Subject: Lyr Add: JIMMY'S SONG (Allan Taylor)
From:
GUEST,999
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 06:25 PM
JIMMY'S SONG
(Allan Taylor)
Jimmy sleeps in the bathroom
He loves the colour white
He'll stay in there for hours
Sometimes through the night
Mum and Dad wait in the kitchen
Drinking coffee and holding hands
They talk around in circles
'Cause they don't understand
Sometimes he looks through you
As if you were not there
He doesn't know it hurts you
He's gone too far to care
And he'll steal your money
Steal your love and bleed you dry
Give it all to the candyman
Who's taught him how to fly
Lately he's been clever
He shoots up between his toes
That way he hides the trackmarks
He thinks that no one knows
It makes you want to hold him
And help him through the night
Put your arms around him
And tell him it's all right
He's there in every city
He's there in every town
Hanging in till the next day
Another deal going down
But he won't let you hold him
Or help him through the night
Jimmy sleeps in the bathroom
'Cause he loves the colour white
Susannes Folksong-Notizen
[1997:] I wrote this song in 1986 when my brother-in-law, Jimmy finally admitted to the family that he was hooked on drugs and his life was in a desperate state. This coincided with a project I had been asked to be involved in which was to raise money for a drug rehabilitation centre called Broadreach House. The idea was to produce an album of previously unrecorded songs by various performers in the folk music scene, the proceeds of which would go to Broadreach House. I was about to submit a new song I'd written when Jimmy's letter arrived, and while I was considering the implications of what he'd written this song gradually came to me. There were certain things that had happened that, at the time I'd seen them I had not really understood and not thought any more about; the vast amount of money that was disappearing from his business, the fact that he would never take his shoes and socks off when we were by the pool, the long distance stare when I tried to have a conversation with him and finally the time spent in the bathroom, especially late at night. Suddenly all these things began to make sense, and as each thought came to me I wrote it to the tune I had going through my mind.
Very often when I need to consider whatever is on my mind I'll play the guitar - nothing in particular but just rolling through the chord progressions with no direction in mind and occasionally ideas will come. That's how this one came.
A few years later I was on a tour of Germany. At a club somewhere south of Cologne a woman gave me a letter immediately before I went on stage. It was obvious that it was important to her that I should know her story. Perhaps there are others who have similar stories or problems, and for that reason I've included her letter. I could have written it in correct English for the purposes of the publication, but I think it has its own eloquence and should be left as it is. [...]
"Exquise me, my English, please, but I must tell you a story: it was in the autumn in 1990, between KÖLN and BONN. On WDR there was coming music from ALLAN TAYLOR. The voice, I like this, and then this song: "Jimmy sleeps in the bathroom ........" Oh Gott! I must stop the car, tears was running over my face. We are this parents! - Over long time I found the CD in BAD HOMBURG in a little shop. I give it my son with the words: "This is a good music. When you have mind to that, you can hear it." One month later he said to me: "I will take drugs never more." Four years we was waiting for this words. I don't know, was it your song? was it a little stone to the 'mosaik' for the will, to cease stop with this 'Vegetation'? All one! But when this song was a recue (Rettung) for one boy (or girl) only, it was not write in vain. Two years after our son in a student of Germanistik and Philosophie. We can speak together again and laugh and visit a concert with ALLAN TAYLOR ......and, and, and. I will hope, you can understand, what I will say you. He is a free young men with normal problems, today.
Now, I have still one wish for me: Can you play to the end of the evening "The last dance" please. I would be so happy over that and many thank,J / D (a mother)."
(Taylor, Songs 49ff)
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