Entries tagged with “shipwrecked” from smudie

When I was in Brest a couple of months ago, our car stopped briefly at some traffic lights and I saw a man standing in a launderette in the part of town known as Recouvrance. He had his cheek pressed firmly against the window and his gaze was lost somewhere in the middle distance, fixed on nowhere in particular (which is where I suspect he felt his life was heading) as the washing machines spun through their endless cycle behind him.

Inspired by this curious scene, I went on to write a song called Shipwrecked, which I then gave to someone I recently began supplying with lyrics in the hope she could do something with them. I'd been listening to a lot of Dominique A at the time, and it turns out she's quite a fan too.

Needless to say, my song is not about this man, or at least not only about him. Seeing him was just the spark, and the rest came the way it always does... inexplicably.

• Shipwrecked
  

A man stands
in a launderette
with his cheek pressed
to the window, to the glass,
somewhere in Brest.
He is shipwrecked.
He looks lost.
He looks down.

Some get lost at sea, yeah,
and others run aground,
their lives swept on the beach, yeah.
They're shipwrecked, left to drown.

I thought you
had stopped smoking,
but you've broken
other promises in the past.
Don't you forget,
we were shipwrecked.
Are we lost?
Are we found?

Some get lost at sea, yeah,
and others run aground,
their lives swept on the beach, yeah.
They're shipwrecked, left to drown.

Some get lost at sea, yeah,
and others run aground,
their lives swept on the beach, yeah.
They're shipwrecked, left to drown.

A man stands
in a launderette
with his cheek pressed
to the window, to the glass,
somewhere in Brest.
He is shipwrecked.
He looks lost.
He looks down.

*

This song has found a home, and is in the process of being set to music.