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Watchmaker

from A Landscape of Ghosts by Rob Siegel

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about

A song about things that don't last, and things that do.

lyrics

he sits there all hunched over
those weird glasses on his face
impossibly strong lenses
to interrogate small space
emplacing gears with tweezers
and winding tiny springs
the enabler of time itself
creator of small things

but in an age of Chinese knock-offs
five bucks out on the street
digital disposable
some point admit defeat
soon he will not be of value
his lease will be withdrawn
his store will be a Starbucks
the watchmaker will be gone

put the set right there says Ernie
as it shudders to the ground
the second floor store made sense
before they weighed four hundred pounds
Filo Farnsworth’s troubled children
he used to fix them all
when you still could change a picture tube
and then degauss the coil

but now the world wants plasma
eighty-two inch LCDs
when they break no way to fix them
you just buy a bigger screen
like American supremacy
we always thought would last
the small TV repair shop
will soon be in the past

all these things we break and throw away
without a second thought
how does it work with people
when we start to break apart
do we still pick up the pieces
when the going gets complex
or like the watchman and repair man
is the marriage councilor next

perhaps its this New England soil
where waste is nearly sin
but I can’t bear to throw away
what’s barely broken in
so I’ll fill my house with picture tubes
and not wind my watch too tight
and keep loving the same woman
until I get it right

credits

from A Landscape of Ghosts, released March 24, 2018
Guitar and vocal: Rob Siegel
Fiddle: Tim Roper
Upright bass: Peter Tillotson
Keyboard and percussion: Doug Kwartler

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Rob Siegel Boston, Massachusetts

Rob Siegel is well-known in Boston folk music circles as an innovative songwriter who draws from his idyllic yet stressed- out middle-class suburban existence and produces memorable, intelligent, well-crafted songs.

His first new CD in 14 years, "A Landscape of Ghosts," will be out in April, with a CD release show at Club Passim on Monday April 30th. ... more

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