I wrote this song during the Winter of 2003. It started in my head as a riff which was subsequently used and features in the song as a lead-in to the chorus.

The song explores depression from causation through to consequence. It is a topic that many are uncomfortable with and thus ultimately proves difficult to express artistically. The weight of the subject matter is contrasted against an upbeat and powerful rhythm which I hope works to good effect. I often wondered what this song would sound like done by someone with a gentle voice and an acoustic guitar. Perhaps it would fail dismally, who knows.

The lyrics for this song popped into my head in a matter of a few hours and writing them was unusually easy. I recorded the song on a digital system in Donegal in early 2004.

Was today in colour?
Was the sky metallic blue?
Were things in focus?
Did they seem grey to you too?
Did I fall down?
Did no one catch me?
Where on earth’s my angel?
Is she gone bad too?

I’m so tired of resting
In my resting place
Remembering the colour
Or was it grey?
Is tomorrow black?
Does it go that way?
The lighting is bad
It’s fading away

To live and die in grey
Give your soul away
The colour of the world is grey
Blame it on a child
Who never went away
To live and die in grey, in grey

So what’s your story?
Have you got the time?
Between you and me
It’s a very fine line
Do you see grey?
Do you colour it in?
Do you fit your space?
Do they let you?
Do they let you in?

To live and die in grey
So safe in all its shades
In dark or light, the grey is all I see
I’m fading away
A Child who never aged
To live and die in grey, in grey

So many greys
In many lights
Stare long enough
I’m Convinced it’s white
Remembering Colour
So hard tonight
Was it blinding?
What was it like?
What was it like?

To live and die in grey
Give your soul away
The colour of the world is grey
Blame it on a child
Who never went away
To live and die in grey, in grey

In grey…

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Copyright (C) 2004, Kieran Stafford

I used to live near Creevy Pier, Ballyshannon Co. Donegal a few years back. Whenever the weather forecast was bad, I would make a point of going down to the pier to watch the storms. It was on the exposed side of Donegal bay so when there was a large swell mixed with high winds, it was spectacular. I was down there one day in the middle of a raging Atlantic storm and this song literally “arrived” in my head in an almost complete form. I could hear the melody and knew the theme for each verse within about 20 seconds. It’s an experience that I never had again – an instant song that more or less wrote itself.

The song is pretty spiritual. It’s about finding something higher or deeper than ourselves. I am not a religious person and indeed not that spiritual, but in recent days have become aware of some degree of spirituality. Sometimes I feel homeless and unsettled in life. In our new globalised world, the primary concern of everyone seems to be the generation of wealth, more and more at the cost of everything else. I think this makes a lot of people feel homeless. This is about that, about being lost , about being found or the need to be found. (Hope).

I would dearly love to get this recorded using female vocals and traditional pipe instruments. That’s what it was written for.

In from the cold get you
Here by the embers we’ve kept
We have been searching with sorrow
The fields, since you left
Breaking down stone walls
Our faces gone pale from the rain
Facing the storm and the darkness
To see you again

In from the cold get you
Back in our arms you are warm
We shone a light from your window
To guide you from harm
I used to go to the ocean
To hear for your cry
In from the cold you have come
As the last light has died

In from the cold I have come
I was lost in the fields
While I was out on the Ocean
You cried out for me
I could not hear through the storm
Could not see through the rain
The light that you shone from my window
To show me the way
The light that you shone from my window
To see me again

Download mp3

Copyright (C) 2004, Kieran Stafford