Track 8 of the album Houseplants for Company · 2024
Play the Old Set for the Seagulls
by Wren Hallett
“A bandstand with no audience and a bus shelter for a stage, and we played the old set for the seagulls anyway. It's the loudest song I've ever sung, and it's still not very loud.”
folk-pop · folk-pop · anthemic folk · 3:00
Lyrics
The band got back together in a seaside town in rain A bandstand with no audience, a bus shelter for a stage Four of us in raincoats with a capo and a drum Singing to the grey horizon like the old days had come The seagulls came to listen, perched along the rail The chip shop man leans out and gives a thumbs up through the gale We started out a little flat and ended up in tune And a kid with a dog stopped to dance beneath the moon Play the old set for the seagulls, sing it loud, sing it free Nobody here to judge us but the salt and the sea Play the old set for the seagulls, let the wind take every line The best of us is still in the songs, and the songs are still ours and mine We played the one about the summer that we wrote at seventeen Someone cried a little, someone said where have we been We shared a bag of chips and we promised we'd come back Strummed it one more time through the rain on the track Play the old set for the seagulls, sing it loud, sing it free Nobody here to judge us but the salt and the sea Play the old set for the seagulls, let the wind take every line The best of us is still in the songs, and the songs are still ours and mine Lift your voices, lift them high Over the harbour wall We were never really gone We were only waiting for the call Play the old set for the seagulls, sing it loud, sing it free Nobody here to judge us but the salt and the sea Play the old set for the seagulls, let the wind take every line The best of us is still in the songs, and the songs are still ours and mine For the seagulls, for the sea The songs are still ours to sing