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Here’s me performing “The Wanderer” (published in Snakeskin) for my first-year class on 9th May.
07 Saturday Jul 2012
Posted Performances
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Here’s me performing “The Wanderer” (published in Snakeskin) for my first-year class on 9th May.
23 Monday Apr 2012
Posted Performances
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Edinburgh 2012, George Mackay Brown, Just Rain, Margaret Griffiths, Michael Boyd, My Naked Heart, Snakeskin, Streets of Gold, The Bard that Sang Stromness, The Festival of Spirituality and Peace, The Fringe 1980, The Story So Far, The Wanderer, Wilfred Owen
I’ve been booked by the Festival of Spirituality and Peace to play four concerts in Edinburgh on 6th, 8th, 10th & 12th August at 4pm each day.
They will be printing 10,000 programmes, where my event, “My Naked Heart”, will be described as follows:
“Melodic and melancholic songs on acoustic guitar by Scottish singer/songwriter, Duncan Gillies MacLaurin, who has now lived in Denmark for over two decades. He portrays the natural beauty of where he resides on the west coast of Jutland, pays homage to poets such as George Mackay Brown and Wilfred Owen, and paints the contours of his own personal vision. A complimentary pamphlet of his lyrics will be provided on entry.”
It will also be put on the Festival’s website with links to five of my songs: “The Bard That Sang Stromness”, “The Wanderer”, “Streets of Gold”, “My Naked Heart” and “The Story So Far”.
Hope to see you there then!
P.S. My friend, Michael Boyd, turns 50 on the day of my final concert, and he features in a poem/song I wrote called The Fringe, 1980, published in Snakeskin, October 2008. He can’t be there unfortunately, but I’ve promised to dedicate “My Naked Heart” to him.
P.P.S. I’m only planning to sing two of my sonnets, but one of those is “Just Rain”, my sonnet for Maz, aka Margaret Griffiths.
28 Tuesday Feb 2012
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This one has to be for Robert, the Solitary Walker:
You’ve always been a wanderer; you’ve always felt that roots
were tailor-made for grass and trees while you’ve gone round in boots.
You seldom get to wondering what you believe and why.
The thought you might regret it makes you laugh until you cry.
You’ve never been to Canada, New Zealand, or Peru;
you’ve never seen the Taj Mahal, Beijing, or Kathmandu.
I somehow doubt you’ll canter on a horse into Versailles.
The thought you might regret it makes you laugh until you cry.
You’ve never been to Portugal, Barbados, or New York.
I think you peaked performance-wise the day you learnt to walk.
You’ve never been important, and you’ve never been a spy.
The thought you might regret it makes you laugh until you cry.
You’ve never been to Chile, Pakistan, or New Orleans.
I guess you tired of competition in your early teens.
You don’t have any children to salute you when you die.
The thought you might regret it makes you laugh until you cry.
You’ve never been to Singapore, New Guinea, or Japan.
You didn’t want to run a race that everybody ran.
You listen to birds singing in the wilderness of Skye.
The thought you might regret it makes you laugh until you cry.
You’ve always been a wanderer; you’ve always felt that roots
were tailor-made for grass and trees while you’ve gone round in boots.
You seldom get to wondering what you believe and why.
The thought you might regret it makes you laugh until you cry.
(First published in Snakeskin, #158)