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The official Dean Chandler web site

Last Updated: 01 May, 2006 08:56

Switch your speakers on and turn up the volume......NOW!

'Cold Jack'

Back in the thirties lived Jack, a musician trying to cope with a broken heart by travelling. He roamed the western world, singing songs of pain, time & emotion for his supper, but there he was witness to much more pain and hate. From gang warfare on the streets of Chicago to the extremist uprisings in Germany & Russia. His own despair seemed small and petty compared to the scale of such misery. He watched it all, absorbing everything, growing colder and more disillusioned. Suddenly he vanished, but no body was ever found. The only remnant of his existence was a self-penned poem, illuminated by candlelight on the wall near his bed.

If you listen quite closely in your darkest hour
Listen to emotion and music with power
Or close your eyes and drift away
You'll find me there, but we look the same
For you have travelled so far and so wide
I took some notes while you had a good time
For I have been watching, not far away
All this time I've been learning
While you sat there and played
Sometimes I wonder
Sometimes I cry
Could I attract your attention
Or should I just die?
For I am wonder and I am your pain
I'll be the reason
For your claim to fame
So I'll be the ghost
To feed on your mind
I guess I'm a ghost
Or is everyone blind
Yes I am inside you
But cause you no pain
Yes I am alive,
I'm so cold But I'm sane

No-one ever knew what became of him and few cared. Eventually his lodgings were quietly re-let by an incurious landlord and the world in general, turned its collective attention to weightier problems. But Jack had not passing away, he was now exploring new ground, the dark places of the inside. Somewhere within us all there is a voice. This voice is many things to many people - a voice of comfort when we are sad and lonely, a source of strength when we feel weak, a font of wisdom, knowledge and creativity. Sometimes this voice seems to be independent of ourselves, a person with his own memories, recalling words and lyrics to soothe our troubled minds. Occasionally you almost feel that this character is actually beside you in physical form - in body rather than just spirit. Sound familiar? Then you too, already know COLD JACK ...

Copyright exists on the poem - "Inner Voice" and "The Legend of Cold Jack"