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An autobiographical song - Autumn 1968, woods near our homes in South Yorkshire. Written for Shirley in 2001, prompted by a sepia print of the photo I took that day. Well, would you be happy to have oak leaves carefully added to your hair?

fall sepia autumn hippie girlfriend longhair photograph oakleaf 1968

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 #13

Peak in subgenre #2

Author

David Kilpatrick

Rights

David Kilpatrick

Uploaded

October 05, 2006

Track Files

MP3

MP3 3.2 MB • 320 kbps • 3:31

Story behind the song

On January 30th 2001 I wrote the main guitar theme and quickly recorded it as a six-minute track with some variations, on my Lowden O-10. On January 31st around 11.00pm I edited it to regular number of bars and cut out the variations I didn't like. I added a rythm guitar track with a Landola 12-string, and a bodhran and shaker (played together) for a drum track. I wrote the words after looking up at a photograph of Shirley, aged 16, with oak leaves in her hair and thinking about when the picture was taken; we were walking under a big oak tree, on our way up the path which led past a lightning-blasted oak where all paths met. A leaf fell and lodged in her hair. I picked up more leaves, and added them, for photo. We toned the print sepia and vignetted it in antique style, and it's still in perfect condition 38 years later. We were both 16. The lyrics took about an hour to write, and the final recording of the vocals used two tracks but one has been cut right back.

Lyrics

I remember woods in autumn
Walking by the running water
Tree cathedral stained leaf windows
Kissing at the gritstone altar
Walking by the running water
Hear the small birds calling, calling
Through the rustling air
Catch the oak leaves falling, falling
Weave them in your hair

Like the oak tree caught by lightning
I was struck right to the heart
Lost on paths that kept dividing
Trusting that we should never part

Yellow gorse and golden bracken
Hawthorn hedge and weeping willow
Sandy paths across the bent grass
Cinder tracks to quarried hollows
Rising smoke from coal-fires burning
Street lamps softly glow
Falling mists of evening turning
Us again to home

(chorus repeat, and line repeat to end)

Song Likes

On 15 Playlists

Comments 14

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Debstar Divine

Aug 27, 2024