The Best Violinist Learn English through story level 2

irish music is well known throughout the

world

from sydney to benizzares from london to

new york you can hear an irish song

dance to a reel and take a drop of irish

whiskey

it is a sad thing though to see an

irishman far from home who is too fond

of his glass

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my name is michael coleman and they say

i am the finest fiddler that ever lived

they say i put a twist to a tune i add

something to it that no one else can

i have never been sure of where the

twist comes from

i play that way because it is the only

way i know

i play because i have to

i do not know where it comes from or

what it is going towards

my home is a small room in the south

bronx in new york

where the tall buildings shut out the

sky

i don’t understand the place at all

two of my nieces passed through the city

last week on their way to look for work

we tried to talk about home but i could

not nor about here either

i picked up the fiddle and played a

couple of tunes

and then there was no distance between

me and them or the bronx or killerville

and ireland where i was born

that’s what i have been able to do all

my life

i could talk to you forever and still

say less than you’d hear from the first

few seconds of a tune called lord

macdonald

it was a cam bright summer evening i got

the fiddle back once again

i’d had to pawn it because i needed the

money

times were hard as they have been for

years

i remember the days when we musicians

were paid a working man’s weekly wage

for half a morning in the recording

studio

an irish cop had hired me to play the

fiddle at his daughter’s birthday party

he had done well for himself since

coming to the usa

not only did he have money he was also

said to be honest

i spent the week before the party

drinking to his honesty

a lot of money had been mentioned

it was a short walk to his house in good

weather as i went up the wide grey steps

to the front door there was an uneasy

feeling in my stomach the same anxious

feeling i always have before i start to

play

some nights i sit up and play and then i

notice the sun has come up and is

shining in the street outside

then i find my face is wet with tears

lord mcdonald is the tune i play

i knocked at the cop’s door

and a beautiful young woman in a blue

dress opened it

she looked at me with a face full of

puzzlement

there were holes in the elbows of my

jacket

nothing was said for a while

i’m michael coleman the fiddler i’m here

to play at the birthday party

the girl still said nothing only looked

me up and down for a few more moments

then she turned and ran back inside

i still remember the face of that cop

it was the face of a man who’d take

terrible offense if you weren’t enjoying

yourself enough at his father’s funeral

party

a big man nearly two meters tall still

the color of a man who spent many a long

summer working on the farm

in a good suit and expensive shoes

he had more of the american accent than

he should have had

i could never manage that trick although

i’m not sure i missed much

the cop

rushed across the hall and tried to

catch me by the throat

i stepped to one side and he dropped his

hands

his right hand was opening and closing

he couldn’t keep it still

there was no sound in the neat and tidy

evening street

he was so angry that his tongue hit his

teeth as he spoke

well mickey and coleman the great

fiddler you dare to show your face here

i didn’t know what was annoying the man

at all

my daughter’s birthday was this day last

week i had 150 people waiting for you

damn it

where were you

it’s bad when you start making that sort

of mistake

i really needed the money he’d have paid

me

well coleman where were ye

i made a mistake

i thought it was today i was supposed to

be here

he banged his hand on the wall by the

door the man was nearly dancing with

temper there were a pair of young women

standing in the hall behind him now

they were laughing at the shouting and

that was making him even angrier

i’ll tell you why you weren’t here mikin

it’s because you are fallen drunk around

the south bronx somewhere i got plenty

of warnings about you but i didn’t take

them fool that i am yourself and your

friends are a poor advertisement for us

irish drinking and fighting and bringing

our name down in front of the americans

you think you’re something but you’re

nothing

i never aimed to be an advertisement for

anyone only myself

you may all be famous but did any of you

ever do anything to give us a good name

did you digi

on about the second digi he hit me in

the chest with his right hand and sent

me rolling down the steps

i was on my feet before i reached the

bottom one

i was always able to land on my feet

i didn’t say anything to the cop

i never even said goodbye

it was a grand evening

there wasn’t enough wind to move grass

i just walked off with the fiddle under

my arm

safe

it cost people a lot more than their

fare for the ship when they came over

here

some of them lost all sense of who they

were

the cop wasn’t the worst of them

a lot of them wouldn’t let you near

enough their house to be able to throw

you off their steps

they’d be ashamed in case someone caught

them listening to old irish tunes like

the sligo maid or the carrieman’s

daughter

the same people even tried to destroy

their accent cutting bits off it like a

man trying to give a block of wood a new

shape

at one time there was always a place for

us a place for those who made others

dance

maybe people don’t want to be reminded

about what they came from

because they’re frightened they haven’t

moved as far away from it as they think

they have

the fiddle was pawned again and i was in

a bar a quiet bar drinking whiskey

i learned to drink at those dances where

you’d accidentally break a string on

your fiddle if they weren’t refilling

your glass quickly enough

i used to take my whiskey with friends

and laughter then

now

i like to drink alone

the drink only makes me feel okay these

days still

in bad times okay is good

the twist

that’s what they say i have

what i put into a tune that the others

can’t

you can’t try to put the twist into your

playing it has to be part of it

some days i think i know what the twist

is

but i can never catch it

because it is inside me

it is what i am

the drinking

the way i could never stay in one place

the blackness i see in front of me some

days the dreams i have in the night

all there in my fiddle

whatever it was that was wrong with me

leaked out through my fingers and they

heard it as the twist

and sometimes i think i have nothing to

do with it at all

when the first records were sold 78 they

were called i saw men and women dancing

and laughing and crying at the same time

at my plane

i’m a farmer’s son from killerville

how could it be me that did that

maybe the fiddle wasn’t the instrument

at all

i heard there are men at home who

wouldn’t eat for a couple of days so

they could buy those records

men who knew me did that

we had come to america to record this

irish music to be sent back to ireland

for people there to buy and yet we’ll

never see ireland again

things are wrong in this world

so they are

i was never too eager for work

that was well known around the place at

home

all i wanted to do was walk the

countryside and play music

some men will kill for land others will

die for a woman

i lived for the music of the dance fast

and slow sad and sweet

everything else

on the face of this earth was forgotten

when i picked up a fiddle

the coldness of the city meant nothing

to me when i was playing well

if i could hear the twist it meant the

life i was living was all right for me

i’d only just got back to killaville

from london when i came to the usa

big cars and bright lights a law against

drinking theaters full of girls singing

and dancing and dollars

you couldn’t feel right in it unless you

were born in it and even then you might

not

you’ll always look back

at the place you came from and think it

was better

at home we started with an innocent life

walking home from village dances across

pale wet fields

looking at birds on the moonlit lake

playing a tune across the water in the

early morning with no other sound in the

clear cold air

but it was a false life

false because it wasn’t right to let

people live a life like that if they

weren’t going to be allowed to stay in

it

if they were already marked to go

someplace else

they didn’t prepare us for new york or

london boston or manchester

there was bitterness and jealousy and

hunger at home that’s true i can’t say

it isn’t

but is it fair to be punished with a

slow death from a bleeding wound

i look at people’s faces when they hear

the names of tunes from home

the boys of ballas adair

and the plains of boyle

and i know they are dying inside

the night the cop threw me down the

steps i called at seamus anderson’s

house

i was full of whiskey but i knew he had

a fiddle in the house

i wanted to sit up and play music all

night

i needed to feel that moment in the back

of my head when i would know i’d got

there

and then it would disappear before i

could catch it and i would have to try

and create it again

sheamus owned a bar

like the cop he lived in a good house in

a good area

i managed to open the garden gate

although i couldn’t see straight

but i could hear a tune in my head that

would cure me if i was only allowed to

play it i never played a tune badly in

my life

the drink would change everything around

in my head but i would still play the

same as ever

the twist would always be there

i knocked on seamus anderson’s door

there was light inside but there was no

answer there were plenty of voices

a light came on in the hall so i tried

to concentrate and look sober

sheamus was a church-going man who was

strongly opposed to drink

although that didn’t stop him selling it

i held my breath and tried to force my

eyes to look in the one place at the one

time

all it did was make my head go round

i fell against the door

a woman’s voice shouted

who’s that at this hour of the night

michael coleman

tell sheamus michael coleman is here to

play a tune

to play

lord mcdonald

michael coleman has landed from

killerville

wait there she said

and walked away back into the house

i knew that if i didn’t get into the

light something awful was going to

happen

there was a lot of noise inside it

seemed a long while before she came back

seamus anderson isn’t home tonight he’s

out of town

he had been out of town the last five

times i’d been to the house still he was

a busy man

a businessman

i still felt bad so i leaned against the

door and hoped the black waves in front

of my eyes would disappear

i could hear a man’s voice inside the

house

is coleman gone

that man is nothing but trouble when he

has drink in him

the voice could have been seamus

anderson’s

but i was not certain

i banged on the door and shouted for

them to let me in

there was another voice

a harder one with an unpleasant laugh

get out of here

go on get out of here

and then to someone else you only have

to lift him and he’ll fall

in a narrow back street

me

lying on a pile of rubbish

and a good number of rats

you’ll always know rats because they sit

up and look you straight in the eye to

let you know that’s how carefully

they’re watching you

i thought these were real rats

not the rats i see when i’ve had a

couple of drinks

lord macdonald was playing in my head

there was a cop walking towards me

i realized my nose had been bleeding for

a while and the front of my jacket was

covered in blood

the cop was cautiously tapping his stick

against the inside of his left hand as

he walked slowly towards me

i stood up and stepped out from the wall

into the light

officer i was only taking a rest

they take drunks down to the police

station and beat them unconscious with

sticks

sometimes they kill them for the fun of

it

christ it’s michael coleman michael

coleman the great fiddle player we’ve

got a whole pile of your 78s at home

what are you doing here

if i knew that i wouldn’t have to drink

he smiled

and put a hand under my elbow to stop me

falling

good luck mr coleman it’s good to meet

you you’re a great fiddler when you’re

playing

and he walked off a good irishman

the rats were still there

so they were real rats

not my rats

the night was lovely and warm

and there was nothing to be afraid of

the drink is like music

how can you explain it to someone who

has not fallen in love with it

how it floods your head and pushes the

blood three times faster through your

body

the wonderful moment of the first one

the morning after when it starts to

clear away the fear and anxiety it put

there the night before

drink makes the world a place of

certainty in every way

i remember the day i played lord

macdonald

i sat in a small recording studio in the

south bronx at midday

played another tune for a couple of

minutes and then it started

i played the whole of lord macdonald

just once and i could feel something

running through me

every second was like an hour and the

music was coming from a place so far

back in myself that it was tearing me

apart

i followed the music chased the music

with colours going through my mind and

killerville and my dead brother and the

man who taught me to play and the end of

all this and the twist in myself and

green and brown

it was bringing me somewhere and i

finally got there

i walked away out from the studio when i

finished

and two men from the record company came

out into the street after me

one of them pulled a huge roll of

dollars from a deep trouser pocket

here you are michael a couple of hundred

dollars for a special performance no one

ever heard anything like that before

the sun was shining the way it does in

new york in the summer

the rest of the musicians were sitting

in the usual bar talking about work and

spending money

they didn’t know then they’d never have

that sort of money again

i tried to explain what had happened

my hand was shaking and the beer was

spilling onto the floor

sunshine was coming through the dark

glass of the front window

blue colored light with dust flying

round in it

i had got there

i looked at my fingers

and said there would be so many more

tunes that i would play like this

but it never came again

not that way

there was just that one day before it

all finished for me

lord macdonald was the tune

my name is michael coleman

and they say i’m the finest fiddler that

ever lived

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oh

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you