Life is

Words and music by CALUM AND RORY MACDONALD
From the RUNRIG album IN SEARCH OF ANGELS (1999)

This is the song that most struck me from the band's In Search of Angels album, at a period when their lead singer of over 20 years, Donnie Munro, had left to pursue other interests. By the time the next album, The Stamping Ground, had been recorded, Bruce Guthro from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia had been recruited, but for most of this album Rory MacDonald handled the vocals. The lyrics to this song are sublime, and show the touch of the metaphysical poet that the MacDonald brothers' writing can sometimes reveal.

Life is hard, somehow
Life is cold, somehow
It can make you, it can break you
In pieces all around

There is no return
Once the seal's undone
Morning dawning with life abounding
But in time we all must fall
And it seems to be this way
Hearts change and brightness fades
And it leaves you facing the days
When your hope is blown apart
Life is hard

I walk you down that road
It's the only road we know
Nights so blinding, the world denying
That love so loved the world
What words to ease the pain
A life to live again
What can lift you up from this place
Where you hold a broken heart
Life is hard

The only Rose

Words and music by
CALUM AND RORY MacDONALD
From the 1987 album
THE CUTTER AND THE CLAN by RUNRIG

My first Runrig album was 1987's The Cutter and the Clan, bought with a record (remember those?) voucher from my cousins. It blew me away. Recently, after my daughter bought me a CD copy, I played her this track from the album. She was left speechless. This is the MacDonald Brothers at their most heart-rendingly lyrical, speaking of the feelings of loss and separation of a generation for whom to leave the Highlands, even for another part of Great Britain, was to become an emigrant. Enjoy.

Between the shifting shadows
In the no-man's zone
There's a bar at the
end of the street
Some poor country music
One or two sixties songs
In the place where
the night owls sleep
Oh, loneliness
You're a hard earned crust
You're the night at
the end of the day
'Cause you pay your dues
On the road you choose
With the price you have to pay

Down the neon aisles
And the twilight miles
Where the world takes
comfort in shame
And all I can hear
Is a voice in my ear
And its calling out your name
Still the silence glows
The four winds blow
And a dark moon rising above
To rest by your side
In the heat of the fire
In the sleep of the night of love

When darkness hangs
On the dirty city
Winter falls on a foreign town
And it's all I can do
To be with you
Tonight as the sun goes down
But I would cross
The ocean wide
I'd walk the mighty foam
If I could lie
In your arms tonight
You're the only rose I know