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  1. 06 Monochrome

From the recording LIONS AND BUTTERFLIES

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Jeremy and Lorraine: “In 2012, we wrote and
released a brand new song every single week as part of our Friday Song project, and we
welcomed ideas sent in from the public to inspire the songs. A number of the songs on this album began life as Friday Songs. A lovely Canadian lady, Carol Spurdens, who had seen us play in London two years previously sent us an idea that really got us thinking. She reflected on her trips to Europe, where she walked cobbled streets and viewed architecture, landscapes and sunsets that have remained unchanged in hundreds or even
thousands of years.
This got her thinking about how connected we are with the past, with our ancestors who would have shared the exact same view. And Carol added a bitter note - how sad she was that a group of London rioters had destroyed some vital
heritage in their own self-interest the summer before. On the front cover of our first album Kin, we used an image of Jeremy’s ancestors - in the sepia photograph of two parents with their two young children, the little girl and her baby brother, the latter who was Jeremy’s grandfather Dugald - were just starting their lives. Today they are long gone. We’re all on the same wheel of life from which none of us can choose to jump off, and one day we too will be part of history in some small way. We are not as far removed from our ancestors as sometimes we might feel when looking at their faded monochrome images in photo albums and history books. They shared our fears and our loves, our hopes for the future and great moments of humour and despair - they were real people too and if it weren’t for the
century or more dividing us, we might have even been friends.”

Lyrics

MONOCHROME

My feet tread the stones
Laid by hands long gone by
This same baking sun once was theirs
If we are the clones
Of a million past lives
We must carry their fears and their cares

In the same rippling waters
A child bathed and dreamed
Of yesterday’s victories in gold
Her daughter’s granddaughter’s
Night times now gleam
With the same visions centuries old

Monochrome
Sealed in the pages of a history book
Makes you out to be someone from another star
You stood on these streets
Watched the same sunset
You worried, you laughed
And at once we forget we’re a century apart
Monochrome

The tears and decay
Empire’s dark secret’s out
The towers of truth set in stone
Burnt down in a day
By those to whom hardship
Means missing the smartest smartphone

Monochrome
Sealed in the pages of a history book
Makes you out to be someone from another star
You stood on these streets
Watched the same sunset
You worried, you laughed
And at once we forget we’re a century apart
Monochrome