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Song To The Siren (The Song)

My Thoughts on this beautiful Ethereal Mystical Maritime Tim Buckley Song

By Mike Singleton - MikeydredPublished 2 years ago Updated about a year ago 3 min read
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"Song to the Siren" is a song written by Tim Buckley and his writing partner Larry Beckett and was released by Buckley on his 1970 album Starsailor. I recently wrote a poem based on the concept of this song and then read the lyrics to the song and mine absolutely paled into complete insignificance against the original lyrics.

You can read my poem here.

These are the actual lyrics penned by Tim Buckley and Larry Beckett , but is a stunning mythical maritime analogy of distant love and coming together.

We lead in with a Tim Buckley live performance on The Monkees TV show. As an aside I have been uploading solo performances to my YouTube channel which you can see here , I mentioned that I might try to cover “Song To The Siren” and my Vocal friend Lisa Anne Lachappelle said go for it as she has loved a few of my covers (It may have been Linda Osipow need to find the quote)

Even watching Tim Buckley’s Monkees TV appearance I am finding this very daunting.

This is going to be a semi playlist of versions of this beautiful song , and every one is worth taking your time to listen to. These are just the ones that I have come across but there are far more out there. If I do make a recording of this I may drop it in here if I think it makes the cut.

The lyrics are just an incredible poem that really can stand alone.

They are here:

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

Long afloat on shipless oceans

I did all my best to smile

'Til your singing eyes and fingers

Drew me loving to your isle

And you sang

Sail to me, sail to me

Let me enfold you

Here I am, here I am

Waiting to hold you

🌊

Did I dream you dreamed about me ?

Were you hare when I was fox ?

Now my foolish boat is leaning

Broken lovelorn on your rocks

For you sing

'Touch me not, touch me not

Come back tomorrow

Oh my heart, oh my heart

Shies from the sorrow'

🌊

I am puzzled as the oyster

I am troubled as the tide

Should I stand amid your breakers ?

Or should I lie with death my bride ?

Hear me sing

'Swim to me, swim to me

Let me enfold you

Here I am, here I am

Waiting to hold you'

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

I am surprised, but not really surprised how often this beautiful song has been covered. This is probably not the finest Tim Buckley song but its legend has grown and grown as more and more people discover it.

I used the cover by This Mortal Coil in my piece on Perception which you can read here, and this is extremely beautifully ethereal, though seriously, I am yet to hear a bad version of this incredible song.

When writing my poem (which is here) I discovered that Sinead O’Connor had recorded a version of it, and I used that to lead in the poem. Her voice lends itself to the song and lets you just sink into the feeling.

While working this week, I put on “Olympia” by Bryan Ferry. Ferry’s latter work with Roxy Music and his solo work are almost as much about tone as the actual songs. There are two covers on this album, one a great cover of Traffic’s “No Face, No Name, No Number”, and “Song To The Siren”.

“Song To The Siren” is absolutely stunning, it has size and beauty, and veers between power and mystical magic.

If Elvis had covered the song it would sound like this.

These are just a few examples of this incredibly beautiful song for you all to enjoy, I hope you find them as wonderful as I do.

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About the Creator

Mike Singleton - Mikeydred

Weaver of Tales, Poems, Music & Love

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Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

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  • Brenton F11 months ago

    Simply a most beautiful song!

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