Paul Andrew Sneddon

Flip the Switch

Sometimes I feel like two people.
Surviving the day,
then alive on the page.

Flip the switch.

Words spilling.
My soul expanding,
my mind on fire.

Sparks.
Love.
Meaning.

Could be a song,
a riff,
a smile.

Connection
Light.

Through the alleyways and avenues,
or flying high above the city.
The beach as the waves crash.
A little cottage in the hills.

Or here,
on the front step.
Writing this.

Music playing.

The Rolling Stones.
Flip the switch.

Lucky One

I thought I was at the end:
the end of time,
the end of life,
the end of the line.

But I was at the beginning.
You’ve got to start somewhere.
I started here, started again, down by the water, the river.

I thought I hallucinated myself on the water of the Clyde,
on a raft, going into the city.
I gave myself a wave as I drifted by.
When I looked over, I smiled a toothless grin.
My eyes were blank, empty.

I saw it on the news: they pulled a body from the river.
Or was it a mannequin?

Sometimes I dream,
in the light hours,
that I am on a boat,
out of the city,
down the coast, home.

I wake up couch surfing in Partick,
or on the bus,
or in the library.

Sometimes you can’t go back.

That little pub on the corner,
drinking away my days,
drinking away my time,
my money,
my looks,
such as they are.

My liver is operating under protest,
much like my mind, much like the rest of me.

Analogue in a digital world,
as I carried on oblivious to the world around me,
as it shrank from the work,
from the stage,
from home to the bar,
to the glass,
the bottle,
the end.

You could leave it there if you like.
But it would be a lie.

That’s not the end of the story.

I’ve seen that story before,
like sickness on the wall,
like piss from the radio,
like blood in the lungs:

grace and love
and blood and tears
and guilt and pain
and forgiveness.

And luck,
lots of luck,
and some bloody stubborn people
that wouldn’t let it go.

Get up,
get up off the floor,
get up you son of a bitch,
get up.

Regret, mistakes,
pain, hurt,
love, forgiveness,
light,
a blinding light,
a hospital bed.

“We can’t keep saving you, man.
The country is on its knees.”
The old guy in the next room, light escaping.

Get up,
get up off the floor.

The nurse, the nurse,
she whispered in my ear,
“Get up you son of a bitch, get up, because I love you.”

I woke up in the house, on our couch.
Heard you calling from garden,
your nurse’s uniform on the line.
Sunshine in your eyes.

I am a lucky one.

Words

I woke up this morning.
My head hurt.

The room looked a little…
There were words
all over the floor.

Were they resting,
or were they broken?

Were they mine
or were they yours?

Words I thought could fix things
made them worse.

I heard them crying last night,
or was that you?

Pulling the words closer for comfort.
But they slipped away,
like sweet nothings in the morning light.
I tried to hold onto them.

I wrote them down.
But they refused to be tamed.

On the pavement,
but the rain washed them away.

Spray-painted the walls,
but the council painted over them.

I picked over the words you said
’til they were numb.

Dead.

Ghosts.

I stood by the river
in an Ayrshire storm,
in the rain and the wind,
the words at my throat
like a knife.

I let them go.
And I searched
High,
Low,
in the pubs,
in the libraries,
in the everyday,
in a pure morning.

And I found my own.

Guitar Shop Blues

Part 5 of Rock and Roll is Dead

Matty turned off the news report from the Riverside Dome and sat looking at the line of guitars on the wall. This was like a teenage dream come true. First week at the guitar shop. He had already sold a couple since starting on Monday. He pulled down an acoustic Fender and started picking a soft, sweet melody. Eve came up the steps from the basement.

“That’s a pretty tune.”

“Thanks, I guess,” he muttered, looking slightly embarrassed.

She laughed. “How come you aren’t at the Riverside Dome tonight? I hear Bring Your Ghost to the Fire are playing?”

“Oh, Eve, mate. A guy was in this afternoon, claiming to be Hubie’s guitar tech. I used to fucking love that band. The first album was like a slice of life-saving, street-level, tough rock and roll with a big heart.”

“Oh, I know, I loved that. It’s weird. It’s an album you could fire up at a party, or on your own at 3 a.m., and it still hits.”

Matty looked up from the guitar. “You serious? You love that album?”

She looked at him, a little surprised. “I knew you were one of the fucking good ones.” She laughed, and he started playing the opening riff to “Howl on the Lonesome Road.”

“Holy fuck,” she smiled and started singing the first verse:

‘Has been, used to be, doesn’t make a difference,
We’re here in this moment, and by God, you got to live it.’

They both joined in on the pre-chorus, Matty reaching for the note:
‘Hey now, can you hear it?
The sound of the universe,
The sound of whatever’s left,
To lift us up.’

Eve smiled. “That was the best.”
Matty was nodding his head. “How did they go from that to ‘Boogie Pants’?”

She sang:
‘She got the boogie, Boogie pants, Boogie woogie,
Boogalicious,
Boogie woogie bluesy.’

They both started laughing.
“Yeah, that’s a bit shit,” said Eve, as Matty played the riff from “Boogie Pants.

“Hey, we could go sing at that open mic,” offered Eve.
“Yeah, definitely. I know it’s kind of like they stopped trying. Maybe the record company had too much of a say. You know they like a more commercial sound.”

“Yeah, here’s to punk, do it yourself.””

Long Walk Home

Part 4 of Rock and Roll is Dead

Across town, that same noise sounded like a hammer to his head
as Hubie got back to his dressing room.

He picked up the open bottle of champagne and took a swig.
The door behind him opened. “Thirty minutes to the meet and
greet.”

Hubie threw the bottle at the door. It smashed on the wall with
a crash. “Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!” he screamed.
“Tell the others to do the fucking meet and greet.”

He opened a bottle of vodka and took a swig. He thought of
the ladies in the front row. Jesus. Could be fun. But he already
had his own high priestess of pain and sex. He checked his phone.
He thought of the smell of her perfume, her leather, her kiss. She
would be here soon. He pined for her, for the oblivion she brought.

He looked at the itinerary. A thirty-date swing through Europe.
Like a funeral march. Then he could bury this band. He would
be free of this business. They have been fucking over rock and
roll since the beginning. Anywhere you got art, talent, fire, you
got some arsehole who thought it was his job to represent… himself,
mostly. Well, fuck ‘em all.

He thought back to the early days, when they were hungry,
confident. The rush of playing and recording music, meeting
people. The connection at the shows. Even before all this,
music has been everything. Up in his room. Learning old songs,
discovering the classics. Writing his first songs.

It was simple then. He didn’t have much. But he had the music.
He looked at all the crap in his dressing room: like a police
report already written out, it was just missing the handgun. His
ears rang, but he could still hear music and voices from the
hallway.

He felt like breaking the TV but couldn’t muster the energy. He
looked at Terry’s smug card on the table, it was on everything,
all over town. Bring Your Ghost to the Fire, presented by Terry
Anders.

Whose fucking band is this?

He felt his anger rise but didn’t move. He just had to stay alive.
So many ways to lose yourself, and he was barely hanging on.
He picked up the acoustic guitar and it took all his effort to
strum a loose A minor chord.

‘One day, some way, we’re going to rise up…..sing my song’
He sighed.
‘My song… My song’
Fuck off Terry.

There was a knock at the door.

“Go away.”

“It’s me,” came a voice from the other side.
It was her. She didn’t wait; she opened the door and walked in
wearing black boots, her hair high tumbling down. She crossed
the room with confidence, slipping off her coat revealing a tight
leather dress.
“Did you miss me, bitch?” she smiled, and they kissed. She
held his face close.

“I brought you a present,” and she put a few pills in his hands,
which he quickly swallowed.

‘Good boy,’ she smiled as she took off his shirt.

Hubie forgot about the fans, the music. He forgot about the
guitars, just another part of the business