Ordinary People
Words and Music by Colin Fine
People live in circumstances,
People live in towns,
People live in terror
Of the next day's ups and downs.
People have their dignity,
People have their fun,
People have to do the things
They're sure have to be done.
There are no extraordinary people:
Whoever tells you otherwise is lying to you.
There are only ever ordinary people,
Who do what they do,
The extraordinary thing
Is the ordinary things that they do.
People making sacrifices,
People making war;
People making do, and other
People making more.
People laugh and sing and dance,
People scream and cry.
People choose to change the world, and
People pass it by.
People live and love and die,
People cheer and grieve;
People have ambitions
Which they never quite achieve.
People think they ought to be
Exactly what they're not:
People can do anything
With just the gifts they've got.
Genesis
I wrote this song in 1989, inspired by one of the Brad Brown's
remarkable "Touchstones":
There are no
extraordinary
people
only ordinary people
who do
extraordinary
things
with what
they have
been given.
From "Point Counter Point" by K. Bradford Brown,
published by Lifetimes Press, 1988. Page 153
Brad was one of the founders of the programme which is now called
More To Life, and a dear friend who
is sadly missed.
Downloading "Ordinary People"
- The sheet music as a
PDF file
- A MIDI file of the song
(no words, of course)
-
The whole song as a Mozart file.
If you download the free
Mozart viewer (Windows only) you can use it to view, print, and
play the song.
On The Edge
Words and Music by Colin Fine
Waiting till the time is right.
Waiting till it's safe to go,
Maybe waiting for a moment of clear sight,
But you'll never go.
You're stood on the top of a ski-slope
A-wondering how.
But don't wait till you're ready
For you never will be ready
And the moment is now.
Trying to dispel your fears,
Working hard to understand,
Maybe something you've been wanting for long years,
But it's in your hand.
If you thought that 'courageous' meant 'fearless',
You simply don't know.
If you wait till you're fearless
Then you never will be fearless,
And you never will go.
Going though the fear is strong,
Going with your knees a-quake,
Maybe something you've been wanting for so long,
But never dared take.
You don't have to get yourself ready,
Or conquer your fear.
But just welcome the moment,
And say yes to the moment,
And the moment is here.
Downloading "On the Edge
- The sheet music as a
PDF file
- A MIDI file of the song
(no words, of course)
-
The whole song as a Mozart file.
If you download the free
Mozart viewer (Windows only) you can use it to view, print, and
play the song.
Menagerie
Words and Music by Colin Fine
There's a monkey on my shoulder, and he's telling me lies
Just to stop me ever seeing what's in front of my eyes.
He tells me what the world is like, and how I ought to be,
And just what's going to happen if I ever dare be me,
And I say:
"That's not true" to the monkey on my shoulder, I say
"That's not true, what you're telling to me!
That's not true, and before I get much older, I will
Tie you up and gag you so that I can be free
Of your lies!"
There's a tortoise in my chest, like an earthenware pot,
And whenever something happens that I'd really rather not,
He flings away authority, says "Ooh, I don't feel well",
Then he grabs my head and drags me down inside his little shell.
And I say:
"I won't take it!" to whatever is the trouble, I say
"I won't take it!", and he opens a crack;
"I won't take it!", and I start to feel a bubble
Of acceptance, ... my author-
ity's back.