Track 7 of the album What the Empty Rooms Remember · 2023
The Face Half Turned Away
“A friend half turned from the lens, laughing at something off to the side. I never asked what it was.”
neoclassical · neoclassical · elegiac · 4:37
Lyrics
There's an old friend in the photograph, laughing at something off to the side His face is half turned away, the way it always was He never looked at cameras, he looked at what was funny And I never learned to ask him what it was We're on the harbour wall with chips in paper cones The wind has caught his hair, and mine, and our two coats The gulls are looking guilty, the sea is going silver We're seventeen and certain of our hopes The face half turned away Is the face I know the best Still laughing at the thing I cannot see The face half turned away Is a promise and a rest That someone found the world worth laughing at, with me Oh, the face half turned away Keeps its secret in the light And I wish I'd turned to see what made him smile that day But I'll keep it, half in shadow, kept right We lost the thread of letters somewhere in our twenties Life took its quiet turnings, as it does But I still hear him laughing on the harbour wall Stood just behind the camera's buzz Maybe it was nothing, a gull, a sudden gust Or maybe it was us, and how we'd grow Either way he's laughing, and the picture keeps him young And I'm glad that I was there, I know The face half turned away Is the face I know the best Still laughing at the thing I cannot see The face half turned away Is a promise and a rest That someone found the world worth laughing at, with me Oh, the face half turned away Keeps its secret in the light And I wish I'd turned to see what made him smile that day But I'll keep it, half in shadow, kept right Half turned away Still laughing, half turned away