I had a kiss of the king’s hand

I saw him on the strand, he’d been so long at sea

Come from the Isle of Man and none to welcome him but me

Down by the sea,  knee-deep in seaweed

I had a kiss of the king’s hand

Down by the sea

-

I had a kiss of the king’s hand

The king’s hand

I had a kiss of the king’s hand

Down by the sea

-

I reached below his sleeve to find as ornery a hand as mine

It had four fingers and a thumb and a wedding band on none

Then the king he shook me free and waded out to sea

For what should come tumbling on the brine

But a barrel of the king’s own wine?

Down by the sea, knee-deep in seaweed

I had a sip of the king’s wine

Down by the sea.

-

I had a sip of the king’s wine

The king’s wine

I had a sip of the king’s wine

Down by the sea.

-

Then I fell asleep in the king’s arms

The king’s arms

I fell asleep in the king’s arms

Down by the sea.

-

(Alasdair Roberts, ‘I had a Kiss of the King’s Hand’, from The Amber Gatherers)

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i had the fortune to see Roberts live in Manchester last year. The audience was small – perhaps 20-30 – and seemingly all genteel bobos. i felt Roberts would have preferred a smoky Glasgow pub to the huge, modern Urbis. His own presence, however, was undiminished. He was huge and spindly, like one of Tolkien’s ents, with a strange stiff-legged gait and an odd, not-quite human frame (as if composed of stone and wood). He had an inwardness like Jason Spaceman, on the 3 occasions i’ve seen Spiritualized live, though Roberts didn’t go as far as to close his eyes and turn his back on the audience, as Spaceman does. There were even some Spiritualized-like instrumentals. i think, being unable to connect to the too-nice audience, the band lost themselves in the music.

It was a strange experience. Despite the modern venue and the yuppyish audience i felt an undercurrent of power. It didn’t take much effort to imagine Roberts – minus the amplifiers – playing just so a thousand years ago. He even has a gaunt, craggy face and commendably shameless ‘burns.

i don’t know how exactly, but he seemed to have connected to a reality beneath the frivolous everyday. Even his many frivolous drinking songs (his excellent album Farewell Sorrow is very good to drink whiskey to) have a force that seems entirely unfrivolous. It’s hard to say what the difference is, between Roberts and a good contemporary musician; i’d say it’s depth: his songs seem to have substance, roots, they took a long time coming here and they brought that past with them.

Afterwards, filing out with the audience, i saw him slumped on a chair in the corridor, exhausted.

So i’d highly recommend Alasdair Roberts to anyone interested in such matters. Farewell Sorrow is a good introduction.