HALF A LIFETIME (Paul O’Brien)

A song I wrote after an evening on the internet. Forgive me Derek.

I was feeling sorry for myself, and thinking of the past

Wondering about my infant school, and children from my class

So I started up explorer, got myself a drink

It was getting pretty late, but it was quiet and I could think

I looked up names of places, to see if they had changed

Checking out the building sites, how the roads were re-arranged

When I came across a name I knew, with address and business card

I suppose I could have stopped myself, but I didn’t try too hard

So late last night I wrote a note,

to a man I’ve never seen

We’d played as kids together,

I was wondering how he’d been

What happened in the meantime?

What he’d done and what he’d seen

With more than half a lifetime,

and forty years between

I wrote about the wife and kids, the mortgage and the lawn

Places that I’d lived in, but never felt belonged

And now and then I’d love to go, through the lanes, around the back

And walk along that railway wall, into that cul-de-sac

Surprised, I got an e-mail back, “It’s really me” he said

“Remember I split your brother open, with a five-iron to the head?”

Funny I’d forgotten, all the stitches and the tears

Funny I’d forgotten, after nearly forty years.

SO LATE LAST NIGHT…

Way back in ninety-seven, his father passed away

But his mother keeps them laughing, even to this day

I remember them as old and grow-up, when we were nine or ten

It’s hard to think that we’re older now, than they were way back then.

We promised that we’d keep in touch, how soon we didn’t say

Knowing full well that there’s a lot, that might get in the way

But watch out all you class-mates, and friends from way back then

Some winter’s night, sometime soon, I’ll be googeling again!