[critique] Re: New Song: Searching for a title

[Sean Cleary <SCleary@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gloster Road Castle seems to be a good title. Many a informal title has
come from the chorus.

Also if you can find some one to sketch it or document it (you must have
photographed it) those documentation efforts may be valuable, and in
anycase will guide your dreams of doing something like that.
Sean

	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Gwenzilla [SMTP:wireharp@bellsouth.net]
	Sent:	Monday, February 26, 2001 12:39
	To:	critique@filknet.org
	Subject:	[critique] New Song: Searching for a title

	No, that's not the title of the song!
	And this song has a story behind it, so I'll tell the story
after the song.

	We turned down the side street, crossed over the tracks
	Passed depot building and old clapboard shacks.
	You've got to see this house, I'd mortgage my soul,
	But when we got there all we found was a hole.

	Backhoes and bulldozers, new-ravaged earth,
	I know what that property must have been worth.
	Whether some redneck's folly, some bankruptcy loss,
	A house that won't sell is just an albatross.

	     (refrain)
	     Progress, the wrecking ball, heavy and slow,
	     Greedy developers all in a row,
	     There's a storm in the suburbs-- the bulldozers roar,
	     The Gloster Road Castle is standing no more.

	Two red brick turrets, a lake in the back,
	A drawbridge that led to a winding brick track,
	Down to the gatehouse, the arches, the towers:
	A lifetime's work leveled in just a few hours.

	Somebody's castle, a home built by hand,
	Somebody making his own promised land,
	Somebody's fantasy, beaten to dust,
	A fast-rolling bulldozer gathers no rust.

	     (refrain)

	Reverence in red brick for that ethical code,*
	Something worth hoping for down Gloster Road,
	Insurance that wishes might really come true,
	Without this to dream upon, what will I do?

	I'll work for my wages and bow to the Powers,
	One day if I can, I will build my own towers,
	Continue to trust the world, cold as she seems,
	And write songs to fill up the holes in my dreams.

	     (refrain)

	There's the song. Now, here's the story. I didn't want to tell
the story first.

	I live in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and in Lawrenceville, Georgia,
on a little side street called Gloster Road, there was a castle. It was
obviously somebody's labor of love, made entirely from red brick, and it
sat in the middle of a lot of residential property, not far from a large
railroad crossing. It didn't look entirely out of place, but only
because you could imagine that it had been there for awhile. It had two
towers, a long house-space in between with arches and ironwork,
nondescript grounds with a pickup truck sitting off to the side, and a
huge red brick wall around the whole property with a drawbridge over a
gutter 'moat' around the outside. 

	A little over a week ago, Friday before last in fact, I stayed
home from work to help a friend out with his broken down car. He, his
wife, and I had taken time off for lunch, then gone by my house for more
tools, and on the way out, I decided I had to take them by this
beautiful house, the Gloster Road Castle, because it would brighten
their day up a little bit. 

	So we drove down the side street and I noticed all this new
development, and then we got to the end of the street, and I'd missed
the castle. So I turned around and we drove back, slowly.

	It turns out, the new development was where the castle used to
be; it had been leveled. There were bulldozers and backhoes and trucks
all over the place. And a teeny tiny pile of red bricks in one corner.

	I drove by again this morning. You can still see just the barest
bit of that careful brick work on the driveway, how it was built up and
curved just so to look like a drawbridge. 

	I don't know why the castle was torn down, although I can think
of several scenarios, and I'm not sure I want to know.  Something
beautiful is gone. I used to entertain pipe dreams of buying the place
one day, but now there'll be a subdivision called "Castle Grounds" or
something equally insipid there.

	Anyway, it ruined my day. I was in a blue funk for the rest of
the day, and I started the song that evening. I finished all the verses
Monday or Tuesday of last week, but there are still some lines I'm not
happy with, so I wait until today to post it.

	Does anyone have title ideas? The line with the * has given me
no end of trouble, as well.

	Hugs,
	Gwen