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I've not done a 'Poem of the Week' in a while. This is not strictly a poem either, but fuck it. 'A Fair Exchange' completely encapsulates how I am feeling just now after the loss of a loved one.
Neil Pennycook demonstrated on 'Pissing On Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues' that he is one of Scotland's finest lyricists and Meursault's upcoming release 'All Creatures Will Make Merry' reinforces this fact. Forget the whole production debate surrounding the album as no one can argue with how brilliant the songwriting is.
Neil described the orgin of the song to The Skinny;
I wrote the lyrics for this song when I was about 18, maybe younger, and I still feel it's one of the strongest things I've written. It comes from a story I once read about a monk who lived in a beautiful temple. He lived there alone and loved it dearly. Over time the temple began to age and became structurally unsound. The monk realized that he would rather live with the temple as a memory than watch it rot and decay, so he burned it to the ground.
The fact he wrote the song when he was 18 will always baffle and astound me.
A Fair Exchange
I will tear you down
and that way I'll stay new
A memory is better than a ruin
Somethings take time
Somethings time will take
Oh, I will choose
my best times and burn them down
It's better off in thin air than on thin ground
Somethings take time
Somethings time will take
A Fair Exchange
Meursault are playing Mono in Glasgow on the 19th and Sneaky Pete's on the 21st.
