Before the Dawn SAM

Mike Whitaker

From www.beforethedawn.org.uk:

What's Before The Dawn?

Well... it's a song by Mike Whitaker. Or it was. Then, one day, while crashing on a friend's floor in Keele, he wrote another, and a little while later a third, with a little help from a former work colleague.

And there it would have stayed.

Except that one day, back when WiGGLe pub meets were still crowded, someone brought along a pile of Zander's filk lyrics. Which included one with a note to the effect of 'thanks to Mike for the loan of the tower'. Mike read it, and realised it wasn't just the tower Zander had unwittingly borrowed, but the whole story... so he wrote a tune for it, and then he wrote another sequel. And those five songs made it onto Mike's first tape, The Oak The Rowan and the Wild Rose.

And there it would have stayed.

Except by then, Valerie, and Colin, and Phil, and Rhodri, and Vanessa, and heaven knows who else, had latched onto the story, contributing plot and characters in a disturbingly self-consistent way, almost as if the story already existed and was just waiting to be told.

It's a part of British Filk history. And someday, we always said we'd tell the story.

Before the Dawn

Copyright © Mike Whitaker - All Rights Reserved
Used by Permission

Watcher on the tower, I see your lantern
And the flicker of the fire that keeps you warm.
Turn your eyes away from its dancing flame,
For the darkest hour comes just before the dawn.

Watcher on the tower, I hear their hoof-beats.
They ride to take this land; ere day is born.
See their torches burn with a dancing flame,
For the darkest hour will come before the dawn.

Watcher on the tower, take down your broadsword
And remember all the oaths that you have sworn,
To fight to save this land from the dancing flame;
For the darkest hour has come before the dawn.

Watcher on the tower, I saw your lantern
And the flicker of the fire that kept you warm.
Now your funeral pyre is its dancing flame,
For your darkest hour came just before the dawn.