Across the Pond

Alabama 3 “Woke up this morning”

This is what happens if you fuse Acid House and Country music, you get the Alabama 3. Strangely the band are not American but from the UK but this song made them famous as it was used as the theme tune for the TV series “The Sopranos”

Their Wiki page says “The band is notable for their fusion of styles, ironic lyrics, intentionally humorous personae and outrageous live performances. Every member of the group has an alias, the band’s founding members adopting the personas Larry Love (Rob Spragg) and The Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love (Jake Black).”

If you have not discovered this band then check them out.

“Well, you woke up this morning
Got yourself a gun
Your mama always said you’d be the chosen one“

In the 1970s I went shooting with the Father of a girl I was going out with. He was a farmer in Northumberland and I was trying to impress him. He liked to go duck shooting.  There was an area of his land that the ducks would fly into at dusk. He would hide behind a camouflaged fence and shoot a couple of them. He never shot more than two at a time (They were for the pot).

He told me that a couple of fields away someone had flooded some land to use as a commercial duck shoot and they would have ten or more guns blasting dozens of ducks out of the sky. He hated that. He said a hunter should never take more than he could eat. He flooded part of his land so the ducks had somewhere else to go but the ducks had to pay their rent.

It is easy to take a very binary view of hunting and this farmer taught me that things can often be more complicated than they appear. Although I fired a gun a few times at the ducks I never hit one and I decided that guns and hunting were not for me.

Across the Pond

 

Flight plan locked and destination in sight

It has been a long flight from Siberia

Five thousand kilometres as the duck flies

Crossing the Northern coast twenty minutes ago

Our destination and a much needed sleep beckons

 

The new moon reflects on the pond’s surface

Feet down and wings arched for landing

Suddenly a flash of light and a crack of thunder

We land in a cacophony of panic and noise

The pond scattered with blood stained feathers

 

In the silence that follows our fears evaporate

The water is soft beneath our bodies

The moon slips behind a cloud and darkness hides us

Gorging on midge larvae and pond weed

We offer a prayer for the two who did not make it

 

© Jeff Price July 2018