When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease - Roy Harper

An elegy, perhaps the best elegy, by perhaps the best elegiac songwriter there is... xx
When the day is done and the ball has spun in the umpires pocket away
And all remains in the groundsman's pains for the rest of the time and a day
There'll be one mad dog and his master, pushing for four with the spin
On a dusty pitch with two pounds six of willow wood in the sun.
When an old cricketer leaves the crease, you never know whether he's gone
If sometimes you're catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly Mid-on
And it could be Geoff and it could be John with a new ball sting in his tail
And it could be me and it could be thee and it could be the sting in the ale
When the moment comes and the gathering stands and the clock turns back to reflect
On the years of grace as those footsteps trace for the last time out of the act
Well this way of life's recollection, the hallowed strip in the haze
The fabled men and the noonday sun are much more than just yarns of their days
When an old cricketer leaves the crease, you never know whether he's gone
If sometimes you're catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly Mid-on
And it could be Geoff and it could be John with a new ball sting in his tail
And it could be me and it could be thee and it could be the sting in the ale
And it could be me and it could be thee...

[@JohnEasson-v7j]

Superb . I've been listening to the original on and off for many years, and you did a great job covering this song. Really like your voice.

[@43vasco]

much appreciated, Harper was my first guitar hero when I was very young my older sister had an album and I would sneakily listen to it whenever she was out (she would have killed me if I'd touched her records!) x