The Songs of Richard Thompson Part II: "Beeswing"

Now this is one of the big ones.

This song seems to be somewhat inspired by Bob Dylan's "Tangled up in Blue". Like the Dylan song, it's a love story set in the 1960s, and Thompson takes one of Dylan's verses ("I lived with them on Montague Street / In a basement down the stairs / There was music in the cafes at night / And revolution in the air") and transforms it into the beginning of this song: "I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love / They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves". But that's just the initial inspiration, from this beginning he transform it into his own epic of britain in the 1960s, and in the end it becomes a stunner of a song that may even be better than Dylan's. Well, possibly. "Tangled up in Blue" and "Beeswing" - these two mighty songs seem to be US and UK mirror images of each other. (Nice acoustic version of the Dylan song here)

The lyrics are a filled with ideas and with lyrical richness. The 1960s, the realities of working life, the problems associated with having a somewhat 'wild' girlfriend... towards the end of the song this wild child with "animal in her eyes" is transformed into a nearly mythic character, a faded flower with a wolfhound sleeping at her feet.

Brilliant song, and a brilliant piece of storytelling.

Live version, 2005:


BEESWING
(Orignally from "Mirror Blue", 1994)

"I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves
I took a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street
And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me

CHORUS:
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"

Brown hair zig-zag around her face and a look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights, there was animal in her eyes
She said "Young man, oh can't you see I'm not the factory kind
If you don't take me out of here I'll surely lose my mind"

CHORUS

We busked around the market towns and picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker lamps and pots and knives wherever we went
And I said that we might settle down, get a few acres dug
Fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug
She said "Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell.
You might be lord of half the world, you'll not own me as well"

CHORUS

We was camping down the Gower one time, the work was pretty good
She thought we shouldn't wait for the frost and I thought maybe we should
We was drinking more in those days and tempers reached a pitch
And like a fool I let her run with the rambling itch

Oh the last I heard she's sleeping rough back on the Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket and a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once, a man named Romany Brown
But even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down
And they say her flower is faded now, hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse

Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
And I miss her more than ever words could say
If I could just taste all of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Well I wouldn't want her any other way"