I was Inspired to write this remembering my friends and I vowed we’d never change and that music would be the one thing that we would hold on to. Then, after some years, I felt that I’d grown up and this wasn’t true, it was childish. Then later I realised that the one thing I only ever wanted to hold onto was the music. It formed me and my mates and it bound us together. It is the one thing that we have in common even though out paths parted years ago… for my friend Sola (Akin).

 

 

 

Do you remember Heart and Soul?

Heart and soul,

You didn’t have to sell it, or give it away,

It was there for everyone to see,

And the band just left you wanting more.

 We cried and laughed,

As it seeped into every pore,

And became embedded in the skin,

Creeping through the system and

Beyond the conscious,

 It shaped everything we said and did.

 

Some nights we used to just hang like this and talk,

 Or walk from town past midnight to the rhythm of a dragged drum

 With the buzz of the earthy hum left in our ears.

I thought these times were gone.

 

But if you listen closely,

 When the streets are left to the night,

 It’s still there.

 On the walk across to the gardens to where the ghosts of punks lie out bumming fags,

It’s still there.

 As the beat of feet strike the steel edge kerb in back Piccadilly,

And sound, lost in the damp night, curls around you and pulls you in,

It is still there my friend.

 

Do you remember the music that left a scar

Or ripped us up or tore us apart,

And we lived it through Ian’s words,

Heart and soul,

 still burning.