Hallelujah Jones

Hallelujah Jones
by Ben Macnair
He would come at you, on a dusty road,
good loving, He had a truckload.
He lived fast, drank faster, but he could sing.
When he was on form, we were unstoppable
Hallelujah Jones made those nights that we still speak about.
Can he get a witness? We were all witnesses.
Those nights spent practicing in student bedrooms,
We took it to the bridge so many times, Mr Brown.
The Saxophones and their sanctified screams.
The guitar and its groove. The booming bass.
They were nothing when Hallejulah Jones was on form.
All those nights in the student union,
Playing songs from the 1960’s,
In the new clothes that we all wore, retrospectively.
The fast pints that he said he
needed to steady his nerves.
The pretty girls who gave him their number,
whilst we packed the kit into the back of the fan,
and collected our money, knowing that half of it had been drunk already.
But a talent like that extracts a price.
An addiction that chased him like the bailiffs
he said he would pay, when his ship came in.
He lived fast, played faster,
but at the last moment,
he found the brake,
and sorted out his life.
We even spoke of putting the band back together,
but the time had passed.
He married, had two children,
and he played them Al Green and Sam Cooke records as lullabies.
His life was blessed, until fate intervened.
The Doctor said he had the liver of a ninety year old man.
His last human contact was with
The nurse who mopped his brow.
His last ride was in a slow black car.