Salt, Sun And Time

I ran aground in a harbour town
Lost the taste for being free
Thank God He sent some gull-chased ship
To carry me to sea

Two thousand years and half a world away
Dying trees still grow greener when you pray

Silver scales flash bright and fade
In reeds along the shore
Like a pearl in sea of liquid jade
His ship comes shining
Like a crystal swan in a sky of suns
His ship comes shining.

July 25, 1973 – Stockholm

Also On:
Circles In The Stream – 1977
Mummy Dust – 1981
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 2 – 2014
Greatest Hits 1970-2020

released 1974 & 2005

Also On:
Speechless – 2005

Don’t want to go to no parties
Full of fair-weather friends
Don’t want to be in no “in” crowd
Chasing after every trend
Just want to stand on some hillside
In Wales with you
And fly — don’t have to tell you why

Don’t want to live in no mansion
Ornate as a crown prince’s church
Don’t want to live on no sidewalk
Underneath no pigeon’s perch
Just want to stand at the rainbow’s
Real end with you
And I don’t have to tell you why

December 1, 1973 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

Dusk breezes
On oiled water
Paint a pointillist facade
It’s ceaselessly shifting world —

Like today I’m far away
I see your face behind each time-blurred pane

Strings vibrate
Music leaps out
In a shimmering intrigue
Words unsaid whirl away like dust

From the sidewalk-sweeper’s broom
Across a fold in space you touch my hand

June 26, 1973 – London, England

released 1974 & 2005

Also On:
Speechless – 2005
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 2 – 2014

Outside the bar in the high street
Blind fingers spin an accordion reel
Shoes and sedan wheels grudgingly keeping time

Fishing boat stretched out at low tide
Dog and a black man work on the deck
Bright as a bottle, sunlight skips wave to wave

Part of a map of somewhere
Teases my foot like a haunting dream
Never so free, i’m lost in the seagulls’ flight

July 6, 1973 – Sheffield, England

Also On:
Circles In The Stream – 1977

released 1974

To keep the fire burning
Ain’t no easy game
But we’ll do it just the same

I’m going to the northland
Where the weather keeps you real
Till this devil’s law is repealed
And I know it won’t be long

released 1974

The stream is a motionless moment
Salmon in the sea swims deep
Pregnant with force as a prayer is
Spring in the hard earth sleeps

Like the snow on the stark spruce limb
Coated with ice, then stripped by wind
We melt away and return again
Stronger for the tempering flame
Stronger for the Saviour’s name.

December 25 1973 – Cumberland, Ontario, Canada