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A very sad song triggered by events in 1989
This is free to download - I'd never want money out of other's misery.
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about
In 1989 some friends and I watched in amazement as the Ceausescu regime in Romania suddenly collapsed and he was tried and executed. We somewhat ignorantly breathed a sigh of relief that such an evil person had been removed.
Like many others I guess, we were thus totally unprepared for the horror later revealed in the state of the Romanian ophanages. Two friends of mine were particularly hard hit, as they had lost children in the past and for various reasons knew they could never have more.
Between them (and a third friend) they wrote a song for these orphans, and when it was near completion asked me to join in, and also help with some musical accompaniment. Together we created 'Corridors Of Shame' and I have to tell you that, for many years, I was unable to sing past the first verse.
We had hoped to get the song recorded so that the proceeds could go to the charities trying to help these children, but with no idea how to go about this, totally failed to get any backing. Eventually with great sadness we abandoned the project, but being the squirrel I am, I kept the rough tape we made. Shortly after this Bob moved and we lost contact with him.
Several years later Christine died, and for some reason, while trying to give Terry some support 'Corridors' got mentioned. He told me just how much it had hurt her that we hadn't been able to get this aired. After losing Chris, Terry rather lost his sense of purpose. He withdrew from his friends, and kept moving - I suspect he had cash and rent problems. The contacts from him got fewer and longer apart, and the last time I heard from him was in 1997.
In 2005 this was all brought back to me forcibly when film was shown on TV secretly taken by a team of journalists in Romania. I was shocked to see that very little had changed. As if that was not enough, in December of that year the tape turned up again while I was sorting though stuff in the attic.
In 2007 I transcribed the lyrics from the tape, and recorded the melody with a light accompaniment. Eventually I was able to make a full recording. Unfortunately at this time I used a rather primitive de-esser, and no longer have the unprocessed audio. I tried re-recording it, but my voice is no longer up to it.
lyrics
Corridors Of Shame
Take my hand and walk with me,
through the corridors of shame.
See the untold horrors,
of misery and pain.
Hungry, frightened children,
cramped five to a tiny bed.
Haunted eyes that see nothing,
of what may lay ahead.
-- Chorus
See the tiny faces,
eyes so full of pain.
All along the stark,
corridors of shame.
Tell me, oh! Please tell me,
Do I really have a name?
Or was I born to live and die,
in corridors of shame?
--
No one really wants them,
to the world, they are not there.
They don't exist, have no names,
in the corridors of shame.
There's no one there to hold them,
or hear them when they cry.
No one really has a care,
if they live or die.
-- Chorus --
For them there is no Christmas,
no way of playing games.
All they do is stare at walls,
of the corridors of shame.
So let's all sing together,
to give these kids their names, and
take them all within our hearts,
from corridors of shame.
Will Godfrey has been involved in music in one form or another since childhood, starting with early piano lessons and
progressing through accordion, guitar, harmonica and tin whistle. Eventually, combining his electronics background he moved on to synthesizers and currently soft-synths....more
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