Barry Macey  - 

aka - The Hatters Lane Boating Song

Leaving High Wycombe back in goodness-knows-when, my life became a 24-7 occupation of a TV cartoon animation studio in Soho’s Frith Street, juggling with the theatrical and illustrative antics of animated TV stars such as The Jackson 5, The Wombles, Paddington Bear, Roland Rat even!

Our rooms were almost above Ronnie Scott’s club and their toilet stack pipe came up through our studio, and up along with it came the music. Yep, the great and the good of the jazz world, particularly Good time George and Co practicing and performing, unbeknown to them, right up that pipe!

 I used to strum along just for fun on the old studio guitar, and later I could often be found in The Dog and Duck, working out melodies and jotting down lyrics and fragments of poems, and all kinds of notes on the great Soho life.

 After many more years sweating away in various Soho ‘fun factories’ and now with grown up daughters, I find myself in Princes Risborough still juggling with the animated antics of The Cramp Twins and Horrid Henry et al, but also converting my old and new observations into a stage musical called MIDNITE LAUNDERAMA. Set in a run-down inner city Laundromat, Midnite Launderama is a feel-good rags-to-riches story with ‘rock stardom’ the big prize, performed with original songs, a touch of pantomime and lots of dressing up. ‘Camp in the Damp’ you might say.  My guitar and I have just pitched the show to a producer at the Lyric Theatre in the West End as part of my on-going process of looking for contacts and development paths.

 All along my cartoonish way (musical theatre aside), many observations and merry moments have turned into stand-alone songs and poetry, maybe told with a guitar to hand or some just in spoken word. So now I’m in the process of developing an angle on performing my stuff.

The Fools in the Swill - Poem in the key of D minor

Picture this . . .                              

Your windows rattlin’ in the mornin’ rain

All the world’s madness startin’ again

The TV girl, she’s selling homes in Spain

So now you can fly away from the pain

She sez, borrow money have double-D’s like me

Cripple your friends with en-a-veee

I see girls all fighting for celebritee           

Then I spot one

Not on list A B C D or Zeeee

She sez “I can’t go on living just being me”

(points fingers at temple)

“Aim your camera phones at me then”

(pause)

S/FX Gun click…misfire…make to throw it away

Then I’ll be dead famous

All over you lot…and on the TV

Ice-caps melting into the sea

Hurricanes, floods, man-made misery

Politicians shouting vote for me

I’ll make the world a better place

Well, better for me

But it’s all too late fools

Can’t you see

Mother Nature’s taking back

What she gave us for free

Up stepped the Tambourine Man

No miracles to hand

So he turned around to look at the band

He counted them in, with a one, two and three

An’ the music sounded just as cool as can be

But said The Tambourine Man, riddle-me-reee

Ain’t no use anyone…Followin’ me

So, give peace a chance then

I want to be free

But this is the twenty first century

It’s renaissance versus ideology

With the human race drowning in misery

But the only thought that occurs to me

Wherever can John Lennon’s ashes be?

© barry Macey 2006  

Take a letter Miss Perameter    

 Here I am then

 Sitting on your veranda

Feeding flies

To your salamander

I see your panda

Hear your propaganda

I take a gander

I’m far grand-an-der

Me…Mr Gambler

Ten-to-one

My brains’ undone

Playing my guitar

Like a gun

It’s a whole lotta fun

So, that’s how it’s done

Listen my son

Gotta run

With my dollar bills

By the ton

Food for thought eh?

Yea, thought

Some taught

Some fraught

Some naught

Some brought

Some hard fought

Some passing

Some short

Some caught

Gamblers all

Having a ball

Get into the thrall

Get hip to the call

This stories’ tall

That’s all

All the best….Bazza x

PS You don’t have to be gay

To love John Paul Gautier

  By barry j macey 2008

American Inventor – crazy version 2    

The world I’m told

Is all a stage

But I’ve just gone and

Turned to a new page

Really gotta gauge now

Gauge this new plague now

Ha, still gotta duck man

Duck all the damn rage now

One day as I was climbing

Up my wooden stairs

Lots of flying saucepans

Filled the evening air

Aliens, aliens

Ha, that’s the rub

It’s just the folks downstairs

Falling way out of love

I’d just got my head down

When I felt a bump

That’s when my dreamboat sank

With a mighty thump

Comon’ girls, why you waiting

All hands to the pump

That’s better, now we’re all

In my bunk

bridge

Birdman flying

Way to near the sun

Wings got cooked

Way too overdone

Instead of using wax

Shoulda used

Uncle Sam’s

Chewing gum

Deep in the silver queendom

The arch crone spun his web

A silver tongued assassin

Writhing on his silvered bed

A silent silvered Elvis smiled

Bang bang man, your dead

And the silver wig flew right off

The crones silk-screened head

Comon’ now America

Land of the electric guitar

Please invent something new guys

Anything but another car

The 21 ^st Century’s gone way

Way too far

But at least up in the top spot

Sits. . . Obama

© barry macey 2009

This Krazy Mixed Up Kid                 by barry macey            

Now today . . .

I don’t see what religion

Has got to do with God

If eating meat is murder

How come picking a flower is not

No one wants to reason

With this fool hanging on the jib

But he sees the pirates in the Crow’s nest

Waiting to storm the bridge

Now the white cliffs of Dover

Grey in the gathering gloom

On them sits the Bluebird

Tweeting notes of doom

And the long dead Spitfire pilot

Radios’ ‘Bandits to the rear’

But the howling Spitfire’s cannon

Are only spitting tears

Now Albion’s heart is broken

But I see Pegasus taking wing

Flying to the sacred mountain

To drink from the Pierian spring

On his back jumps pretty Eos

She’s the goddess of the dawn

In service to the poets

But pelted with hate and scorn

Look, who do I see rumbling

Down this scary ride

Is it Dr Jekyll

Or maybe Mr Hyde

I’ve lost the plot I’m laughing

I’m splitting my aching sides

It’s just Laurel and Hardy joking their way

‘round life’s downhill butter-slide

Now the food upon your table

Where does it all come from

Brought in by planes and lorries

Ton, by ton, by ton

It’s in bottles, packets, bunches

In cartons, tins and pots

Ever wondered how you’re going to eat my friends

When the planes and lorries stop

Narcissus called out to Echo

‘Hell girl I’m looking fat’

Then almost before he knew it

His words bounced right on back

To the pool his tears were falling

Quick quick, slow, quick quick, slow

He looked just like Las Vegas Elvis

Kissin’ Marilyn Monroe

End                 

                              © barry macey 2008

Adrift on a tin tea tray – Southern Ocean 67 – Heartbroken

Rain swept

 Crushed spirit

Up

around

   Plummet

          down

Future

    Past

     none or less

Not dead

  nor living

Cold

     Wet

        Empty

 barry j macey      © bjmacey2000