Take me back in time a year,
before we lost our stars
The place was very different and
We still had Alan Rickman
And gods they fell to earth, perhaps from Mars.

Let me be back there again, when Richard Adams wrote
A planet with Dave Brubek meant
we still had time-out music
And Charon still had spaces on his boat.

Would that I could travel there, back to the past so rich
When Wilder’s Genes lit up the screen
And Garry Marshall was still here
And Ali fought his fight out of the ring.

We would share the air with them; their artistry we’d keep
Then Harper Lee’d write number three
There’d be two more in ELP;
Guitars would sing – they wouldn’t need to weep.

On Christmas Day George turned a different corner at the end
Choose Life he said, but died in bed
So musically thoroughbred
A loss so hard for us to comprehend

Postcards were sent from the edge
A life so unrestrained
A daughter died, a mother cried
And due to all the pain inside
She left to join her girl, to sing in rain.

I wish that I could write us there
Let Cohen’s days return
Erasing all the loss this year
So Doves won’t cry their purple tears
But me, I am no Caroline Aherne.