I’ve been an admirer of Steve Knightleys songs for some time, but this one brought me up short. Listening to the lyrics touches me on so many levels. A sense of something lost beyond reach of time and space. A feeling of a life moved on and bereft of the feelings anchoring it. A hollow darkness where something, I’m not sure what, used to be.

Carried by the flow of Steve’s words I am transported to my South Warwickshire roots. Rain on my face, and chill air catching the back of my throat. Long, solitary walks on grey English country days. Coast path walking around Cornwall with rain driving through my clothing and the wild wicked surf a slipped footstep away. Bare feet on deliciously early morning dew wet turf. Slanted morning sunlight through trees, golden light in my eyes, and a sense of being touched in the very soul by something with no voice. A massive catalogue of memory accessed with the keys of pointless longing. The sad, hopeless knowledge that these moments are part of something that no longer exists.

A beautiful, evocative song for the exiled. Because I know there is no going home, for home is neither the place, and no longer where I left it.

Update: I’ve been thinking about this, and the thought has occurred that if I was very, incredibly lucky and some Producer person took a real liking to my work and wanted to make a movie of it; as in the case of ‘Steel’, Richard Matheson’s 1956 short story behind the hit movie ‘Real Steel‘. The people I’d insist on doing at least some of the music would be Steve Knightley and Show of Hands. ‘Exile’ hits a nerve with a particular sequence from ‘Sky Full of Stars‘ and oddly enough the tone of isolation felt by my lead character in ‘The Odd Machine‘.