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 My song was called Raglan Road, written by a curmudgeonly Irish poet called Patrick Kavanagh, about his unrequited love for a woman. She was the wife of a politician at the time (1960s). Raglan Road is a lovely wide street in Dublin, near where they ( and I later) lived.
Down Raglan Road
On an autumn day
I saw her first, and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might someday rue.
I saw the danger
Yet I went
Along the Enchanted Way
And I said let grief be a falling leaf
At the dawning of the day
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I like it because of it's passion, his willingness to take a magnificent, hopeless risk, his noble vision of what might have been. "For I loved too much - and by such, by such, is happiness thrown away." There's also a sort of mystical quality to it:
On a quiet street in November
I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow
That I have loved
Not as I should
A creature made of clay
When the angel woos the clay he'll lose
His wings at the dawn of day
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Patrick Kavanagh came from County Monaghan in Ireland, near where my father came from. My mother got me a book of his poems when I was 13 - I hated them at the time and returned it to the shop, much to her chagrin. But I came back to him 30 years on. Having been unlucky in love myself, this song both acknowledges and transcends the pain of that.
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