Old Horse

Where do the idea for my novels come from?  Surprisingly from songs, as often as not. That happened with the book I'm writing just now, The Perilous City. The inspiration for that story came from a song, and a performance of that song, by Jacques Brel, the song Amsterdam. Well, it has happened again.

There's a song by Martin Carthy, called Old Horse. I was listening to it on Sunday, really listening to it, the way you do sometimes when you haven't heard a track for a long time. The words are moving, and that's what they did, moved me to tears. I realised then that I'm going to write a novel at some point, I'm not sure when, which is based on the ideas and the emotions contained within that song. The song is traditional, but actually it is based on a number of fragments which Carthy says he put together himself. That explains the power of the song, its rooted in our traditions and folk memories. And to prove that, my partner then said to me that her mother used to use that phrase, talking about Old Horse, as a way of saying something is worn out. I realised the longevity of the idea and its place in our consciousness.

Ostensibly it's a song about how we treat horses, use them, work them, put them out to graze and finally feed them to our sailors. But it's actually a song about how we treat our old people.The song ends with that feeling of abuse and sadness, or at least you think it does but it then adds a catch. 'Rise up old horse and shine again.' So there is a resurrection component to the song as well, and something of the mystical. I want to capture all that feeling in a novel. And I will.

Why do songs work so well as the wellspring of ideas? I think because they trade in emotions. They are a direct conduit to our emotions, and in tapping them they paint such powerful pictures. That's what I want my books to do.They are my songs - since I can't write music and I can't sing, though I wish I could. Instead I have my books, unplugged.

Old horse old horse what brought you here
Carted stones this many's the year
Killed by stones and sore abuse
They salt you down for sailors' use

A warrior am I and at war I've been
Fighting for my country and king
Now I'm old and I'm in decay
It's poor old horse get on your way

My keeping once was the stable wall
Free from all cold winds and harm
Now in the fields I am forced to go
Turned out in the cold and rain and snow

My feeding once was the oats and hay
That grew in the fields and the meadows gay
Now I'll get no such at all
But pull at the short grass by the wall

The sailors they do me despise
Kick my body and damn my eyes
Cut my meat and pick my bones
Throw the rest to Davey Jones

Here is a hoof that was so well shod
Likewise a hide that sweat so hard
Whipped him lashed him drove him down
Rise up old horse and shine again

From: http://lyrics.wikia.com/Martin_Carthy:Old_Horse