Chasing Cars in Ironbridge
“Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”.
A short and sweet entry to my UK travel journal series of articles and a return once more to beautiful Ironbridge. As longer term readers will attest, I often write about my love for “toytown” and the World Heritage status piece of heaven on earth that is Ironbridge and the site of the world’s first iron bridge. I first clapped my disbelieving eyes on this tiny town on the banks of the River Severn in 1999 and had I been more streetwise rather than a twenty something idealist, I’d have moved and lived here, which I eventually did, amid much heartbreak, in the year the Mayans predicted the world would end in 2012. I lived here for nearly four years, taking up residence in the best seat in the house and a bench overlooking the “Grand Old Lady”, and spent many summer’s playing amateur tourist guide for the visitors flocking to middle England’s most beautiful of gems. I return as often as I can, if only to amble along the river side with my beautiful son, feed some hungry ducks and disappear into a different time zone, head space and an inner calm only the bells of St Luke’s Church can conjure.
Should your travelling feet ever itch for a piece of English and World history, I can’t recommend Ironbridge highly enough and here’s a brief glimpse, a pictorial stroll if you will, through my spiritual home.
As is tradition, my travel articles are accompanied by the lyrics to a favourite song and as I was accompanied today (24th February 2024) by my beautiful son, it simply has to be “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol. One of the many wonderful aspects of music or individual songs is that they are open to many and varied interpretations. I interpret this song as a love letter to a wife/husband/partner and being so in love but restrained by emotions and simply happy to tackle life between them, on their own and in their own way. But this song first hit my radar in the mid-2000’s and I’ll forever associate it with a tiny young boy who has grown into a man before my eyes, and of our playing with toy cars on the carpet of the family home.
Every morning, rain or shine, work or working from home — “Let’s waste time, chasing cars” and
“All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see”
reduces me to a sobbing mess every time!
So this is for my son, and I hope you enjoy this pictorial stroll around our “toytown”.
“We’ll do it all
Everything
On our own
We don’t need
Anything
Or anyone
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”
“I don’t quite know
How to say
How I feel
Those three words
Are said too much
They’re not enough
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”
“Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life
Let’s waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”
“Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life
All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see
I don’t know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”
"Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol - Live at V Festival, 2009