I love it when a post or comment leads me (inspires me?) to do something I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Dom’s cover of Ghosts by Lau yesterday, about the Chinese cockle pickers tragedy in Morecambe Bay and music, rang a vague bell- and sure enough, the Google-Beast informs me that the good man, Christy Moore himself, did a cover version of a song written by Kevin Littlewood on the topic.
I slightly altered Kevin’s lyrics and borrowed a couple of Christy’s chords. This is a far cry from Dom’s delicate fingerstyle and sensitive vocals, but Hey- it’s what I do! 
(I almost added it on Dom’s thread as a comment/tribute, but thought that might be a cheeky hijack too far… 
)
Lyrics
Out beyond the street lamps and the Calliope’s roar
Beyond the wreck, the samphire, the sea betrays the shore
I’ve seen them in the tide’s wake, as the rain cuts through the spray
Figures on the edge of daybreak, out on Morecambe Bay
Here’s the life to die for, here’s a life not as it seems,
Sleeping on a foreign floor, five to a room- no space for dreams
Tempted by travel, to the stranger’s promised land
they dig in sand and gravel, plastic bags gripped in their hands
For the tide is the devil, It can run you out of breath
It can race you on the level, It can chase you to your death
Yes the tide’s the very devil And the devil has his day
On the weary cockle banks of Morecambe Bay
Letters home with money orders. how much we earned to day
Tales of crossing borders, we came to Morecambe Bay
This is where the cockles sleep in their beds, so soft and sound
This is where our watch we keep, on weary cockle grounds
I met them in the markets brushed their arms in grocery queues
I should have grabbed them by the jacket, should have told them what I knew
Like my mother told me, as I paddled in the waves
Never try and race the tide across the sands of Morecambe Bay
Chorus
Now I see them in the distance, laid out in the morning light
Helpless in the sea’s persistence, twenty-three drowned in one night
Above in skies so clear their phone calls half the world had crossed
Between the rivers Kent and Keer, they raced the tide and lost
In Fujian, Xelang and Baiou, they mourn their next of kin
Where the men with snake tattoos rack up debts and call them in
Parents pray, arms flung wide, their children dragged away
Heading out to race the tide a cross some foreign bay
Chorus
What’s wrong with me? 
I decided I’d play On Morecombe Bay at our local OM tonight, but whilst having an afternoon nap, this song popped up on my playlist and I was intrigued 
Google: artist => lyrics => chords =>
I now have sore fingertips and a new song I like, but am even less prepared for tonight’s OM
(It’s well worth checking out the original by Stuart A. Staples, a duet with a very different feel 
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Nicely done sir, great lyrics, and nicely put together.
) and put it together into something so expressive in such a short time! It doesn’t sound like it’s half-baked at all. It’s really enjoyable. Keep doing what you do 
