In a country churchyard there's a preacher with his people,
Gathered all around to join a man and woman,
Spring is here and turtledoves are singing from the steeple,
Bees are in the flowers, growing in the graveyard,
And over the hill, where the river meets the mill,
A lovely girl is coming down,
To give her hand upon her wedding day...
Dressed in simple white and wearing flowers in her hair,
Music as she walks slowly to the altar,
And picking up his bible then the preacher turns towards her,
"Will you take this man to be your wedded husband,
to honour and love in the eyes of God above,
Now let the people sing with me,
The words to live forever in your heart...
Let your love shine on,
For we are the stars in the sky,
Let your love shine strong,
Until the day you fly away"
Many years have fallen on that golden country morning,
The graveyard's overgrown, the church lies in ruins,
Ivy on the walls and ravens wheeling round above me,
As I made my way towards the last remaining headstone,
I fell to my knees, read the lines beneath the leaves,
And suddenly it seemed to me,
I heard the words like singing in the trees...
Let your love shine on,
For we are the stars in the sky,
Let your love shine strong,
Until the day you fly...
Let your love shine on,
For we are the stars in the sky,
Let your love shine strong,
Until the day you fly, fly away...
"I wrote the song 'In A Country Churchyard' having a visited an old churchyard in the West of England. And I was looking at the gravestones and reflecting, as I do in my imagination, on a time say three or four hundred years ago when a young couple got married and perhaps in that churchyard, in that church, they got married in spring. And that's me visiting the churchyard in November, when it is very cold and all the leaves have fallen from the trees. And the church is in ruins, the roof has fallen in. And it's just me walking around. A lot of the gravestones have fallen over as they tend to do over the years. And maybe I find just one standing and it refers to the couple who got married. Of course we all know those who were born, they have hopefully a happy life and then we pass away to the next world and it's just an imagination about how love endures, in my opinion, forever. It is the bond that keeps us together as human beings and as individuals. And it is a kind of sad and happy song about enduring love. It is almost again in my head like a film."
Man On The Line, May 2003
Albums
"In A Country Churchyard" appears on the following albums:
