"I saw this palace built.
I counted every stone.
And I will be here still
long after you have gone."
PJ Harvey & Seamus Murphy - Talking to Dog
I was down in Glasgow in January for the yearly Celtic Connections festival. I could not shake this slight tinge of sadness I felt when the train passed by Sighthill without seeing the massive flats. Before starting this blog post I thought back to a poem I studied in school. While I was walking the city streets, hearing passing conversations and smelling the city the poem came to me strongly. During English class one year we looked at Norman MacCaig and his poem called Hotel Room, 12th Floor. The hidden meanings of the words, the symbolism and the general threatening feeling it gave me meant I was hooked straight away. Written about New York City and the fact that violence is an inescapable part of human nature made me think of Glasgow in a way.
Tower block in Townhead Glasgow
Every time midnight was mentioned it made me picture this image of a man in black walking the empty streets. His boot heels echoing across the silent city late at night.
"But now Midnight has come in from foreign places"
This image of Midnight represented to me the violent nature of human beings and how it is a part of who we are. There are numerous other things that I relate to in this work but to avoid going on I will only deal with a few lines that I find relate directly to this blog post. My annotated version of the full poem can be seen as a whole elsewhere on this blog page. The few lines I want to talk about in particular are as follows:
"Its uncivilised darkness is shot at by a million lit windows, all ups and acrosses"
This line is referring to the skyscrapers in NYC but to me, I can't help but picture Glasgow. This imagery of light being stuck in a constant battle with night intrigues me. Because in the end darkness always comes as sure as daylight will. The theme of abandonment as a whole holds this sort of darkness for me. Abandonment like the darkness comes to everything eventually in one way or another. Of course, not all forms of abandonment are bad. But there is no denying that there is a slight feeling of sadness when you see something that once was great slowly disappear, deteriorate and return to the weeds. The same is true for Glasgow, these flats were once vertical communities, good or bad that is what they were. They brought people together; the busy halls, the queue for the lift and the echoing of voices swirling up from the stairwells. There is no holding back the fact that these now abandoned towers hold memories for everyone that is connected to them. In a way, the darkness of abandonment touches everyone in some form. Empty living rooms and silent stairwells left with their memories which are now fading like the buildings itself. Abandoned places including these towers surely all prove MacCaig's final point that "no stockades can keep the midnight out."
All these thoughts went into the song and my approach to writing for this post. Another poem that helped in the writing process was Glasgow 5 March 1971. This work by Edwin Morgan is an Instamatic poem and has a more direct, darker feel to it.
Glasgow 5th March 1971
This ugly picture takes place in Sauchiehall street and although this work did not play a massive part in the writing process it did cross my mind. The poem in full can also be found on this blog page. Any of the characters in this poem could have had some connection to any number of the high rises in Glasgow. The young couple that could have perhaps been picking out engagement rings could have lived in Sighthill. Even the two youths that carried out the attack could have come from the Gallowgate flats. In some way without me trying these people have made their way into the song. The people in the video about Sighthill, the Birdman of Red Road, the glittering canyons in Hotel Room, 12th Floor and the characters in Glasgow 5 March 1971. These people gave FACES to these PLACES. Their stories and their connections to these abandoned or now destroyed locations is what drove me on to write
about them.
Click on the image to hear my song Photo Albums In The Sky as well as an interview.
References
PJ Harvey Official website. Poetry: http://pjharvey.net/words/
PJ Harvey Poem Readings. Soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/user-548593244
Seamus Murphy Official website. The Hollow of the Hand :
https://seamusmurphy.com/Photography/The-Hollow-of-the-Hand/1/thumbs
Celtic Connections official website: https://www.celticconnections.com/Pages/default.aspx
Norman MacCaig. Poetry Foundation : https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/norman-maccaig
Copy of Hotel Room 12th Floor: http://www.theenglishdepartment.co.uk/critical-reading/poetry-2/norman-maccaig/hotel-room-12th-floor/
Edwin Morgan. Poetry Foundation : https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edwinmorgan
Copy of Glasgow 5th March 1971 : https://misstraceyenglish.wordpress.com/glasgow-5th-march-1971-by-edwin-morgan/
Glasgow 5th March 1971 Reading YouTube video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVIKhrMu4Qg
