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Colum Sands
	Year:	1989
	Album:	THE MARCH DITCH
	Song:	The man who couldn't sleep
Words & Music Colum Sands, Elm Grove Music Colum Sands: vocals, guitar, tin wistle, Ben Sands: mandoline, backing vocals Kieran Goss: Guitar
There was a man who couldn't sleep no matter how he tried, He courted sleep for twenty years but she wouldn't be his bride, The doctors took his temperature end some of his money too, And the chemist said I've got more pills if these ones do not do. Chorus: And in all this time, no matter what you think, this man never slept a wink. He lived with his suit in a lonely house with friends he couldn't make, And because this man could never sleep, he was never quite awake, But to while away the daylight hours he'd climb into his suit, Go to his office to worry in peace and frown into his books. Chorus And every night in search of sleep he'd look at the mocking bed, Climb out of his suit end say a prayer for the living end the dead, The suit would wait upon the chair watching him all night, Swallowing pills, pretending to yawn until the morning light. Chorus One night he lay and thought to himself, half of the world is dead, Sleeping away and equal now with their clothes at the side of the bed. Bishops, kings end robbers would all now look the same, Until another day would say, its costume time again. Then he thought of the suits at work each day as they brought their owners in, And the confident suits of pale salesmen, covering threadbare limbs, The stiff pressed suit of a bank man turn a worn out jacket down, The little girl dressed up as a bride end the judge dressed up as a clown. Then the man who couldn't sleep set up, in his eye there burned a flame, You lousy stinking suit he yelled, you are the one to blame, He grabbed it by the arms and legs, it didn't have a chance, And when he'd torn it into shreds his heart began to dance. Then he ran into the orchard where the scent of the blossoms said, Some people think they are alive because they are not dead, Then he laughed up at the rising sun end his heart gave a sudden leap, And two days later he was found in the garden fast asleeep.