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Lorayne McLucas - The Swimming Pool Lady

from The Skye & Lochalsh Community Album Project by Louis Barabbas

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    Glass mastered compact disc in gatefold digipack with artwork by Philippa Thomas. Includes lyric booklet featuring archive images and recording session photos.
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about

Inspired by conversations in community spaces around Skye and Lochalsh about a woman who travelled around all the schools in the area with a portable pool teaching children to swim, before finally organising the build of the first public pool in Skye.
Recorded by local musicians as part of the Culture Collective project funded by Creative Scotland and co-ordinated by local events charity SEALL. Profits from album sales go to Alzheimer Scotland.
www.seall.co.uk
www.culturecollective.scot

lyrics

When we were young our parents told
Tales that made our blood run cold
Of water creatures they would teach us
How they’d drag us down beneath the waves

I heard these stories every day
How selkies lured the girls away
The Minch’s blue men grimly looming
And typhooning sailors to their graves

How do you cross a water course
When it’s tossed by a ghostly horse
And even the most modest burn or spring
Is the spirit of some old and evil thing

Each day we walk so near the sea
But daren’t go in for fear we'd be
Cursed or even worse a verse
In yet another song old sailors sing

It’s a wonder any of us learned to swim at all
When the sea and streams and rivers seemed to brim
And crawl with such monsters
But when it seemed all hope had long run dry
A woman in a minivan came by

And in that van a canvas pool
That she assembled in our school
Annie Weir was here to help us float
Without the need for a single boat

The island’s children forgot their fright
Of all the seal men and water sprites
And now alongside myths of mermaids we
Have the swimming pool lady
The swimming pool lady
The swimming pool lady.

credits

from The Skye & Lochalsh Community Album Project, released August 4, 2023
Written by Louis Barabbas

Lead vocals: Lorayne McLucas
Bass clarinet: Lynne Anstice Brown
Double bass: Keri Skye
Tuba: Mike Norton
Guitar and backing vocals: Louis Barabbas

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Louis Barabbas Manchester, UK

Louis Barabbas is a writer, performer and firefighter, best known for caustic love songs and energetic stage shows.

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