Very much a first draft. It’ll need lots of refining. But she’ll be rite.
Flatt & Scruggs
Were bluegrass heroes
With the Foggy Mountain Boys
Playing the Grand Ol Opry
Or on TV Singing the theme
For the Beverley Hillbillies
Soundtracking a car chase
For Bonnie & Clyde
Now Earl Scruggs
Was a progressive
Wanted to cover Dylan
Experimented with Jazz
An Lester Flatt
Liked his Bluegrass
The way it always was
So they split up
Now you might agree with Scruggs
Or you might side with Flatt
Me I think art should
Always be evolving
Whilst loving the past
We all need a little bit of Scruggs
And a little bit of Lester Flatt
Manx folk music
In the 1970’s
Took two sides
While the Mannin Folk
Toured the pubs
Playing songs by Stuart Slack
With electrified guitars
Songs by Englishmen
And Americans
Meanwhile, in Peel
Sessions in the round
Reconstructed
Ancient folk song
In the local tongue *
Authentic
Like the Auld Ones did
Two folk revivals
In the same pubs
But never the Twain met
For some were Earl Scruggs
Others a bit Lester Flatt
Now if you ask a Manxman
To name a traditional Manx song
They’ll say Give me a bus fare to Laxey
Or the Ellan Vannin Tragedy
Composed in the Seventies
And popularised in Pub gigs
But out of the informal sessions
The language recovered
And came back from the blink
Our nation’s culture
Has benefited from being
A bit Lester Flatt
And a little bit Earl Scruggs
Now as you can tell
By my free form verse
I’m more on the side of Earl
I stand with the inovators
The inventors and entrepreneurs
With the social reformers
But I appreciate being told
“Don’t throw
the baby out with the bath water”
That urge us to preserve
What’s fine
Cos for humanity
To prosper and grow we need
To be a bit like Earl Scruggs
With a little bit of Lester Flatt
* please note Tongue and song rhyme on a Manx tongue.
@mikeskliar Feb 2022
What a wonderfully creative idea- the 'flatt' vs 'scruggs' thing has been something that all art has struggled with, and you really voiced it all very well with this fine lyric- great work!!