Dolores Through A Veil
I’ve been working on this song for a little over a year (maybe longer?) and I think I’ve just about got it nailed. I reserve the right to mess around with the arrangement a bit more though as I’m not entirely convinced I’ve made all the right choices. This is a very (and I mean VERY) rough ship demo but I thought you might like a sneaky listen. My plan is to produce this like my favorite folk album of all time, Paul Brady/Andy Irvine with mandolin, bouzouki, and hurdy-gurdy. For this recording, I plugged my Yamaha Silent Guitar directly into an ART USBII interface then into my laptop. I doubled the guitar track then sang into a Shure SM58, no mic stand, no pop screen, just stood in my cabin and belted it out.
The inspiration for the song was an old pinup I saw at “Station A” of the little known 1950s “beauty queen” Dolores Donlon. Once I started to think about the WWII veterans stationed in that lonely place, the story just seemed to write itself. The tune that follows is “Banish Misfortune” which I learned years ago from my friend Duncan Cameron.
Dolores Through A Veil
I see you now, as through a veil
Beyond that farther shoal
I'll be with you, Dolores
Where the broken are made whole
i)
Demobbed in '47, Westfalen B.F.G.
I tumbled back to Chippenham
To wed dear Laura-Lee
But the war had done its damage
Untethered both our lives
So I took my ring, and she her heart
To a joiner in St. Ives
ii)
Tried my hand then as a ganger
Then crabbing in Southsea
But the ghosts of 1944
Seemed to keep me on my heels
So I signed on as a stoker
With Lamport, Holt and Co.
And shipped out for Guyana
Farewell to all I know
iii)
But the wine and song in Georgetown
Was no proxy for a friend
Juno Beach and Bergen-Belsen
Had left wounds that would not mend
Then this offer on a notice board:
“Forsake all kith and kin!
Sparky for the BAS,
Forthwith, inquire within.”
I see you now, as through a veil
Beyond that farther shoal
I'll be with you, Dolores
Where the broken are made whole
iv)
At Port Lockroy on tiny Goudier
I found myself at last
With nowhere left to run to
No refuge from the past
So I thought that I would give myself
To the ice, the endless deep
No more the dread, the sleepless nights
No more to mourn and weep
v)
It was then that I first saw you
Dolores through a veil
Just a picture on a paneled wall
So lovely, blythe and pale
For a moment then this image
Like a vision through me tore
To find a heart still beating
Long buried by the war
vi)
Just last May at Horseshoe Base
Three lads lost to the sea
For just one shameful moment
I wished it had been me
Then the melancholy lifted
And I turned to life anew
The vision of Dolores
Held my compass true
I see you now, as through a veil
Beyond that farther shoal
I'll be with you, Dolores
Where the broken are made whole
vii)
Detaille closed in '59
Lockroy in '62
We “fids” all packed our duffles
To each other bid adieu.
And I fetched up in the commonwealth
Allentown, PA
My Marconi for a postie’s bag
And I tried to make my way
viii)
So life rolled on, the way it does
And I rolled with the times
Town to town and job to job
Bones for Yankee dimes
‘til the day I took my pension
And this shabby room and board
Above a Chinese laundry
And I watched a weary world
ix)
Just today, the Delco Times
Buried on page three
“Dolores Donlon, 92
Peaceful in her sleep”
No bereaved, no predeceased
No service, no estate
Still lovely in her final years
So graceful in defeat
x)
Just another pinup queen
Forgotten also-ran
Centerfold to trophy wife
Man to moneyed man
The Magdalene of “Station A”
Our Lady of Lemaire
The hope of sacred ecstasy
The soldier's passion prayer
I see you now, as through a veil
Beyond that farther shoal
I'll be with you, Dolores
Where the broken are made whole
xi)
11th Armored, Henry Jones
Private First Class, I
Bristol born, Swansea raised
Jack Army by the by
Now ninety-nine, the vision rises
Shining like a grail
And carries me to my reward
Dolores through a veil
I see you love, so clearly now
Beyond that farther shoal
I'll be with you, Dolores
Where the broken are made whole
I see you now as through a veil
Beyond that farther shoal
I’ll be with you Delores
Where the broken are made whole
“Dolores Donlon was an American model and actress. Born in 1920 in Philadelphia and raised in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, Donlon began acting in 1948 with uncredited walk-on parts in movies. Her television credits include roles in Perry Mason and I Love Lucy. At the age of thirty-seven, Donlon was a Playboy Playmate of the Month. She was married and divorced three times but had no children. She died in Philadelphia on 30 November 2012, aged 92.”
A very touching lyric.