Get to know Michel Griffin in just three minutes

m i c h e l g r i f f i n

Friday 7 March 2014

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Welcome !

I've been writing and playing songs to entertain people all my life. This page allows you to get to know my music in just three minutes. Each of the original extracts here was recorded live, in concert, and lasts 30 seconds.

On the rest of this site, you can sample my albums, read my bio, and watch some of my videos, which have attracted more than a million views on YouTube.

Or you could browse through the video archive of the Cahors Folk Club, which I run in SW France.

To book :
	USA	email or (+1) 310 270 8782.
	France	email or (+33) (0)5 81 70 18 15.

Children of Circumstance

View video Browse album Studio version on iTunes

A lonely man contemplates a past he cannot change.

Lyrics:
I think of you when the lights are low
Over the final drink and the late-night show;
One last drag on my cigarette:
The house feels empty as I head for bed.

Shouldering my loneliness into another dawn,
I sleep with your shadow, just beyond my arms:
You were too tender for this troubled world;
I was too timid to go for gold.

It's not only clowns who play the fool
But it's only the brave who confront the truth;
And while cowards may borrow a hero's stance
We are children, all, of circumstance.

I think of you under the starlit sky
As another summer slumbers by;
So many moons have waxed and waned
Over distances I still can't explain.

It's not only clowns who play the fool
But it's only the brave who confront the truth;
And while cowards may borrow a hero's stance
We are children, all, of circumstance.

Copyright © M.J.C. Griffin [ASCAP]
Play
The Slipstream of your Smile

Browse album Studio version on iTunes

A song to capture the magic of those moments when your lover holds you captive with her eyes.

Lyrics:
You turn your head, I catch your eye,
I can't be certain, but I think I read your mind
We have so much to say, there seems so little time
I'm swimming in your smiling eyes, the words are hard to find -
You leave me breathless, silenced:
Spinning in the slipstream of your smile.

There's half a moon, floating out to sea,
There's a million stars, and there is you and there is me;
I hold you close until I feel I 've conquered Time,
I can feel your heart, it's beating next to mine -
You leave me breathless, silenced:
Spinning in the slipstream of your smile.

Some say that love is an illusion,
A wishful thought, of make-believe;
I've found that love is fragile fusion:
Walk away, and it'll be tugging at you, tugging at your sleeve ...

I love you, I love you,
I love you so much.
We have so much to say, there seems so little time
And swimming in your smiling eyes, the words are hard to find -
You leave me breathless, silenced:
Spinning in the slipstream of your smile.

Copyright © M.J.C. Griffin [ASCAP]
Play
Strangers Once Again

View video Browse album Studio version on iTunes

It's never a good idea to meet up in Autumn with the friend who shared your bed on that Summer holiday !

Lyrics:
All summer long, we'd dance together, cheek to cheek;
All summer long, I'd leave you late - you'd leave me weak;
All summer long, the sun it chased away the rain,
But now it's autumn, and we're strangers once again.

All summer long, we'd walk together, hand in hand;
Beside the sea, we left our footprints in the sand;
But now the winds of time have blown away every trace -
That wind is rising, and we're strangers once again.

I don't know how, I don't know why
Each shy 'Hullo ' became 'Goodbye';
I didn't see, I can't say when the moment came that made us
Strangers once again.

Je n'sais pas bien, je comprends pas
Ce qui a pu nous séparer;
Et je n'ai pas vu arriver
Ce qui a r'fait de nous des étrangers.

Copyright © M.J.C. Griffin [ASCAP]
Play
Für Elise

View video Browse album Studio version on iTunes

A love-song for a very special person.

Lyrics:
As a boy I always heard the Für Elise,
A necklace of notes inside my head;
I'd sit and watch the sun float through the trees,
Always wishing to be somewhere else instead:
In my dreams, the open road -
I'd be flying like a bird.
Arms outstretched to catch the sun
And those fleeting notes I heard .....

All my life I've tried to rearrange those notes
Into a melody so clear:
Trying to coax some kind of harmony
Out of contradiction, out of fear ....
And then you came, an open heart,
Flying like a bird.
Arms outstretched to hold me close
To those fleeting notes you heard .....

So here's the song I always meant to write for you,
I'd like to say: your Für Elise.
You finally fused the notes inside of me,
Into this tune to which we dance beneath the trees ....
You are my dream, my sweet Elise,
I'm flying like a bird,
Arms outstretched to hold you close
To those fleeting notes we heard .....

As a boy I always heard the Für Elise,
A necklace of notes inside my head;
I'd sit and watch the sun float through the trees,
Always wishing to be somewhere else instead.

Copyright © M.J.C. Griffin [ASCAP]
Play
Perfumed Letter Blues

View video Browse album Studio version on iTunes

When I was 15, my German girlfriend sent me a perfumed letter asking me not to write to her any more, as her German boyfriend didn't appreciate my letters. Forty years on, and I write a song about it ... !

Lyrics:
You put your perfume on the letter
The letter that you sent;
Saying that we were finished,
That your love for me was spent.
I smelt the perfume on that letter;
I swear it knocked me flying.
If I didn't know any better,
I'd say even the mailman was crying.

Don't leave me now, don't leave me
You know I won't survive
Every single thing I see
I see only through your eyes;
Don't leave me now, don't leave me
Don't leave me without a sign
Whether all those things you said and did
Were the fruit of chance or of design.

Copyright © M.J.C. Griffin [ASCAP]
Play
America, Come Weep

View video Browse album Studio version on iTunes

A country-style ballad about a waitress in a diner, who is longing for the open highway, and lamenting the missed turnings on the country's road toward the American Dream.

Lyrics:
It's a short step from the diner to the highway,
It's a long haul from the mountains to the coast;
From the restless glance she flicked
Between the distance and the counter,
I'd say our laughter stirred a ghost.

Down the way, lights prickle at the edge of town,
As the cowboys gather, to watch the sun go down;
There's smoke and fire and laughter and hope for the ever-after
But I'd say that Destiny wears a frown.

America, come weep, for what's been lost and what's been stolen,
America, come weep, for all your pioneers of old;
For somewhere on the way, between dream and realisation,
I'd say you've gone and lost your soul.

With her elbows on the counter, and her eyes out on the highway,
The waitress in the diner watches the drivers come and go;
They all have destinations emblazoned on their faces,
Like the old heroes on horseback who made the horizon their home.

The evening news flickers from the TV in the corner,
Images of blood and death that'd make your stomach churn;
The waitress starts to wonder, as she polishes the glasses,
How a nation of refugees took to killing in their turn.

America, come weep, for what's been lost and what's been stolen,
America, come weep, for all your pioneers of old;
For somewhere on the way, between dream and realisation,
I'd say you've gone and lost your soul.

It's a short step from the diner to the highway,
It's a long haul from the mountains to the coast;
From the restless glance she flicked
Between the distance and the counter,
I'd say our laughter stirred a ghost.

Copyright © M.J.C. Griffin [ASCAP]
Play

Children of Circumstance

The Slipstream of your Smile

Strangers Once Again

Für Elise

Perfumed Letter Blues

America, Come Weep