From the recording Sad City (live)
Incredibly intimate with simple guitar plucking and a headset microphone bringing the emotive vocal right into focus, “Sad City” is a vision of life lost in a British town, with the entreatment “light shines brightly in the strangest place, look for it now” making it a tenderly bittersweet lament. Recorded live in Echotown Studios at the tail end of a UK tour, Maryen brings this beautiful song “Sad City” back into the present day, solo, having first recorded it for her second album “For Eternity” back in 1994.
Lyrics
Now you see that mist or smoke hangs over me, across my throat
So wish a sense of evil being far away from the inner seam.
Susie’s from an ordinary town, smokey spires and solid frowns
She dreams in silent fantasy, her hopes a reality
Susie, why lose it all to the sad city?
Light shines brightly in the strangest place
Look for it now in the sad city
Flash, life was as clear as ice, the mirror cracked, the bell tolled twice
The years behind laughed viciously, the years ahead lay empty.
Now witness to this life of note Susie went and slit her throat
And all the tides and tears throughout the years lay silent, forever, amen
Susie, why lose it all to the sad city?
Light shines brightly in the strangest place
Look for it now in the sad city
The wind shall rustle windowpanes and scrape around the weathervanes
But every time the sun breaks through let beauty surround you
Susie, why lose it all to the sad city?
Light shines brightly in the strangest place
Look for it now in the sad city
Light in the sad city.
(all words by Maryen Cairns)