Lyric sheets

Cosy Powell, one of this country's best rock drummers, died in a car crash this week. A certain pop poet once sang in a glam rock band which supported Cosy Powell's Hammer at Norwich Theatre Royal in 1974.

Elegy For a Drummer

A drumstick thrown into the air

Higher than the lighting rig

Frozen by the follow-spot

Seemingly just hanging there

And in the dark

The band stands by

The audience rows

With mouths like Os

Await a drummer, clad in black

Who'll catch the thing behind his back

Without a glance, will catch the stick

And cue the band in with a click

Don't knock it `til you've seen the trick

Or stood backstage

In some strange town

And craned to see the thing to come down

Dropping like a splintered bird

Past a battered lighting stand

Out of darkness. Into hand.

Cozy died. You never heard?

Good drummers then.

What's it to us?

Essential to a band? Discuss...

And of how many bands d'you say:

"The drummer's good. I've seen him play?"

You noticed him. The bloke stood out.

A power-house?

The world's too trite

Does not explain the light and shade

Of which a decent drummer's made

Or whether he has got the look

The maze-bright eyes of rock star rats

The sparkling of a tinderbox.

And timing of atomic clocks

"Was worth his weight in gaffer tape."

A roadie I once knew might say

And while obituaries are done,

Everyone.

A drumstick thrown into the air

Higher than the lighting rig

Frozen by the follow-spot

Seemingly just hanging there.......