The Old Bookshop

The books and the LPs I know I cannot take with me Although they are a part of how This man has come to be Can’t explain to Kindle or Spotify The deeper reasons as to why I hold the gatefold in my hands Or turn a page to drift to other lands They’re closing the old bookshop down There aren’t too many left in town The old ways stashed in Lost & Found The stub’s been thrown away They’re closing things I love the most The internet that lurking ghost And Covid’s had the final say So much to my dismay I pity all the kids who’ll spend A childhood locked in screens It’s got to change the way of growing up Their loves, their thoughts, their dreams Can’t explain to them or qualify The weird ideas of this old guy Who holds the gatefold in his paws Or turns a page to drift to foreign shores They’re closing the old bookshop down There aren’t too many left in town The old ways locked in Lost & Found With ticket thrown away What’s digital can be perverse It’s sucked away a universe The journey to the centre of the store It is no more I couldn’t watch them pack the books away I wanted those good friends to always stay But someone deemed it obsolete The old ways gone - just hit delete And that my friend must be the modern way They’re closing the old bookshop down There aren’t too many left in town As things I love do disappear Is it my turn next? (That is my fear) I cannot move the younger minds Or teach to live in virtual times If screens and their component parts Are left to move the younger hearts To stir the younger hearts To stir the younger hearts