I visited St. Ives with my parents and Kathy Fuller (Davidson) as a teenager. An artist friend of theirs had taken us to spend an afternoon with Barbara Hepworth, the sculptor, whom I found terrifyingly imposing, and the painter Patrick Heron, who came out to greet us wearing bright purple pants and was hardly imposing by contrast. I re-visited St. Ives with a friend while on break from a creative writing program at Oxford, and made a pilgrimage to Talland House, Virginia Woolf's summer home. We stayed for over a week with an odd woman who insisted on waking us each morning by blasting an hour-long radio show devoted to the music of "Manly Barellow," with whom she was smitten. On a third trip to St. Ives in 2017, I re-visited Barbara Hepworth's house, which had since become part of the Tate Gallery, a branch of which had opened in St. Ives in 1993. The song was written as one of Steve Dawson's "remembrance" assignments.
lyrics
Hepworth
It’s morning in St. Ives and the socks are still damp on the line.
The air drifting in from the bay is equal parts heather and brine.
You were never a beauty even when you were young.
You were stubby and gnarled as a fisherman’s tongue,
And the grit in your voice polished rocks from the Providence Mine.
It’s morning in St. Ives. Mrs. Post switches on the radio,
There’s talk of The Troubles and an endless stream of Barry Manilow.
Here where ships have set sail, here where ships run aground,
The gate, as it closes, still makes the same sound
And the smells of the smoke and the roses will never let go.
CH: Take me back, take me back, oh, let me go with you
To the place where I was born when I was 22.
There are beautiful holes in us, every last one,
Look through my heart and you’ll see the rising sun.
It’s morning in St. Ives and they’re seining the nets in the bay,
And the view from the Talland House parlor is indigo, silver and grey.
Oh, ruthless gardener, oh, wounded gull
You carve up the mast and you carve out the hull
And what’s left is a vessel to carry your children away.
In the harbor at St. Ives, the catch is poured out on the dock
And the fishermen, mending their nets pass the time in what passes for talk.
And the sweep of the lighthouse beam, calling us home
Whispers that we are never and always alone
To the mothers who pace to and fro on the high widow’s walk.
credits
from The Valley,
released June 4, 2022
Music and Lyrics -- Nancy Burke
Vocals -- Nancy Burke, Steve Dawson
Instruments -- Steve Dawson
Recorded and Mixed at Kernel Sound Emporium by Steve Dawson
Mastered by Carl Saff
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