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Red Boots On
by Kit Wright
Red Boots On - Kit Wright
This is called 'Red Boots On'. It has been set to music, it's a very stomp-like little poem, but almost too much so for setting to music, really, you need a bit more freedom, I think, as a composer for these things to do a bit of portamento but this is pretty emphatic in its rhythms. In the late 1960s I taught at a little university in Canada, not so little now, called Brock, a university in St Catharines, and one winter of very heavy snowfall, my girlfriend was running down the street, and kicking up the snow wearing these new red boots of which she was very proud, and I thought that the red boots against the white snow were an almost filmic ...
This is called 'Red Boots On'. It has been set to music, it's a very stomp-like little poem, but almost too much so for setting to music, really, you need a bit more freedom, I think, as a composer for these things to do a bit of portamento but this is pretty emphatic in its rhythms. In the late 1960s I taught at a little university in Canada, not so little now, called Brock, a university in St Catharines, and one winter of very heavy snowfall, my girlfriend was running down the street, and kicking up the snow wearing these new red boots of which she was very proud, and I thought that the red boots against the white snow were an almost filmic image of happiness, really. So it's a four-square poem really about happiness which is something I find quite difficult to do. All the proper names in it, apart from hers, which is Mary Lou, are names of streets in the town.
Red Boots On
Way down Geneva,
All along Vine,
Deeper than the snow drift
Love’s eyes shine:
Mary Lou’s walking
In the winter time.
She’s got
Red boots on, she’s got
Red boots on,
Kicking up the winter,
Till the winter’s gone.
So
Go by Ontario,
Look down Main,
If you can’t find Mary Lou,
Come back again:
Sweet light burning
In winter’s flame.
She’s got
Snow in her eyes, got
A tingle in her toes
And new red boots on
Wherever she goes
So
All around Lake Street,
Up by St. Paul,
Quicker than the white wind
Love takes all:
Mary Lou’s walking
In the big snow fall.
She’s got
Red boots on, she’s got
Red boots on
Kicking up the winter
Till the winter’s gone.
from Hoping it Might be So (Leviathan, 2000), copyright Kit Wright 2000, used by permission of the author