She Left Her Diary on the Bar

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From lines written by our daughter Ailsa when she was 16, in a poem called 'Lost Girl'; a story she wrote, and I turned into a song.

singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso

David Kilpatrick

Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.

I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Acoustic Folk

Charts

Peak #52

Peak in subgenre #6

Author

Robert Burns

Rights

David Kilpatrick

Uploaded

November 24, 2003

Track Files

MP3

MP3 4.6 MB • 128 kbps • 4:59

Story behind the song

When our daughter Ailsa was 16, she was writing endless poems, lines and stories in books she carried everywhere. One of them was a story about a girl who did the same thing, and it contained the lines for the title of this song. Ailsa showed me the poem and described the story to me, and I put some of the lines to a tune which suggested itself. She liked it, so I finished the song. But when it was done, she looked at the new ending. 'O Dad! I can't believe what you've done to my story! It was supposed to be a happy ending!'... It's two years later now and I have finally recorded this so she can let her internet friends hear it.

Lyrics

Once I knew a girl like you
And when the wide world made her blue
This is all she had to do
She'd put it down on paper
Midnight rhymes and secret codes
Single lines and overloads
In the inkwell of her soul
She dipped the sharpened quill of anger

In beds, in bars, in subway trains
She dreams in couplets and quatrains
Across the pages of her brain
The silent wild words wander

She kept her diary every day and filled it up with dreams and thoughts and rhymes
She kept her diary on the way wherever she was going and the lines
Of the pages filled with words
All the heartache in her life
All the sorrow and the hurt
All the heartbreak that was hers

One night in a hotel bar
An hour too late, a glass too far
The barman thinks, I guess you are
Another lonely stranger;
He tries to catch her with his eye
No looking up and no reply
And so he has another try
He doesn't sense the danger

She caught his glance and held it fast
And knew this page would be the last
One tear falls and the time is past
For silent pain and anger

She left her diary on the bar because she didn't need it any more
She left her diary on the bar where everyone could read it and they saw
Through the window of her words
All the heartache in her life
All the sorrow and the hurt
All the hearbreak that was hers

Yet the words cut like a knife
Till they reach the part that hurts
And they cut it out and throw it to the darkness and the dirt
Then you step into the light
And you see the wound is clean
There's nothing there to hurt you and you know there's never been
Any heartache in your life
Any sorrow, any hurt
Any heartbreak quite like hers

(Optional ending):

So the pages turn, the covers close
The ink dries on the overdose
The dust lies on the windowshade
The rust dies on the razorblade
And all that poetry she made
Is the only thing about her anybody knows