Hello stranger – welcome to this place

I didn’t think I knew you but I’ve thought about your face

I was single again for the first time in a long while and I know that I wasn’t handling it at all well.

It seems you’ve done some things – that only makes it worse

I’ve been there – I know what it is to be cursed

Drinking as much as I could and hanging out at the bar – giving up on love and taking up drowning.

And you say you already changed – for the better

And you say you’ve already paid for it all to go away

I was always covered in paint from work and had lost another tooth – a strange fish floating round.

And you’re always on the move – I’d swear you were present everywhere

Foreign Agent – Foreign Agent

The band I’d been rebuilding wasn’t working out – too many disparate personalities.

Hello angel I got my second wind

Seemed like a done deal that I would love you till the end

Ghosts of the beautiful women I had loved swarmed my head – they had all moved on in their lives

But I learnt one thing – I have to let you to know

I want to be one of the souls you take with you when you go

It wasn’t all bad and I met some friends that will stay with me through life.

And you say you already changed – for the better

And you say you’ve already paid for it all to go away

 And you’re always on the move I’d swear you were present everywhere

 Foreign Agent – Foreign Agent

I had several tumultuous encounters that destroyed the kernel of hope I had of future love.

Lost gold and a line of goodbyes I struggled with the things I had

I looked around the floor to find who was left and saw that you had just got back

My world caved into tunnel vision of a woman in the dim glow of a bar about to close.

Hello baby I thought you’d gone

I was getting used to being the only one left alone

The song itself poured out of me at that time and I’m still trying to make full sense of it.

You did me in – there’s no sense to keep

All these daily dreams I hold – that’ll never be

I’m not sure who the foreign agent was – if it was now me or in those totally alien eyes.

And you say you already changed – for the better

 And you say you’ve already paid for it all to go away

It’s ten years after now and the song hasn’t changed.

And you’re always on the move – I’d swear you were present everywhere

Foreign Agent – Foreign Agent

And then things got a lot worse after that…

The Ghost of Electricity – War Stories by Jon McLeary is a new initiative at Off The Tracks, a series of stories and reflections from painter, writer and musician Jon McLeary

To read any of the first 114 in the series click here