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Awarded items that deserve a bit of exposure. |
Okeedokee. When I was young, I was raised on this stuff. I recognized the rhythm and rhyme of it immediately. And just jumped on board for that ghostly ride. (Does anyone remember the first time they ever heard the original of "Ghost Riders in the Sky?) Sort of struck me, like that. That unmistakable metre....... da doddley dah, da doddley dah da doddley dah, de dum (repeat) A songwriter is tempted to sling it onto the back of a tune....... but then again, I think not. Some words need their driving wheels to race across the tracks of a page, without the baggage car of a tune - (that midnight whistle is tuneful enough.) Travelin' light makes for more speed. Notice, how the stage is set, without fanfare the train is just there as if coming up with no warning. And then you have the sight and the sound of it the smoke and the sparks and that glorious wailing whistle echoing through that high sound chamber up to the clouds, the stars eternity itself. But (oh my) It doesn't just roar on by. No. As if..........it were an animated inanimate object. There are...........(someone) on it. Up stand the hairs of imagination's consternation. Who? How? What? The riders. And that's where the real story is. The one that lingers long after the train is gone. For me, tis old time, sure enough. Like the childhood memories that raised the freckles on the skin and mumbled through dreams deep into the night and nibbled round the breakfast bowl long after all the shadows faded. Not so easy to bring all that back, these days - but this did. Like Songs of a Sourdough Like Jack London's Tales of the North - like the stories my Grandfather told me. Bravo, Arakun. (a final flick of a polishing chamois.....and the glint of a silver swash upon a mantleshelf) - turns out the light and takes the dawg for a long walk. Captain Midnight Just let me laugh when it's funny and when it's sad, let me cry |