Living in a VW Westfalia — "Roll On, Chapel" | an Irish shanty by Mercy Grace Robinson

A shanty is a song for people pulling on the same rope. Lyrics: Verse 1 I wake to rain on the canvas and the kettle whistling low, There’s frost on the inside of the glass and a parking lot below, I fold the bed into a bench and I fold the night away, Then I count last night’s quarters out to see what I can pay. Chorus So roll on, Chapel, roll on, Raise your roof up to the stars, I’ll sing for coins on the corner, love, And we’ll sleep behind the bars. (Hey!) And the road goes on and on, Every town’s a home till dawn, So roll on, Brigid, roll on. Verse 2 She’s air-cooled and she’s stubborn and she hates a mountain pass, We crawl up through Iowa with the semis blowing past, She’s a rattle in the sliding door, a whisper in the fan, And a mechanic out in Cresco said “God bless her” and shook my hand. Chorus Verse 3 I open up the guitar case with a dollar in for bait, The suits go by like weather and the children stop and wait, An old man by the bus stop hums the one my grandma knew, He drops a crumpled twenty, says “That’s the only song that’s true.” Verse 4 Some nights I play in Asheville to a room that’s on its feet, Some nights it’s just the bartender and the rain out on the street, I shower at the truck stop and I wash my clothes in town, And I eat my wieners out of the can with the sliding door rolled down. Chorus Bridge They ask me don’t I miss it, a yard, a door that locks, A bed that stays a bed all day, my name on a mailbox, And I tell them, love, I’ve got four walls and a roof the same as you, Only mine pops up at sundown and lets the whole sky through. Final Chorus So roll on, Chapel, roll on, Raise your roof up to the stars, I’ll sing for coins on the corner, love, And we’ll sleep behind the bars. (Hey!) And the road goes on and on, Every town’s a home till dawn, So roll on, Brigid, roll on. (Hey!) Roll on, Brigid, roll on. There's one of me. So I sang the last chorus four times over and stacked it up on itself until it came out sounding like a crew. That's the whole crew there is. Here's one nobody tells you about playing on a corner. You put a dollar of your own money in the case before you play a single note. An empty case stays empty. Nobody wants to be the one who goes first. But let a dollar sit in there and folks will set a dollar down on top of it. That's in the third verse, and it's about the truest line in the song. The frost in the first verse is on the inside of the glass. That isn't me being poetic. That's your own breath all night long, freezing where it lands. Fold the bed up into a bench. Count out what came in the night before. Shower at the truck stop, wash your clothes in town, eat out of the can with the door rolled open. That's the job. I'd do it again tomorrow and I will. There's an old man at a bus stop in the third verse who hums along to something older than the both of us and then drops a crumpled twenty in the case and tells me it's the only song that's true. I have thought about that man a good deal more than he would believe. And the bridge is the only argument I've got, for anybody who wants to know whether I miss a yard, and a door that locks, and a bed that stays a bed all day, and my name up on a mailbox. Four walls and a roof, same as you. Mine just pops up at sundown and lets the whole sky through. She's got two names in that chorus and I did that on purpose. Chapel is what she is. Brigid's what I call her when I need her to make it up a hill. An Irish shanty, which I had no business writing and wrote anyway. Bouzouki, fiddle, tin whistle, bodhrán keeping time. There's a full reel in the middle where the fiddle and the whistle hand the tune back and forth. The last chorus comes in bare with the voices stacked up, and then the band hits and it goes up a key. Singing voice and instruments are AI-generated. Every word and all of the deciding is a person's. Mercy Grace Robinson is the narrator of Hummingbird, a novel by Edith Whitfield. New songs every Wednesday and every Sunday. Playlist 🎧 The Road Record 🎧 Rust-Orange Chapel 📖 The book and the rest of it: [link] #vanlife #shanty #Irishfolk #celticfolk #bouzouki #fiddle #bodhran #busking #VWwestfalia #folk #americana #originalsong #singersongwriter #roadtrip