Spirit by Mike Scott

If you arrive home and find your house engulfed in flames the first impulse must be to rush inside and save something. Something that means something special to you. Something irreplaceable.

For me that would be a piece of paper hanging in a frame above my desk.

A piece of paper I received via the mail a long time ago. Sent to me by old friend who’d I’d just spend some time in England with.

At the time I was obsessed with the band The Waterboys and particularly the songwriter Mike Scott. Turns out the sister of this female friend was also a big Waterboys fan and when this friend had told her sister that she was hanging out with another Mike Scott devotee she was excited to know of someone else who was so moved by his lyrics.

A few weeks after I returned home I got a letter from this girl and inside were the lyrics to his song Spirit. Her sister had asked her to send them to me. The first half were the lyrics from the album version but the second half were the lyrics he’d sung on an extended version of the song. Lyrics I’d never heard before.

Lyrics that to this day inspire me.

So those flames can burn the fucking house to the ground, but they’re not getting my Spirit (a heavy-handed metaphor I’ll grant you, but true nonetheless).

SPIRIT

Man gets tired

Spirit don’t

Man surrenders

Spirit won’t

Man crawls

Spirit flies

Spirit lives when man dies

Man seems

Spirit is

Man dreams

The Spirit lives

Man is tethered

Spirit free

What Spirit is

Man can be

What Spirit is

Man can be

What Spirit is

Man can be

What Spirit is

The man can be

Now we tread the fresh fields

The higher ground and the summer slopes that

Man may someday climb on

Now we tread the fresh fields

The higher ground and the summer slopes that

Man may someday climb on

We’re on the heels of Rambo

We are in the swing

Chandelier-like dancing

And we feel everything

High on the wine of life

High on the wine of life

High on the wine of life

Untethered and free

Untethered and free

Untethered and free

Untethered and free, what Spirit is man can be

Man can be

Man can be

Man

Can

Be

Mike Scott