Where’s the OP? Did the hamster eat it?
T’was a brave hamster indeed, that ventured out of its cage to eat an ** OpalCat** thread!
Story behind the lyrics: The great song, “Nightshift” by the Commodores is a tribute to earlier Rock ‘N’ Roll singers Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson.
Oh crap.
Here is the OP:
Lots of songs tell a story… tell that story in your own words (don’t just post lyrics!!)
A long time ago in England, during the reign of King George, a highway man was in love with a girl named Bess. She was the daughter of a landlord of an inn.
One night, he came to her window to see her. They snuck a kiss, and he told her that he was going after a big heist that night, lots of gold. He told her that he would return shortly, and to watch for him, and he rode off into the moonlight.
The next morning, he didn’t come. By noon, he still hadn’t come. Bess was worried.
Then a group of King George’s men, rough soldiers, came into the inn. They were looking to arrest the highway man. They were a rude and rowdy bunch and they didn’t pay the landlord, but rather drank all of his ale.
Then they noticed Bess and snickering and making crude jokes, they tied her up to the foot of her bed, with a musket tied her, the barrel pressed to her breast. She struggled to get away, until her fingers were bloody. Hours passed.
At the stroke of midnight, she felt the musket, and found she could reach the trigger. Then she heard the horse on the road, in the distance. The men didn’t heart it. She heard the horse grow closer–she knew it was her highwayman. She could see the road out the window…
How could she warn him away? She only knew one way. She pulled the trigger – the shot rang in the night, and the highwayman spurred his horse away, knowing there was trouble. He didn’t know that in the inn, Bess lay dead.
It wasn’t until dawn that he heard the story, and he rode back to the inn in a rage, holding his rapier. They were waiting for him, and shot him down in the road.
The Highwayman, by Loreena McKennit (originally a poem by Alfred Noyes)
Your turn!
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I haven’t heard the Loreena McKennitt version, but I have to give a shout out to the late, great Phil Ochs, who recorded a version of the Noyes poem on his album I Ain’t Marching Anymore. If you haven’t heard it before, it’s worth searching out - it also appears on the Elektra compilation There But For Fortune - The Songs of Phil Ochs. Phil cut some of the poem, and rearranged some of the details, but the music he added is worth it.
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