My Way

I FIND myself walking alongside the guildhall, I find myself glaring up at the sun, I find myself smiling as this glorious Derry day absolutely gobbles me up and sends a beautiful shiver through my body.

 

- Jack McClay

I find myself hearing the sound of a voice echoing throughout the guildhall square, a voice sounding like it had been soaked in a vat of bourbon, and left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, very Tom Waits esque. ‘’What is that?’’ I ask myself. Completely enchanted by the sound of this groggy chant, I edge closer and closer to the sound, finding my way to the source of this beautifully ugly noise that was echoing more and more loudly as I inched closer.

I reach the gate arch and that is where I find the source, the voice resonating throughout the guildhall square, it’s a man standing in the shadows, wearing a pair of very worn tan leather brogues, slightly ripped black jeans, a white t-shirt, a scraggly beard with a herringbone hat. I stand directly in front of him and simply listen as he finishes what I assume is one of his own songs as I certainly cannot recognise it. The sound of cars, chit chat, footsteps, and general day time hassle conspired to drown out the sound of this busker, yet for me I heard nothing else.

‘’What is that song you just played?’’ I ask the busker as he re-tunes his guitar.

The busker looks up from his guitar and tilts his hat back ever so slightly, and flashes a grin towards me.

‘’That my friend, is a song I wrote when I was 13 years old, you like it?’’