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The Genie of the Button

from A Twist in the Story by Anne Lister

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about

The totally true story of Irving Pollard, who was an industrial photographer for the Rootes Group in Coventry - but who was also a clown and an amateur actor. He wrote and performed a play called "Alf's Button", in which a WWI soldier can summon a genie by polishing a button. He also made puppets. His shop in Hillfields was destroyed by a fire bomb, and the shock meant that Pollard lost his speech until he was persuaded to make a new puppet. Triangle Theatre presented his extraordinary life story in Coventry in 2006, and it was much appreciated by the Kurdish refugees who now occupy the sites of Pollard's life.

lyrics

There’s a man in a corner and he’s polishing a button
Polishing a button, wishing that his life would change
And the genie of the button turns his life around and sideways
Puts a red nose on his face and his feet upon the stage.

And life is what happens when someone pulls your strings
You don’t know how to move and you’ve no choice where to go
We think we’re in control when the magic turns begin
And then we slowly come to learn we’re puppets, in a show.

There’s a man in a shop and he’s fashioning a puppet
Gives it eyes and ears, a happy smile, and then gives it a name
And he still thinks he’s in charge and the puppets are his children
But the genie of the button puts his red nose on again.

There’s a man sitting silent in the blackened bombed out building
His eyes blank as his mind, and his body still as stone
And the genie of the button is powerless to help him
There is no kind of magic that can call his spirit home.

Put a piece of wood into his hands and let him feel the face there
Let him carve another child and make his creature walk
As his puppet comes to life he’ll find his voice and memories
And the genie of the button grins as Irving Pollard talks.

Now the times have moved on and Irving Pollard has moved with them
Coventry’s bombed buildings are a long-forgotten scene
There are strangers in the places where the man and clown once worked
There aren’t too many people who remember what has been.

But the refugees from far away now live there in Hillfields
With their memories of massacres, heartache and the war
And when the strolling players act the genie of the button
There’s laughter once again beyond the language and the culture
There’s laughter once again the way the laughter came before.

We’ve rebuilt the streets of Coventry and Pollard got his voice back
We’ve seen how this world can change, the process doesn’t cease
The genie of the button sees the homeless and heartbroken
May the genie of the button give us laughter, love and peace.

credits

from A Twist in the Story, released April 29, 2022
Steafan Hannigan - whistle
Mike O'Connor - fiddle
Jacey Bedford - harmonies.

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all rights reserved

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Anne Lister Wales, UK

Anne is best known for her song "Icarus", recorded and performed by a number of different singers, including Martin Simpson and Nic Jones. "Astrolabe" is her ninth solo album.

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