We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Waving Like the Palm Trees

from Giving Up the Ghosts by Ribbon Road

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £1 GBP  or more

     

  • DVD + Digital Album

    A 25 minute piece based on work into social haunting
    Songs by Brenda Heslop, Films by Carl Joyce, performed by Ribbon Road

    This song/image piece has been produced as part of a research project called ‘Song Lines to Impact and Legacy: Creating Living Knowledge through Working with Social Haunting’ - made possible by Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities funding. The project has been led by Dr Geoff Bright of the Education and Social Research Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University, and co-produced by a team of artists, academics and community partners including Unite Community and the Co-operative College. Working in community Ghost Labs in Staffordshire and across the north of England, it has used the idea of a ‘social haunting’ and a range of arts methods to inquire into how difficult feelings, carried into community life from contested pasts, can be harnessed as energies for benevolent and productive change.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Giving Up the Ghosts via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £10 GBP or more 

     

about

At the Burslem Jubilee Centre in Stoke on Trent we met with a group from Syria, Lebanon, Eritrea and Iraq who are in the position of being asylum seekers and refugees.

lyrics

WAVING LIKE THE PALM TREES

Bb
Waving like the palm trees back home
F
I’m waving to the distance I know
F7
I’m lonely for my family
Bb
I’m lonely ‘cos there’s only me
Bb F F7
The days are long and the nights are slow

Outside on the edges I hold on
I’m not allowed to work or to belong
The things I say are thrown away
And this is not a holiday
The sun won’t shine, I’m only half alive

Chorus
Eb
And if I close my eyes and dream
Bb
Then peace would come and I’d be free
F7
My neighbour would still talk to me
Eb F Bb
And I would live in harmony with you

I live within my means in Stoke on Trent
The roof above my head was heaven sent
When I become a refugee
They’ll take it all, look down on me
I long for home and how it used to be


I take the bus to Burslem and I smile
To be with friends around me for a while
Where kindness chases fear away
And love can light the darkest day
A jubilee is waiting there for me

Chorus
And if I close my eyes and dream
Then peace would come and I’d be free
My neighbour would still talk to me
And I would live in harmony with you

I put away my broken heart – I try
I turn away from hurting days – I don’t cry
I search to find the better times
I look for hope to make it mine
I want to live, I’ve got a lot to give

Shining like the brighter sun back home
Climbing up as high as I can go
Sometimes I fall before I start
But that’s the way with broken hearts
Across the sea, will they remember me

Chorus
And if I close my eyes and dream
Then peace would come and I’d be free
My neighbour would still talk to me
And I would live in harmony with you X 2
Waving like the palm trees back home Rpt

credits

from Giving Up the Ghosts, released October 14, 2017
Words and Music - Brenda Heslop 2017 (Ribbon Road
Music)
Vocals - Brenda Heslop
Vocals, accordion - Jill Heslop
Vocals, instruments - Geoff Heslop

Arranged and Recorded at Shipyard Studios by Geoff Heslop

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Ribbon Road UK

Ribbon Road are:

Brenda Heslop
Geoff Heslop

For over 30 years, Brenda Heslop has been one of the undiscovered talents of songwriting. Only now is she starting to get the attention she has so long deserved, with singers taking up her lovely songs and spreading the word.
Geoff and Brenda now release material under the name Frank and Rose and have a separate Bandcamp page
... more

contact / help

Contact Ribbon Road

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Ribbon Road, you may also like: