We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Fish House Blues

by Daniel Shaw

/
1.
From the window of my home Where I’ve lived for13 Springs Stands a house all alone With fields and meadows in rings -And it’s stood for the best part of a thousand years While the world all around it has grown in fear And come the night We’ll all be singing And come the night We’ll all be longing For the Fish House blues There’s still an orchard Where there used to be some vines They used to fish In the Lake that’s drained behind -Kings used to visit with the Monks in a boat Reeds are still waving but now commoners got the vote Knights and Landholders Were written in the book Jack fingers took the rent In eels caught to cook - Doulting Stones standing on the Lyme Secrets of the Roman Reich buried and left to find (with the pools and the Pike) Belief builds the stones And belief pulls them down It all left its mark On the brow of this town - Willows bend and sway in lines left to root But thatch is now tiled up tooth to tooth
2.
Floating Coal, Floating Stone Dig out the peat down to the bone Herons fish and Bitterns Boom Dig out the draft to make more room Hauling down to Bridies Yard Sign the paper and stamp your card From Bristol down to Highbridge wall Bullied’s climbing tower fall They All fell under the Spell Of the Glastonbury Canal John’s corpse in the Graveyard Sprawled He never shouted; he never called Left the company; left the plan Silted up before it began Dry canal, no tracks on the line All roads covered with the grace of time But we still follow the Roman Roads By width and length, weight of the load Now Dead Tracks Lie Parallel To The Glastonbury Canal Investments come and money flows Canals silt up and money goes Roman roads and Roman Stones By the hollow way where no one goes Dry canals and sleepless paths Used for goods; used by craft When John Climbed the stairs of the Tower He had no bread, he had no flour _ Boats are waiting in dry dock To line the wallet and turn the lock Subscription Signed with an honest pound John was a man down to the ground Carrying Coal and Loads of Stone From Bristol City Banks and Loans Back with Weary all Brick Clay But nothing flows but the drains today The Commercial Rationale Of the Glastonbury Canal Now I’m walking down paths in the reeds Fish in the Lake, birds in the trees Investors jump, finance fails & Ahab chases the great white whale He tries to strike but he’ll fail A black scar in the blubber pale Cuts through flesh of the land Lines traced on Glastonbury’s hand
3.
Leatherman 10:05
I could be the leatherman Who worked in Leather town With Leather hands Maybe I'll stitch your shoes Or take up some other muse Maybe there will be no work I'll hang my head and stand in cues Perhaps the grass will grow green Fat livestock with wide hides Perhaps the other side more green is seen Blue to you a sky trial dream But I could be a leatherman I could be the Leatherman Who worked in leather town With leather hands Or I could be the minor man in sheep town: that burnt out land And the rain falls: the grass grows Nothing to harvest: Nothing to grow And we all join up with the merchant man Ring his tills and shake his hands Or maybe I'm just a busker man Giving tourist thrills the best I can And the rain falls: the grass grows Nothing to harvest: Nothing to sow
4.
I Won't 03:06
I won't disappear in the night Covering up your pain Not leave you at a bus station Alone in the rain You can know I won't close the door on you You can know I won't open a book on you I won't change the rules I won't play the fool I won't push you out and Not pull you in again I won't tell you one thing Then whisper another won't betray your trust Or Judas your brother I'll not take away things Or laugh at your Jewels (they don't belong to me) Or use words like tools I'll never let you down More than you can be let down I won't steal your crown When your time comes around I'll never forget your eyes When I'm looking through mine Not spend too much When all we have is time
5.
6.
Ammonite 04:00
From Water we came To water we return The Marshes Drained The Peat is burned. Bleached Shells remain Soil turns and changed The Wild and the tamed Reeds have returned. Patterns in the rock The walls of a sea No heard no flock No eels for tea. Hawthorns grow back Willows grow slack Walk the Sweet track Piled up peat stack. A hill in the sky A tower in the air Whistles good bye To foul and fair It remains; It’s there: Ammonite.
7.
Lake Village 02:37
8.
Apples drop in the orchard, thumping to the ground. They choose their time and make their own sound. If you’ve tasted it, then you really know: Never gather apples, fallen in the snow. Tiny reds on one limb, Golden globes on the other side. Gnarly lichen branches bent low and wide. Scrumping through the garden gate, brambles and snakes Dropping fruit that rots till the wasps awake. Lying in the Summer hay Fizzing and fermenting till The cold embrace of snow comes And makes nature still.
9.
You'll find these lyrics appearing in some of my other songs on different albums too...(Mossflower) they have the same theme and were written about the same time
10.
Timber Ships 04:29
For 800 years she has swum the seas From the cool of the North to Pacific warm breeze But now her cousins don’t call And the endless song has died The seas are all empty Through all the world wide But her great eye has seen And her dark mind remembers Like a fire burning Down to its final embers Her children swimming As the sea birds call Safe from the storms And the timber ships tall. Will my son’s son ever see a whale? Once he could have walked On a cetacean’s tail From the mainland down to Nantucket beach Now the bleached bones lie white Deep out of thought and reach.
11.
Dredging again, keeping halls free of mud the sea smell of scoop reeds stacked brings back the Cary river, where I grew chasing eels between pith prisms piled and packed Obsidian Skin, wraps gulping gills round reflex jaw with Purple Blood the dead head drops, with staring eyes skinned knees cracking brown mud Silent and secret sea, in forgotten breeding grounds Swim the cold silver monsters they dwell and dream in the depths dreaming of the silver children Swimming across streams to the stars dreaming of the silver children Swimming across streams to the stars Dredging again: Seaweed Smell Mud Flooded Kitchens and halls Prisms of Pith piled Scooped Reeds Stacked brown mud knees And wriggling monsters Flipping fins, gulping gills Opinel knife: purple blood Dead severed head With staring eyes obsidian skin Wraps tiny teeth in reflex jaw Silent and secret sea forgotten breeding patch giant cold silver monsters dwell and dream in the depths Dreaming of silver children swimming across streams of the stars
12.
Dark Room 05:09
Alfie Galpin - Background Vocal loop?
13.
14.
The Apiarist 06:12
Stealing Sweet Honey with smoke Do the Bees love the thief If she brings icing treats When the flowers don’t give what they need? A soft white slab melting in the morning dew Giving sugar gifts to the queen While we take treasured gifts from her daughters Lapping the sweet pools under the rough palace. And the Apiarist takes what she needs. Does a hive leave a ghost When a Princess births a new host? Does her dance leave a mark Between cells of chewed bark? Does She whisper to Valentine Dusting pollen from Columbines Or heather from the hills behind: The secret flowers that they find. But the Apiarist takes what she needs.
15.
The Great Eel Chases the Bore down the tidal Funnel. Glass Eels Return from spawning in Caribbean Seas To Swim the tidal scoop up the Severn; then the Brue to lie and hide in ditches Sliding up muddy banks to find their way to wetland; Lurking to places to hide and slide and become yellow; Dragging bellies over drowned roots and Ramshorn snails To slyly lie hidden from Herons, Bitterns, Great Egrets and Otters, Till Twenty Years pass and the Silver returns to the Sea The tide reaches inland with its powerful fingers But the Serpent tastes Mud, Hides and Lingers We turn our backs to the estuarine blankness, the bleak muddy sands. Did glass eel fishermen live here before Sixteen Sixteen's wave washed away Brean? To leave sad Dunes and bare Heath Meadows Till train and canal connected the Celts with the Iron Steen Ships moored Avoiding mud banks Or away to France and Grand tours. Now Ghosts of Inns Rot by Pale Arcades as punters submarine through Gloucestershire tunnels, And the parish church lists like a steamship stuck on a mud bank. The tide reaches inland with its powerful fingers But the Serpent tastes Mud, Hides and Lingers In the Brown churning waters The Serpent Slides with the tide Pulling Nudd's chariot: The Chthonic Lord of the Mine and the deep Brine. Did She swim the Severn inland to the Omphalos of Oxford to find A Roman Wyrm entombed? Locked in fierce embrace with a Celtic Red Beast Re-entombed by Gwyn in Emry's Halls to wait for Vortigern. Now it's our turn as they fly free And a Plague falls on all our Houses. The tide reaches inland with its powerful fingers But the Serpent tastes Mud, Hides and Lingers
16.
Sat in a Box on the Somerset Levels Staring out of the Concrete bevels Taking turns with the wooden Gun In the box in the rain; in the box in the sun. The Rota moves on until My turn now to unlock and fill Ammunition tin with Horlick and Rum Keeping me warm till my shift is done. Moonlit night out on the drain With Ramshorn snails swimming in the rain The Rhine spawns mobs of gurgling toads While Cows rub the concrete with their nose. I sight the fish house dark and dim Between a nail and the gunstock trim There will be no tanks rolling in tonight: Meare will be safe till the dawning light. Ironside Sealion, GHQ Line To Highbridge and the Taunton Stop Line I'll rest my old bones in the pillbox Night Till the boys come home from the fight Boxes on Stop Line Green Slowly sinking in the Rhyne Steel and Concrete cracks with time But we all took turns and held the line. We place the Poppies around the cross To remember the fallen, remember the lost Steel and concrete cracks with time But we took turns to hold the line.

about

‘This is sounding great man. Congrats. Getting echoes of The Waterboys, and Nick Cave at times which is no bad thing!’ Matt Owens (Noah & The Whale)

‘I love your sound! Such musicality and those lovely bursts of harmony complement your solo voice so beautifully. The harmonica sounds amazing, and I love the low strings …It’s a wonderfully evocative sound…
The title track reminds me of Al Stewart’s ‘Year of the Cat’ – both your voice and the tone of the song. I know ‘Leatherman’ isn’t actually about crafting things from leather, but it struck a chord with me as I’ve taken to leatherwork during lockdown!’ Mandy Woods

‘A heartfelt modern blend of blues and English folk. All brought together with Dan’s vocals which fills you with a sense of comfort in such an uncomfortable time’ Joshua Faulkner

Dan: I am 45, I hope that means I am at least ‘middle-aged’. In the strangest year of my life, we have all faced mortality in different ways. Some have turned to creative outlets but we have all also been ‘hibernating’ in our own ways waiting for the spring rays of light to crack open a new world.

I have been working on a ‘Songs from Somerset’ type album since I struggled out a collection called ‘Little Boy blues’. That album dealt with things like fatherhood and being a husband. New song ideas between then and now had been explored and often recorded with different bands and projects, some became whole releases. (three Minor Works Unit releases, Work with Mr Keep Calm & The Cancelled Cheques, Mossflower: Moorage Heart).
With the song ‘Fish House Blues’, my ideas and sound started to crystalise. The themes explore my place in my village where we live on the Somerset Levels, the wetlands. The whole of history behind me and the future stretching out in front: it turns out to be a strange and different one.

Under the Lockdowns, our worlds shrunk to where we could walk and each expedition became an adventure of discovery – that snail shell by the rhyne suddenly seems to glow with a sensory intensity to eyes that had been limited each day to an 11-inch computer screen.

As I started to write, strange new songs tumbled out, gradually replacing the few songs that had piled up since ‘Little Boy Blues’. I enjoyed playing music with my daughter, a very competent violinist and the rest of my family (my wife plays cello & Flute and my son, keys) and explored the tonalities of bowed double bass, acoustic piano and the many other acoustic instruments in my studio, including recorders (my wife is a great flautist and says my playing sounds like a key stage one player!)

The songs represent 12 months of trying to teach music to FE students, either through a mask or on a computer screen during the lock-downs. My infrequent walks became desperate adventures to allow my mind to escape into the history and stories of the place where we live. After all, this year will finally be represented in a single ring in a cut tree.

credits

released April 20, 2021

Here is some of what I remember being played:
Daniel Shaw – acoustic, electric, Semi-acoustic, & 12 string guitars. Mandolin. Harmonica. Lever Harp. Bowed and plucked Double bass. Bass guitar. Soprano, Treble and Tenor recorders. Percussion, Bodhran and some drums. Vocals and backing vocals. Acoustic piano, keys and a little programming. Engineering, mixing.
Fiona Shaw – Cello on Timber ships
Abi Shaw – Violin on Timber ships, Leatherman & Glastonbury Canal
Alfie Galpin – vocal loop on Darkroom?
Max Gittens – mono Ribbon looped drums on There’s no choice now.
Reese Crossley– awesome drums on perhaps one track (although the track he played on may not have made it onto this album)?
Harry Carpenter – perhaps some awesome drums on a couple of tracks (Silver Children & I will bring you home)?
The couple of tracks that made it through from before lockdown (Silver children and I will bring you home) are a bit of a blur.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Daniel Shaw Glastonbury, UK

Daniel Shaw based in Glastonbury & S.W.area.
Past work includes performances with the poet Laureate, Simon Armitage; & performances in Europe, Tennessee, Kolkatta and the Uk.
Daniel has also performed and recorded with the The Aardvarks, double bass & Bass with Mossflower, The Minor Works Unit, Mr Keep Calm & The Cancelled Cheques, The Blackdown Bluebirds andThe Duncan Batey Trio.
... more

contact / help

Contact Daniel Shaw

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Daniel Shaw, you may also like: