Multatuli’s Living Room
Words and music by Kieran Barry Violet
In the corner
There’s a bookcase under a tree
With a hole in the back
Where the wire
For the radio used to be
That brought them the news
All through
Triumphs and emergencies
But didn’t make it to
Multatuli’s living room
There’s a carpet stretched out
Across the floor
Which must have seen service
In some big old
Strangely shaped space before
Hasn’t felt sun-light
In what seems like
An eternity
But it’s the perfect shade of blue
For Multatuli’s living room
The lamp beside the broken
Rocking chair
She doesn’t care
She’s had her chance to shine
In a previous life
So she will stand beside
Her rocking chair
No matter where
They find
Themselves this time
And no one really knows
What happened to
Multatuli’s living room
Story wise I have used a wee bit of poetic licence, attributing personalities to inanimate objects (lamp and rocking chair in particular) but essentially the ‘story-line’ of the song and the story of how the song came to be written are broadly the same.
Multatuli is a famous Dutch writer. A large bust style statue stands in his honour in the beautiful city of Amsterdam, a place I have had the pleasure of visiting on many occasions. On one such trip during the summertime some years ago I couldn’t help but notice as I wandered the streets, lots of pieces of unwanted furniture and household items left out on the pavements for collection/disposal.
Returning to my digs early on Sunday morning as the sun was rising and the birds singing I passed the statue and was delighted to find a number of these items had been collected together and assembled into an al-fresco living room. Multatuli’s Living Room …
KB
Click the link above for PDF. The chord listed as E with what looks like a set of cross-hairs next to it is E diminished.