Broken Town [folk viola song accompaniment 1: plucking]

Описание: As an interlude in this channel's usual instrumental fare, here is a song. Here the viola is used as an accompaniment to singing. For this song I found plucking the strings worked best. (I'm working on another song at the moment which uses the bow, which may feature in a future video...)

I wrote this song in 2001. In 2006 it was recorded by Jackie Oates and Belinda O'Hooley, and it appears on Jackie's self-titled debut album. I didn't get round to recording my own version until 2018, when it was released on my album "Roll as a Hexagon". You can hear this album at:
https://helenbell.bandcamp.com/album/...

If you want to hear more of my songs, you can do so on my main songwriting channel:    / @helenbell  

[this channel that you're on right now primarily features instrumental music, at least for the moment]
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Website: https://www.folkviola.co.uk
Tip jar: https://ko-fi.com/folkviola
Bandcamp: https://folkviola.bandcamp.com/
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Lyrics:
I can't stay in this broken town
That rests beside a sullen sea
Standing in the dull, sad rain
This town is killing me
It's not the kind of breathless rain
For laughing in and running through
But quiet and grey in empty streets
With nothing left to do.

This town is like a broken heart
That once was bright and young and strong
And when an old love burnt it out
It tried to carry on
But now there's no-one left to buy
The shops are closing day by day
They’re boarding up a broken town
With nothing more to say.

If you were in this broken town
You'd fade into the aching grey
Like all the years of dried up tears
That still get in my way
This town can never be the same
And nor can I and nor can you
The cracks run far below the ground
There's nothing we can do.

If we could mend this broken town
We'd have to let the walls fall down
Strip the buildings to their bones
So we could see the strongest stones
On them we could build a wall
Could build a new town up again
But would the strongest stones survive
Or crack beneath the strain?

I can't stay in this broken town
And watch it crumble to the sea
As every rock that breaks away
Just takes a part of me
If I stay here I’ll turn to stone
So I will leave this broken town
And find a place where we might build
Anew on solid ground.