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Broken Town

from Roll as a Hexagon by Helen Bell

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Nigel Harpur
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about

Written in 2001.

This song was covered by Jackie Oates in 2006 after she heard the band I was in at the time, Ola, performing it in Bristol. Ola never recorded the song; it's taken me nearly two decades since writing it to get round to recording my own version. It's the oldest song on this album by quite a long stretch - the majority of the material was written between 2011-2017.

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.

credits

from Roll as a Hexagon, released July 7, 2018
Helen Bell – vocal, synths, electric piano, recorders, bass guitar, accordion

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Helen Bell UK

Prog/folk/pop singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist specialising in viola and keyboard instruments.

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