REASON FOR REASON

(Words and music: (c) Robin Hill except where stated)

"O let us not sharpen these knives we carry"

"Reason For Reason" was my fourth completed collection. Once again, many of the songs originated between the 1970s and 1990s, including a large number which started life as poems - many of which were among my earliest pieces. The collection is concerned mainly with aspects of war and conflict. Most of the songs require little further explanation. Lyrics or music to some songs are based on the works of other authors or composers- a device I've used a few other times since. Credit is given where applicable, and in a lot of cases, little or no originality is claimed.

Some of the songs enjoyed a small musical revamp in 2020. I was pleased with the result, it provided a slightly fuller sound. However, I opted not to change any of the words, despite that I might have put some things differently (or not at all) today.

PAGE HISTORY:

Page added August 2004 - Notes added March 2019, updated June 2020 - Scores and Tabs added June 2020.

No audio samples available yet. These will follow soon.

All words (and music) are copyrighted. Any adaptation or duplication without consent is a breach of copyright.

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COVENTRY PARK (Armistice Day)

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

Armistice Day
Slips quietly away
To the echo of far distant voices;
And all that they said
Was a prayer for the dead
In a blend of appropriate noises.

Through the darkening trees
Comes a sound on the breeze,
Beckoning listeners near it;
But it`s calling aloud
To a poppy-clad crowd
Who are too busy praying to hear it.....

(Contents)

ENGLISH SOLDIERS

(Original words: Baring-Gould (adapted))

(Music: A S Sullivan)

Onward, English soldiers,
Marching off to war,
With a cross of iron
Going on before;
Glory is the banner
Held against the foe,
So, onward, English soldiers,
Towards a cross of stone.

(Contents)

WATER IN THE FONT (Part 1)

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

The men who bring the firewood
Are the ones with most to burn,
The ones who scorned the knowledge
The ones with least to learn;
Yet each is prisoner on a rack
Which only he can turn,
Captives with a freedom still to earn.

The pessimists are nothing more
Than optimists in pain,
And optimists merely pessimists
Who hold their heads in vain;
Yet who can tell quite which of them
Screams loudest in his brain,
Or which should be the one that takes the blame?

Lovers, though, are wounded worst,
For at the close of day,
Shackled to the chains they wear
To keep a bond at bay,
The stronger chains which might have been
Are cut and pulled away,
Reminding them the price they had to pay.

The wounds picked up from battlefields
Are festering and sore,
Not so much through the weapons used
As what men used them for;
And scratching only puffs them up
Much larger than before;
Yet still men try to scratch them even more.

(Contents)

WEREWOLF!

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

When the full moon eyes the stirring storm
And clouds all shed their usual forms
To slowly drift downwind and spawn,
He comes.....

When the curtains of the town are drawn
And folk are huddled safe and warm
From the night outside where the dead are born,
He comes.....

===

He comes in search of sleeping souls,
To drag them from the linen,
And haul them to the violent end
Of their violent beginning;
He drags them over lonely moors,
Where corpses rot away,
And when they`re sure of helplessness
He`ll work his evil way;
He`ll drag them to the twilight world
Where reality and dreams
All melt to one in the cauldron
Of their piercing curdling screams.

They don`t know who the werewolf is,
Or how to turn him back,
But ignorant of their ignorance,
They`ll join the hungry pack;
And hunt the beast with zig-zag fear,
Incapable of seeing
That just behind the werewolf`s form
Will lurk a human being;
A human being just like them
Who safe and warm in bed,
Wonders who the werewolf is,
And wants to see it dead.....

===

And when the man-pack have all returned
From the ashes of the lonely moor,
They still won`t know what werewolves are,
Or what it is they`re searching for.....

(Contents)

A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD (Part 1)

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

Let us join now in a prayer for the dead,
In tribute to them for the lives that they led,
For the evil they cured and the hunger they fed,
So that England takes heart from the heroes she bred,
That the battle tomorrow might forge her ahead.....

.....So, grateful and proud in the mud where they bled,
We erected an altar and prayed for the dead.....

(Contents)

A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD (Part 2)

(Words: Martin Rinckart Music: J Cruger arr. Robin Hill)

Now thank we all our God
With hearts and hands and voices
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices,
Who, from our mother`s arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love
And still is ours today.

(Contents)

THE CEILING

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

The ceiling is the apple of my eye;
I lie transfixed and watch its world go by,
Incapable of holding what I`m seeing:
This crippling self-examination hurts
Much less than what my twisted pain asserts
As each assertion, one by one, comes real
To plummet like a sink-line through my being:

===

Can`t they see the tangled chains I wear?
Can`t they understand I`m going spare
Beneath the pointless ceiling of their creed?

===

It isn`t that the games I played were wrong
So much as no-one else would play along,
For all that words like `loss` could not arise:
I made no rules, refused to limit play,
So each could move in his own individual way;
And even set no limit on the stake,
So each could play to give as well as take.
Yet that it was that got me in the end,
Since all I ever played for was a friend;
Nothing more and nothing less my prize:

===

Can`t they understand my plight is real?
Can`t they understand my need to feel
The warm soft helping hands I really need?

(Contents)

I ASK YOU!

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

So what was the point? I ask you!
Did you really believe you could make it worthwhile?
Did you think you`d survive the madness?
Did you think you`d come through with a nod and a smile?
What did you gain?
Do you think you could stand it again?
Do you believe there was ever a need?
And have you bothered to read
Between the lines of your creed?

Did you think you could live in dreamboats
As a slave to the endless swell of the tide?
Never heeding the land you sighted,
Never using the compass points as a guide?
Did you sail by the air?
Was there really anything there?
Were there stars pointing out the direction you sought?
And did you give them a thought
When it all came to nought?

So, what was the point? I ask you!
Did you really believe you could make it all pay?
Did you think you could leave the circle
Even though your own motives stood in your way?
So then, can you recall,
Was there ever a point to it all?
Were there reasons your madness rested upon,
Calling you on?-
And where have they gone?

(Contents)

DREAMERS

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

So painfully slow to have learned from your lessons,
So dreadfully quick to forget,
You have built us a house out of quicksand and gravel,
And proudly announced it has not fallen yet;
And when it collapses, as it must sometime,
You`ll just sigh, and build it anew,
While none of you reason the point of the things that you do.

A value that always needs saving is fragile,
And where is the value in that?
You can hold it against those who seek to destroy it,
Hold it up high as their armies fall flat;
But there won`t be much point to your hope and your glory
Until you can build them to last,
And little you value has ever done that in the past.

Before the time comes that we build for the future
There must be a future to build,
No invalid reason, no words with two meanings,
No fool-headed martyrs to kill and be killed;
But how do we open the eyes of the dreamers
Who won`t give their bodies a shake.
And who yawn at the dreamers already so widely awake?

(Contents)

AND THE BATTLE RAGED ON

No lyric - original music: Gustav Holst ('In The Bleak Midwinter' - adapted)

(Contents)

THE LEGEND

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

Protected by a fearful flame,
The legend lives unhindered fame,
Though yellowed is its ancient page
Which scorns all knowledge but its age;
And takes a man through half-built lies
Towards a luring paradise,
Much further than the deadened fields
In which his current fervour yields
The certainty he seeks; but he
Who spurns all but reality
And truth must stand alone to die:
A futile truth in a futile lie.....

(Contents)

WHERE FLOWERS LIE

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

The cenotaph where flowers lie
Points upwards to a clouded sky
As those around the tower rehearse their hymns,
Praying that the lord forgive their sins.

While we, observing for a while,
Reserve ourselves a sorry smile
For how their solemn prayers are all in vain,
That, given time, they`ll do the same again.....

(Contents)

REASON FOR REASON

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

Reason for reason,
Forgotten and buried,
Lies still too distant,
On paths too steep;
Yet some who have asked it
Have been delivered,
And stand there waiting
For those who sleep:

O let us not ask for
The refuge of heroes
At mindless crossroads
Of twisted lanes,
But journey beyond there
Towards forever,
With resolution,
In love again:

O let us not sharpen
These knives we carry,
But let us join hands now
Eternal friends,
That towering mountains
Might crumble before us
To blue horizons
Of journeys` ends.

(Contents)

WATER IN THE FONT (Part 2)

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

Thus when the water in the font below the altar turns to ice,
The liquid form of freedom takes a further form, and dries;
While those who kneel before it count the cost of sacrifice,
And know that pride and madness were the price.....

(Contents)

A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD (Part 3)

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

I shall be brave and not cry for the dead,
For they are just words in the stories I`ve read,
And your laughter wipes clean all the blood that they shed;
So that, of all the holes I might bury my head,
Not a word will be spoken as I make for, instead,
The deepest of all, in the sheets of your bed.

(Contents)

COVENTRY PARK (Men Of The Plaque)

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

Coventry Park,
You and I after dark;
The trees show the bare of November:
By each is a name,
But how do we feel the shame
For lives we can`t even remember?

Though it`s dark damp and cold,
We`ve each other to hold,
The cenotaph towering above us;
But they`re not coming back,
These men of the plaque:
We can finish the pastimes of lovers.....

(Contents)

A GRIPPING TALE OF THE HIGH SEAS

(Words and music: Robin Hill)

The rocks upon the sea were loose, and some were falling.
The sky looked empty, so I thought I`d do things for him:
I climbed on board and raised the sail, but as I steered into the gale,
I glanced upon the cliffs and saw a stranger calling.....

===

.....She was singing, sitting there singing,
And the echoes were ringing through my brain like a gong,
Hysterically screaming I was doing it wrong.....

===

.....I stared at her awhile, but pulled back, disbelieving,
The sea still rough, the slope still sheer, the boat still heaving:
I turned the wheel a few degrees, hell-bent on the open seas,
Relentless in the quest my vision was achieving.....

===

.....But the stranger, I still saw the stranger,
Warning me of a danger so awfully strange,
Frantically yelling that things had to change.....

===

.....Throughout her robe the colours ran
To stain my blurred yet vivid past,
But still two threads, their dye still fast,
Reminded me how things began,
And pointed ways ahead.....

.....The first was pitiful indeed,
For through their wild and waving creeds
Which men defined as destiny,
There lay a vicious tragedy:
There`d never been the slightest need
For all the blood they`d shed.....

.....The other thread was far less torn,
But even I could see right through
To make the false things all too true,
That in the end men failed to mourn
The foolish lives they led.....

===

.....And she called me, through her dark eyes she called me,
And though it appalled me, I just couldn`t say No,
The wheel now rebelling, I just had to let go.....

===

.....And as I watched she stood upon the rocks above me,
Her white gown falling to the sea, and she looked lovely:
I glanced again at the empty skies, but settled for the compromise,
And chanced my arm to climb and lie with one who loved me.....

(Contents)

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