My Lagan Love/Crazy Man Michael(For Miss S)

MY LAGAN LOVE Snow falls in the outside world flake after flake clinging for dear life to the window pane as it softly erases our gazes stuck upon the glass the fire roaring behind us with all the gusto of past Christmases two worlds existing at once separated only by the mind of the little boy for whom it was always forever the first time as if the world was being created for him just that second as if God had said: “Look…I have this idea? ” sketching it quickly in white asking: “Well, … what do ya think? ” And then impatiently rubbing it out and then drawing it again in snow & always his father’s voice singing somewhere in the darkness MY LAGAN LOVE. ****** C R A Z Y M A N M I C H A E L Unknown woman lost in the darkness of an enormous fireplace black hair framing a death pale face her dark dress making her almost invisible a singing floating head hands white doves taking flight in gesture almost mythical your voice tells the tale of CRAZY MAN MICHAEL each breath almost magical as your voice shapes his fate & he kills his own true love by mistake. “For his true love is flown into every flower grown & he must be keeper of the garden, ” Unknown woman singing in the darkness always your voice the tears in my eyes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These are two beautiful songs that have stayed with me all through my life…I wouldn’t be without them. MY LAGAN LOVE would have been first heard on the radio program SUNDAY MISCELENY again and again as an ancient air or sung by man or woman or transformed by Horslips into an electric guitar fantasia. I loved all versions. The favorite one being my Dad going out to get coal one childhood Chrsitmas singing a wordless version to himself…his voice hanging in the darkness as bright as any star. A thing of beauty and my joy for ever. CRAZY MAN MICHAEL seems like an eternally old ballad dragged back into the future but was actually written by Richard Thompson and sung by the incomparable Sandy Denny. I went to the Grapevine Arts Centre for a folk session and as I entered the door framed in this magnificent fireplace this vision sang this version from her darkness. It was as if LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI had come alive and could sing me to death with her song. I was stunned and in love with the song ever since!