Скачать или смотреть Bird in a Church - sometimes a song can reach inside the heart.

‘Bird in a Church’ is a new song of mine, with a sparse and intimate arrangement. The lyric takes its style from symbolic poetry traditions, particularly the work of Edwin Muir – in poems like The Castle and The Horses. In a similar way, this lyric sets a living bird against the backdrop of ruin to suggest resilience, spirit, and the power of song.

The central image is the kingfisher inside a ruined church – a symbol of vitality, colour, and transcendence perched in a place that has collapsed into silence. Around it, passers-by (hikers) dismiss the moment as trivial, reflecting a modern indifference to both nature’s wonder and the persistence of spiritual presence.

The ruined church represents ossified faith, broken structures of meaning, and a past that has lost its voice. The kingfisher is the opposite: a small, luminous creature whose brief trill of song embodies a truth that outlasts stone. The indifference of the human figures in the lyric sharpens the contrast: where people see only decay or nuisance, the bird embodies persistence, renewal, and beauty undaunted.

Thus the lyric is not “about a bird,” but about spirit refusing extinction – fragile yet more alive than stone or indifference.

The recording is stripped back to a single acoustic guitar, bass, and flute – intimate, bare, and open, leaving space for the words to resonate. Just as the bird stands alone in the ruins, the guitar stands alone in the arrangement: small in scale, but sufficient to carry its message.

Lyrics
‘Look! Look! A bird inside the ruined church!
A kingfisher at rest!’
‘Why should we bother over this?’
the passers-by protest.

It’s just another bird without a nest;
There’s nothing to discuss.
A battered bird that paused to perch
is hardly worth the fuss.

No doubt, it is some woeful, paltry thing –
with lurching wings, odds-on.
Some ousted wretch that squawks - but does not sing;
no sooner here, than gone.’

It’s just another bird without a nest;
There’s nothing to discuss.
A battered bird that paused to perch
is hardly worth the fuss.

‘Look! Look! A bird inside the ruined church!
A kingfisher at rest!’
‘Why should we bother over this,
the passers-by protest.

It’s just another bird without a nest;
There’s nothing to discuss.
A battered bird that paused to perch
is hardly worth the fuss.

‘But listen! Listen! In this heap of stone,
where broken angels lie,
(the kingfishers rises into the air.)
a single trill of bird-song soars –
undaunted to the sky.’

A single trill of bird-song soars;
a symphony of bird-song roars -
Undaunted…
a symphony of bird-song roars -
undaunted to the sky.’
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