It's the turn of the year and we're taking stock
Of life behind
The promises of times to come
Play-Pause-Rewind
Thoughts of roughest diamond
Break the daily grind
Shining out a challenge that can
Strike you blind
Spinning out of balance they can
Strike you blind

Set them free
Let them go
See what they find
Set them free
Let them go
And they hypnotise

Setting them free
Letting them go
Seeing what you'll find
Setting them free
Letting them go
They crystallise

Lighter than air they drift away
On silent glides
And who can know the currents on which
They may ride
Feel the heart ascending as we
Watch them climb
All bound to fall back down to earth
In their good time

Each a fragment of a greater whole
Like Chinese lanterns without our control
Sail away into the atmosphere
Who can trace the course of coming years?
Who can sway the thoughts of the coming years?

Now spiralling down
To flicker and die
But deep in your soul
The fire's still alive


"Oud En Nieuw refers to a habit I have of walking around the streets of my home town Bristol, towards the end of the year. I'm thinking about the things that have happened during the year: where did I come from and where I'm going. If there's Christmas music on - and there usually is - I also have a habit of twisting the lyrics of John Lennon's famous anti-war song to 'So this is Bristol, and what have you done?'. I'm a great believer in always having a plan, but always being flexible with it. You need to start walking to get anywhere, and sometimes where you get isn't where you intended to be, but you have to start the journey all the same."



"Specifically it recalls sitting in Utrecht (The Netherlands) with my girlfriend Sarah on what the English would call New Year's Eve, watching Chinese lanterns floating over the city, and realizing that the wind direction meant they would have been launched from near where I used to live. If I'd not unexpectedly and suddenly stopped living there, I wouldn't have been with Sarah in Utrecht watching them. So Oud En Nieuw is a much better title than, for instance, New Year's Eve because it sums the whole song up far more comprehensively. That's languages for you - direct translations don't always cut the mustard."



Rich Harding