We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

Christmas in the Market Square
[the first of Blue-John’s songs to be broadcast on BBC national radio]

Christmas in the market square,
where a mighty tree held court.
Local radio came to town for the switch-on.
A brass quartet distilled warmth from the night.

Christmas in the market square.
Defiantly cheery. Just your sort of
thing. It’s a pity, then, that you couldn’t
be there, deliberately losing track of the hours.

Dawn breaks across the Vale deep in snow,
from the edge of the Moors to the Dales,
and the last of the winter swallows
calls to mind unclouded blue summer days.
Painful thinness (little more than a wisp of wood smoke),
despite a stream of biting air, swoops,
rolls, glides, caresses the frozen river.
Despite a blast of stinging crystals, we
won’t come to rest by the frozen river.

This is shaping up to be
a final set of words—
words that write themselves
in the snow.

Christmas Eve, the market square, above
the newsagents down by Finkle Street.
A spindly figure knocks back
a miniature bottle of cognac,
and waits for the last of the revellers,
who remonstrates with the night.

Unseen, an insubstantial man in the market square
allows a sharp frost to pick his bones clean.
A fleam of icy moonlight lets the tears flow out.
Deliberately lost, he leaves illogical tracks,
and they lead
to me.

Dawn breaks across the Vale deep in snow,
from the edge of the Moors to the Dales,
and the last of the winter swallows
calls to mind unclouded blue summer days.
Painful thinness (little more than a wisp of wood smoke),
despite a stream of biting air, swoops,
rolls, glides, caresses the frozen river.
Despite a blast of stinging crystals, we
won’t come to rest by the frozen river.

This is shaping up to be
a final set of words—
a last-ditch melody.
Intricately threaded constellations,
words that wrote themselves now sparkle brightly
in the sunshine.
Christmas in the market square.
A brass quartet distilled warmth from the night.

credits

from The Red Telephone Boxes' Graveyard EP, released November 1, 2010

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Blue-John Benjamin image

Blue-John Benjamin Whitby, UK

"We put the boot in - flew the freak-flag;
We stood resolute like Morrissey’s quiff."

contact / help

Contact Blue-John Benjamin

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Blue-John Benjamin, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier chats about his new LP and the influence of Pharoah Sanders.
listen now