> Lal Watersons > Songs > Reply to Joe Haines

Reply to Joe Haines

[Lal Waterson]

Sung by Norma Waterson on her second solo album The Very Thought of You. She was accompanied by Danny Thompson, double bass, Teddy Borrowiecki, piano, and Eliza Carthy, viola.

Norma Waterson wrote in the The Very Thought of You sleeve notes:

[The songs] range […] to the white knuckle fury of my sister Lal’s Reply to Joe Haines (originally called An Open Letter to Joe Haines) which is just that. A reply to the iniquitous article written by that man on the subject of Freddie Mercury’s disclosure that he was HIV positive (indeed that he had full blown AIDS) and which the Daily Mirror saw fit to print.

Lyrics

Read your letter, tore the page
Wondered whether to write in rage
Then I thought it better to use your trade
No-one should ever die of AIDS

No ordinary fellow, centre stage
No Cinderella, what a face
Gave us so much pleasure and some change
His likes will never come again

Read your letter, such a shame
And I think it better you think again
What’s it matter how he came
Bye bye Bulsara—what a name

No ordinary fellow, centre stage
No Cinderella, what a face
Gave us so much pleasure and some change
No-one will ever take his place