Cork Singer/ Songwriter Jimmy Crowley shares special song ahead of St Valentine's Day
Cork singer songwriter Jimmy Crowley. Picture: Jim Coughlan.
LAST year, my sweetheart Eve wrote me a Valentine’s song; but shyness thus far has abrogated its revelation to you, my faithful readers, perhaps for a little time longer.
Who knows, I may let it out to the world next week or the week after. I used to have to toddle off backstage or hit the John whenever she’d sing it; but now, I’m brazening it out a bit better.
But I’m not playing down the great honour it is be sung about by one’s lover; nor am I not mindful of the dilatory return compliment.
I remember being mortified, like most timid, bespectacled apprentices, by all the hullabaloo the handsome fellas would get with Valentine cards; how they’d rub it in to we poor peaky n’er-do-wells and slag us off for not getting cards from the girls. ‘Twas a kind of a silent bullying process, much worse than getting a clatter in the yard or in the puss.
‘Tis known ever that the Roman emperor Claudius II Gothicus was a nasty piece of work. For he was the boyo who put away the original, authentic St Val, a respectable priest and physician, no less. And with him, I’ll engage, a misfortunate troupe of early Christians like St Stephen.
Because of the lack of reliable information about St Val, he was removed from the Vatican directory in 1969, although he is still the patron saint of lovers, epileptics, and beekeepers.
Legends are legion about Valentine. ‘Tis said that he defied the Emperor’s orders and married couples secretly to spare the husbands from the spoils of war. For some reason, St Valentine’s coagency with lovers reached a high point in the 14th century, enduring to the present day.
In one of my favourite books examining and noticing the calendar feasts, The Year In Ireland, Kevin Danaher, strangely enough, has little to say about the Irish interpretation of St Valentine. The feast, it seems, has been eclipsed by Shrove and St Brigid’s day.
John Murphy’s St Valentine’s Blues is far from frivolous. Rather, it is fraught with all the fearful potions of what we looked at last week in our examination of unrequited love.
Remember this year, kind friends, that for every joyous couple that you’ll meet out dining and drinking, there are single, forsaken ainniseoirs crying themselves to sleep in lonesome boudoirs all over the county.
But some day, perhaps, St Val will notice their plights and pair ’em off with kindred spirits.
I’m sitting alone in my bedroom,
And I stare at the clock on the wall.
The radio’s playing some sad songs,
But I can hear nothing at all.
Your wedding ring sits on the table:
Your housecoat hangs over a chair.
The sheets are still crumpled on our unmade bed;
I picture you still lying there.
Smoke fills my lungs from my ninth cigarette,
As I wait for the six A.M. news.
Coughing and crying and shaking;
I’ve got the Saint Valentine’s blues.
Winter is over and spring’s in the air,
But I’m on a very short fuse.
Days growing longer but I don’t seem to care,
I’ve got the Saint Valentine’s blues.
My sweetheart has left me, my heart in a box,
She locked it and tightened the screws.
Now I see no future don’t wind on the clocks,
I’m left with Saint Valentine’s blues.
I stumble downstairs to the kitchen,
With pots and pans piled by the sink.
I salvage a beer glass from under that pile
And pour me my first morning drink.
The postman delivers my next unpaid bill,
The grass in the garden grows high,
The small birds are chirping the tulips start blooming,
But I’ve got a tear in my eye.
The cold snows of winter are over at last,
But I am bereft and bemused.
My heart’s palpitating, it’s sure validating,
I’ve got me the Saint Valentine’s blues.
Winter is over and springs in the air,
But I’m on a very short fuse.
Days growing longer but I just don’t care,
I’ve got the Saint Valentine’s blues.
My sweetheart has left me, my heart in a box.
She locked it and tightened the screws.
Now I see no future don’t wind on the clocks,
I’m left with Saint Valentine’s blues.
