Recessional Redux 2020

Verse

No-one had heard of Wuhan

and the new pneumonia.

Boris wanted Brexit done –

it would never reach us here.

But by March 2020 it was killing us too

as we cheered or cried that we’d left the EU.

Chorus

We got shown our indulgence and pride

as we stood in the dark at the turn of that tide;

we should have stopped and thought some more

as we heard its withdrawing roar.

Verse

This thing that ran through us amok,

did it come from a butcher’s block?

Or from a test tube in a lab,

or maybe a post-mortem slab?

Anyway, it moved across

from some animal to us

and all the while we hoped mankind

had learned the lesson of this time.

Chorus

We got shown our indulgence and pride

as we stood in the dark at the turn of that tide;

we should have stopped and thought some more

as we heard its withdrawing roar.

Verse

We stood outside our house last night,

to see, not touch, our child at the gate.

The neighbours all came out at eight

and up the dark street - what delight -

we heard an approaching wave of cheers,

but her cheeks were wet with silent tears.

Verse

Our girl was in her ambulance,

call to call and creeping death,

the brutal shifts rolled on.

The virus got her three weeks in

but she was luckier than some.

The PM was in the hospital

as we locked down through that spring

under a mocking sun.

Chorus

We got shown our indulgence and pride

as we stood in the dark at the turn of that tide;

we should have stopped and thought some more

as we heard its withdrawing roar.

Verse

One day I went out on my bike

to the church behind the farm,

stranded by another tide,

since Arnold’s Dover ebb.

I sat outside and basked in sun

as a single plane flew overhead

and thought how precious everything

around me had become.

Chorus

We got shown our indulgence and pride

as we stood in the dark at the turn of that tide;

we should have stopped and thought some more

as we heard its withdrawing roar.

Johan Friedrich 2026