Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Seatrain - Scratch (Watch,1973)



Seatrain - Scratch (Watch,1973)
Progressive Folk.
A unique and subtly balanced mix of melodic Folk, Country, Psychedelic Rock, Funk, Blues, Jazz and even Classical (mainly baroque fugues à la Bach) played on a rich ensemble of intruments. One the most beautiful world of Psychedelia allegory, like a dream around the history of music.Seatrain evolved out of the ashes of The Blues Project, lead by flutist Andy Kulberg.

Scratch

It was not far from the place that I was born
Times were slow I was young
A strange young man lived in our town
We used to call him Scratch
The undertaker's son

Now Scratch was tall and bent like a willow in the wind
He could not speak a single word tho something raged in him
For every night til dawn he'd sit up on Pilgram's Hill
Playing crazed and lonely songs
On his wore out violin

The people of the town would laugh at Scratch with scorn
They could not see the loneliness inside his twisted form
All except for Mercy Shaw who chose to be his friend
She came to him almost every night
Until the autumn's end

One dark night on the cliffs above the town
Mercy went to meet him so the story goes around
Scratch turned round to take her hand
Mercy didn't know
He heard her cry he saw her fall
To the valley far below
And oh the wayward wind
Down in the valley
Sounds like folks are out there cryin'
And oh this helpless feeling deep inside me
A man can only keep on tryin'
To keep from dyin'

You know they looked for Scratch for many nights and days
And tho they could not find him
They say his spirit stays
For every night I hear the wailin' of a violin
I know that it's only lonely Scratch
The under taker's son

2 comments:

Dyan said...

Thank you so much for having this lovely song where I could hear it again. Love the melody as well as the words!

Anonymous said...

This song has been haunting me for three days. (Well, really longer than that, I guess.) I had an idea for a short story watching a performer at the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest and this song came to mind. I didn't think I'd be able to find it after all these years. Thank you for posting it here.
teresa