‘Find me a chord and lyrics that scan,’ I said to the enveloping mist,
‘and a voice to suit a poetic man, so I can emulate my hero, Buddy Holly.’

‘Chuck in a love-stricken sweetheart, maybe a Western trucker hitting the road, miles of unending plain before him.’

I sat down and reflected that I’d loved to have played the 10-string tenor banjo,
just like that Dubliner Barney McKenna, but the chords won’t come.

But his greatest admirer, Molly McGee, had a lovely voice,
and we sang along the Grand Canal,
while he played The Retreat From Tralee.

I mentioned this tale to another famous Dubliner,
an actor called Brendan, who wrote a tune on his rocky, Irish island.
Oh, what a sad tale that was.

‘Can you lend me a chord?’ I asked, ‘It’ll light up my day.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m feeling ungenerous, after an American tourist
asked If I knew the words to that classic hit, American Pie.

'You see, I’m strictly traditional.’

‘So am I,’ agreed Banjo Barney.

But a fellow asked, ‘Aren’t you that man from Hollywood?’
avidly chasing him with autograph book in hand.

The man himself grabbed me, crying,
‘My God, I need some solitude, to finish composing a tune.’

Then the song American Pie, that ode to a Holly great rock ’n roller,
penned by Don Maclean, rang out,
and we gaped as a barge sailed by, steered by Molly McGee.

‘I’ve found my Buddy,’ she announced, as he appeared from the mist,
'I fell in love with his voice, and I’m sorry darling, but you just can’t sing,
so I left you on the Grand Canal.’

Her friend called out, ‘Hi, Mr Gleeson, if I ghost-write it,
could you play me in my biopic on the big screen?’

‘No,’ the reluctant star answered, ‘I’m strictly traditional.’