(Continued from previous track)...Requiem for '63 also conveniently serves as a prologue to Life in a Northern Town (a elegy to the late singer/songwriter Nick Drake), wherein is referenced not only the assassination but also the emergence of Beatlemania the following February – which is about the time I ‘woke up’ after enduring the grief and shock of losing my father as an 11-year-old.

Lyrics

Life in a Northern Town

A Salvation Army band played
And the children drank lemonade
And the morning lasted all day,
All day
And through an open window came
Like Sinatra in a younger day
Pushing the town away, away on…

Ah hey-o ma ma ma may de ‘n na - ya
hey-o ma ma ma, Hey - ey - ya
Life in a northern town.
A – hey ma ma ma ma…

They sat on the stony ground
And he took a cigarette out
And everyone else came down
To listen.
He said "In winter of ‘63 [as my own father passed away]
It felt like the world would freeze [ as the whole world went cold and gray]
’With John F. Kennedy
And then the Beatles..."

Ah hey-o ma ma ma may de ‘n na - ya
hey-o ma ma ma, Hey – ey - ya
Life in a northern town.
A – hey ma ma ma ma…
Ah hey-o ma ma ma may de ‘n na - ya
hey-o ma ma ma, Hey – ey - ya
And all of the world shut down
A – hey ma ma ma ma…

The evening had turned to rain
Watch the water roll down the drain,
As we followed him all the way down
To the station
And though he never did wave goodbye,
You could see it written in his eyes
As the train rolled out of sight…
Bye – bye – good bye…

Ah hey-o ma ma ma may de ‘n na - ya
hey-o ma ma ma Hey – ey - ya
Life in a northern town
A – hey ma ma ma ma…

Make it easy on yourself…you can’t be anybody else