finalists, four highly commended and two commended. I'm pretty pleased with this. Being a semi-finalist isn't quite as impressive as it sounds as it comes after the winner, the runners-up and the finalists but it does put the songs into the top 10 to 20 percent of the 5000 entries received. See the side panel for an explanation from the UKSC team about how the songs are judged

Here are the songs (in mp3 format) with notes and lyrics:

lily rose (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 commended
(There are fragments of many women in this song including my very first girlfriend who was indeed killed in a car accident)

dream (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 commended
(This is quite a strange song. When I was 18, I had a spectacularly vivid dream - almost like a revelation. I was running down a hill in Africa, barefoot, and I could see my feet cutting into and gripping the earth as I ran. I ran towards the valley into the most beautiful forest with butterflies, water and dappled sunlight. On the other side of the valley was a dry plain with long grasses and a small house enclosed by trees. The house was important but I didn’t know why and I never reached it. What made the dream remarkable was that for every action I took, every step, every sight, there was an intensely beautiful voice speaking softly, the words complementing everything I was doing or seeing. This song is my attempt to document that dream)

the one for you (song, lyrics)
(Written for my beautiful wife)

clarissa's song (song, lyrics)
(Written in 1980 for the, then, ten year old youngest sister of my wife, Felicity)

colour blind (song, lyrics)
(This is rather idealistic but valid nevertheless. I want to relate to people because they are people not because they are white people, black people or any other coloured people. In any case, colour is such a recent phenomenon in the history of mankind. Rather like Middle East or Irish history, it’s all a question of how far back you go)

the immigrant (song, lyrics)
(Several people to whom I’ve played this song had never heard of the word dago and didn’t realise that it was a term of racist abuse. The song deals with the irony of a South American refugee fleeing to the UK for a safer life and failing to find it because of his race)

saskia rose (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 highly commended, UK Songwriting Contest 2009 semi-finalist (lyrics only entry)
(In some circles this man might be described as a "seeker"; in others as psychologically unbalanced and easy prey. The song is about his corruption by a religious cult and its effects on him and his family)

journeys (song, lyrics)
(A multi-coloured VW Combi and a group of idealistic world truckers: they’re searching for life’s sacred mysteries but finding alongside them something rather less holy)

caroline (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 semi-finalist

blind man in the dark (song, lyrics)
(Written a very long time ago. It deals with a complete prat who couldn’t recognise a good thing if it sprang out and mugged him in reverse – happened in my early twenties in Sardinia)

she's the one (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 semi-finalist, UK Songwriting Contest 2009 semi-finalist (lyrics only entry)
(Although this is not a song about Rachel Corrie, the inspiration for it comes from her and people like her - brave young women who put their lives at risk for what they believe)

middle east lists (song, lyrics)
(I wanted to write a song about the problems in the Middle East and ended up doing about three months research all contained in a massive Excel spreadsheet. The more I looked at the problem, the more intractable the whole thing became. I think I’m with Ormsby-Gore who said “Palestine is largely inhabited by unreasonable people”. In the end I stripped out various lists from the research: peoples, people, military groups, holy sites, places. The chorus was constructed from all the words in the research that came out of the conflict. Where necessary the words have been positioned to help the rhyme. Other than being grouped, they are not in any order, nor are they definitive (they are just what was when I stopped the research), nor is there any intention to represent an opinion; any opinion or bias is entirely in the mind of the listener)

pdm (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 highly commended, UK Songwriting Contest 2009 semi-finalist (lyrics only entry)
(This is an extremely difficult song for me, for obvious reasons. Normally I record my songs one verse at a time but this I did in a single take)

flags on the moon (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 semi-finalist
(I originally called this “Memories” as it’s really just a bit of 60s nostalgia, moving from broken hearts to broken bodies. However, I do remember being disheartened that the chances of space colonisation bringing anything other than the same old conflict and greed were minimal and flags on the moon seemed a good metaphor)

for felicity (song, lyrics)
(she cried when she first heard it 30 years ago)

desolation (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 semi-finalist, UK Songwriting Contest 2009 semi-finalist (lyrics only entry)
(Some of my own suicidal thoughts appear in this song - thankfully not acted on!)

bombers (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 highly commended, UK Songwriting Contest 2009 semi-finalist (lyrics only entry)
(This contrasts the activities of two bombers. I had in mind a US pilot over Afghanistan and a Palestinian suicide bomber in, say, Tel Aviv. But, the song could just as easily be dealing with the same geographical area - almost as a tit for tat)

simon's song (song, lyrics)
(One for my brother, Simon. I'm sure I knicked the melody from Bruce Springsteen but I haven't been able to locate the relevant song. Anyone know?)

summer solstice (song, lyrics) UK Songwriting Contest 2009 semi-finalist (lyrics only entry)
(This song relates to our visit to Stonehenge in June 2004 for the solstice. Yes, King Arthur was there and I can recommend his book. This is the only song here on which I don't sing. I find it difficult to sing in tune and I really made a bad job of this one, so I asked the Guild of International Songwriters and Composers to provide the vocal track via their associates Scamp Studio. Personally, I like what the singer has done, despite unnecessarily mis-pronouncing both Gaia and Freya, although my family prefer my phrasing)

bloody shadow (song, lyrics) - UK Songwriting Contest 2007 highly commended
(After the terrorist bombings of July 7th 2005, the UK prime minister said that no belief, no matter how strongly held, could justify the blowing up of innocent civilians. He said this without a trace of irony. At the time this song was written between 28,000 and 32,000 civilians had been reported killed in Iraq since the start of hostilities in March 2003