Song of the week #11

Up on the Downs

I wrote Up on the Downs back in July 2017 when the title of the track came before the song was written. I'd originally thought of calling my second album Ups and Downs because most of my songs are about emotional highs and lows. However, Stephen "Tintin" Duffy had beaten me to it back in 1985 so I decided to call it Up on the Downs instead and I liked the ambiguous multiple meanings that this title conveys. The song also reflects my love for the South Downs in England which I have known all my life - my father was born in Brighton.

The tune couldn't be simpler: just a simple scale going up from doh to soh and then back down again. The strongest song melodies are those which are centred around the notes doh, me and soh and this is something I am always aware of when writing songs. I also like to have the chorus and verses in different keys. This can create a tremendous feeling of lift when the chorus arrives if the keys are carefully chosen. In this song the verses are in D and the chorus in E. This "lift" occurs, appropriately, just after the lyrics "I'll be way up there".

It was only when I'd finished writing the song that I realised that it had a strong samba groove so I used a virtual samba band for the last minute of the song. Maybe not traditional South Downs music but it fits the sentiment of the song perfectly.

The video was, at the time I made it, my most ambitious. I shot most of the backdrops very early (6.00am) on a Sunday morning in the deserted streets of Petersfield and at two local beauty spots on the South Downs Way (near Butser Hill and Old Winchester Hill). The green-screen technology that I used nearly foundered when I realised that my anorak (chosen in homage to Paul Whitehouse's "Brilliant Kid" in the "Fast Show") had green stripes on it. So I turned it inside out - problem solved!

Up on the Downs

If you wanna walk the way I walk
And if you wanna talk the way I talk
You won't find me in some crowded city street
I don't dance to no suburban jungle beat

If you wanna know what turns me on
And if you wanna sing my favourite song
You won't find me in some urban city sprawl
Won't find me busking in that busy shopping mall
I'll be way up there. In the cool, cool air

I'll be up on the Downs just foolin' around
Chasing rainbows in the misty morning sun
I’ll admit that's not the choice for ev'ryone
But for me it's still up there at number one.

If you wanna feel the way I feel
And if you wanna taste of something real
You won’t find me hangin’ round the city hall
Not for me the crowds who pay to watch football

I'll be way up there. In the cool, cool air

I'll be up on the Downs just foolin' around
Watching kestrels soaring through the downland sky
I’ve seen sunsets that would make you wanna cry
And all around you time is slowly slipping by

I’ll be up on the downs. I’ll be up on the downs.

Song of the week #10

Hot Vinyl

One of my earliest musical memories is of listening to a selection of 45 rpm singles brought home by my brother Alan in about 1959. Many of them were ex-jukebox copies from the coffee bar in nearby Liphook and had their centres punched out to fit the large spindle on the jukebox. We therefore had to invest in a box of centre adapters so they would play on his Dansette record player. Although I may have taken artistic licence by describing them as "given away", they were certainly a lot cheaper than the six shillings and eightpence, which was the asking price for 45s at the time. They were scratched and the sleeves were torn and often didn't match the label of the single, but I can still remember the sleeve and label designs and the smell of the hot plastic which the disks were made of. Although nowadays we describe these disks as “vinyl” at the time they were just called “45s” to distinguish them from the 78s of the 1940s and early 50s. 

This was, of course, three or four years before the Beatles and Rolling Stones appeared on the scene sweeping all before them. The names I remember from this period include Duane Eddy (who was a particular favourite of my brother's), Johnny and the Hurricanes, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly and Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

I've given the song a more modern treatment in the style of late-period Dire Straits, with an over-driven Dobro resonator guitar playing an "England" football chant rhythm. 

I couldn't resist trying to re-create Duane Eddy's signature guitar sound and, although purists may disapprove, I used my Variax guitar to emulate not the Gretsch 6120, which was the weapon of choice for both Eddie Cochran and Duane Eddy, but the Gibson ES335 instead, which is one of my favourite Variax emulations. Also I wasn't able to reproduce the exact reverb sound used by the master of twang as he used a 2000 gallon empty water storage tank with a speaker at one end and a microphone at the other! (Tried it - didn't fit in my studio...), 

Also listen out for a quotation from “Johnny Remember Me” (at about the 2 minutes 56 second mark) which was a massive hit for John Leyton in 1961.

Hot Vinyl 

Back in the day when vinyl was king
You’d buy three 45s for next to nothing
And if you dared to wait till the end of the day
Well the man from the coffee bar would give ‘em away. 
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot)

Well the records were scratched and the sleeves were torn
But the music made you feel like you’d never been born
There was Johnny and the Hurricanes and Red River Rock
And Duane Eddy’s twangy guitar it was hot. 
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot) 
Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl.

Well, I remember ev’ry label; I remember ev’ry sleeve
I can recall ev’ry colour like you’d never believe
All those fancy designs are locked inside of my head
From the Top Rank orange to the Parlophone red
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot)

But just the smell of hot vinyl brings it all back
As the next forty-five crashes down on the stack
And I whisper Amen to a rock ‘n’ roll prayer
For the auto-change arm on the Dansette player

Well you can say what you like about your shiny CDs
And your websites streaming all those MP3s
Oh, but they’ll never replace the way the needle moves
Two minutes of magic in a spiral groove
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot)

But just the smell of hot vinyl brings it all back
As the next forty-five crashes down on the stack
And I whisper Amen to a rock ‘n’ roll prayer
For the auto-change arm on the Dansette player

Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot) 
Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl.

Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot) 

Song of the week #9

Supermarket Queue

I wrote Supermarket Queue in March 2019 for my fourth album “mE” which was released in December 2019. It's another of my “what-would-happen-if…” experiments where I set myself the challenge of writing a song in the style of another songwriter. The model here is Bus Stop, written by Graham Gouldman, of 10cc fame. It was famously recorded by the Hollies in 1966 and went on to become a world-wide hit. Gouldman later admitted that the first line of the song was actually written by his playwright father Hyme Gouldman who also suggested the titles of two others of his son's songs: No Milk Today (Herman's Hermits) and Art for Art's Sake (10cc).

I turned the melody of the opening verse of Bus Stop upside down and decided that the lyric would be a boy-meets-girl story, like Bus Stop, but with a different setting - a supermarket rather than a bus stop. The idea of the boy and girl looking for a pizza in the supermarket, only to find there was just one left in the store, seemed like a good catalyst for a relationship.

As the song developed I intentionally put in some close harmony lines in the style of Graham Nash and Alan Clarke (of the Hollies) especially in the line “Well that evening at eight I arrived for the date”. When it came to mixing this section I gave the two parts (Nash's and Clarke's) equal prominence in the mix to reflect the Hollies' signature vocal sound.

The lines I am most proud of, though, for their very English coyness, are near the end of the song:

With a last glass of red she retired to her bed
I'll admit not entirely on her own.

Those lines still make me smile when I read them!

For the drum part I studied the style of Hollies drummer Bobby Elliot whose drum fills are very much jazz-influenced; Elliot has said that Benny Goodman's drummer Gene Krupa was a major influence on his drumming style. I also enjoyed playing the bass guitar for this track, giving it a swing to match the drum part

For the video I broke new ground for me which involved a a very steep learning curve in computer animation. I used Adobe Character Animator and found a fully-animated digital puppet online of a boy (Linden) playing a guitar and his girl friend Cassandra. Many thanks to Dave Werner (Okay Samurai) who generously allows his fabulous work to be used free of charge and with no credit needed. (Notice my "Easter Egg" album covers on Cassandra's wall)

Supermarket Queue received a Highly Commended certificate in the Retro category of the 2019 UK Songwriting Contest:

Click on the image below to view the animated cartoon video on YouTube:

Supermarket Queue

So I met this girl in a supermarket queue
Slap in the middle of town
And we both confessed that we didn’t have a clue
Where frozen pizzas were found

So we searched ev’ry aisle and she gave me a smile
When we found what we both came for
But imagine our plight when the fact came to light
Just one pizza left in the store

Supermarket queue.    
We didn’t have a clue.
Supermarket queue.    
Now what are we to do?

And I don’t recall who suggested the idea
The pizza could be shared
So I asked her address and she seemed to live quite near
So a date was hastily prepared

Well that evening at eight I arrived for the date
With a bottle and a bunch of flowers
She invited me in and I said with a grin
I’ve been waiting for hours and hours

Supermarket queue.        
We didn’t have a clue.
Supermarket queue.    
Now what are we to do?

Supermarket queue.        
We didn’t have a clue.
Supermarket queue.    
Now what are we to do?

So we smiled and talked while we drank and we ate
And we laughed and giggled away
And the hours flew by and the time was getting late
And I swear she was leading me astray

With a last glass of red she retired to her bed
I’ll admit not entirely on her own
But imagine what we’d do in the supermarket queue
If the shoppers would leave us alone

Supermarket queue.        
We didn’t have a clue.
Supermarket queue.    
Now what are we to do?

Supermarket queue.        
We didn’t have a clue.
Supermarket queue.    
Now what are we to do?

Song of the week #8 

Imagine a Boy

There were several influences at work on my song from August 2019. Its title was suggested by this paragraph on the final page of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman:

“If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. 
And a summer that never ends.”

The chorus of the song begins with a paraphrase of a line from a poem by Wordsworth:

My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man
So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

I took the line “The Child is father of the Man” and changed it to:

For the boy is the father, the father to man.

simply because it sings better. 

I often vary a word or in my song choruses each time they appear for the sake of variety but I'm rather pleased with the variation I used in the next line of Imagine a Boy because although the change is subtle it changes the meaning of the song. The line when it first apears is:

And he knows so much more than all the grown-ups can

This is the boy saying, rather petulantly, that none of the grown-ups in his world know about the things that he has discovered. However, when it appears in the last verse it has subtly changed to:

And he knows so much more than any grown-up can

This is now the adult making the sweeping statement that NO grown-up could possibly recapture that sense of wonder that a child can.

The couplet which ends the song is 100% mine:

And the man who remembers what once he held dear
Is a boy, still at heart, until the end of his years.

For me, those two lines encapsulate the song and are, I think, among the best lines I have written. I am immensely proud of them.

There exists a photo of me aged about seven taken either by my dad or my brother in the late 1950s dressed in “baggy short trousers” exploring the huge wild garden we had at the time. This is the boy you should imagine when listening to the song:

There is no introduction to the song. I learnt from Paul McCartney that sometimes it's best just to launch straight into a song. Listen to the start of Hey Jude, Let it Be and The Long and Winding Road for confirmation.

The instrumentation of Imagine a Boy is simple and very similar to that of Hampshire Born which I had written a couple of months earlier: acoustic guitar, piano, bass guitar and a drumkit played with brushes.

I moved house a few months after I'd finished recording Imagine a Boy and, to my horror, discovered when I set up my computer in my new house that I had inadvertently deleted the ProTools file of the song. So my first task after moving was to re-create the file from memory and from extensive notes that I had made. I don't think anyone would notice any difference between the re-created version and the original version which is on the YouTube video.

I entered Imagine a Boy in the Acoustic/Folk category of the 2019 UK songwriting contest - organised by the BRITs - and was delighted when it reached the final five:

Click the image below for the YouTube video of Imagine a Boy:

Imagine a Boy

Imagine a boy in the long summer’s heat.
In baggy short trousers the world at his feet.
He knows what he wants and how he’ll enjoy!
The thrill of the journey. Imagine that boy.

He’s trod ev’ry path and climbed ev’ry tree
He knows where the badgers and foxes might be
The brambles they scratched him so bad that he bled
In bracken so tall it hangs over his head

For the boy is the father: the father to man
And he knows so much more than all the grown-ups can.

Imagine a boy in paradise lost
His plans for the day: find a stream he can cross
To splash through the puddles and make lots of noise
His world is a wonder. Imagine that boy.

For the boy is the father: the father to man
And he knows so much more than all the grown-ups can.

Imagine a boy sixty years down the line
Though battered and care-worn he’s doing just fine
He stares in the mirror; the boy stares right back
He’s still not forgotten the fun that he had

For the boy is the father, the father to man
And he knows so much more than any grown-up can.

And the man who remembers what once he held dear
Is a boy still at heart until the end of his years.

Song of the week #7 

Watercress Line

I enjoy playing with words in my songs, whether it is an unlikely near-rhyme (such as “team they can follow” and “plough a lone furrow” in my song Some People) or a classical device known as anadiplosis (repeating the last words of a line at the beginning of the next line as in Childish Dream). So I found it very frustrating when I came up with a catchy tune that I couldn't fit words to.

The tune of Watercress Line began, like many of my songs, as an academic exercise - a “what would happen if…” experiment. 

I've always been fascinated by the rhythm of Irving Berlin's Puttin' on the Ritz. The verse contains a rising phrase of four notes but the rhythmic trick here is that each of these phrases lasts for seven quavers - one quaver short of the eight which make up a bar of 4/4 common time. The four-note phrases gradually get “out-of-sync” with the 4/4 bars but order is restored by the two crotchets at the end of the four-bar pattern. A quick check of the seven-times table reveals how this done.  Four seven-quaver phrases take up 7x4 = 28 quavers. The two crotchets at the end bring the total to 32 quavers which is what you would expect from four bars of 4/4. The following graphic should hopefully make this long-winded explanation clearer:

You can listen to Bertie Wooster (!) playing Puttin' on the Ritz here. The joke here is that, of course, Hugh Laurie is a highly accomplished jazz pianist and would have known how to play it without Jeeves' (Stephen Fry's) incorrect guidance - spoiler alert: it's NOT a syncopated 5/4!

Anyway, I digress… My “what would happen if...” experiment was to play Irving Berlin's tune upside-down. I did so and out popped a rather catchy foot-tapping melody. For a while I called it Just Because although I never got any further than that with the lyrics. 

The tune languished on my “Songs to be completed” pile until I decided to cut the Gordian Knot and turn it into an instrumental tune. I'd progressed a little way into the arrangement when it started to make me think of steam trains so I contacted my brother Alan who is a steam-train enthusiast and a rather good photographer. I asked him if he had any photos of trains on the Mid-Hants Railway (commonly known as the "Watercress Line") and he sent me some amazing photos. The result of this Parks-brothers collaboration can be seen below.

I'm rather pleased with my brass arrangement on this track - especially the bit near the end where the tuba is grunting very low down! 

(Obviously no lyrics for this Song of the Week!)

Song of the week #6

If Ever

I wrote If Ever in 2017 for my Up on the Downs album which was released in early 2018. It has a very English lyric, probably influenced by Graham Nash's Dear Eloise and the Moody Blues' Dear Diary. Incidentally, I have a distant connection to Ray Thomas (who wrote the Moody's song): he was the godson of my cousin Margaret Jenner - well I did say it was distant! 

I think that if I were to record the vocals nowadays I would use a longer A sound for “pass” and “chance” instead of the pseudo-American short vowel - although I suppose it could pass for a northern English pronunciation! 

Because of the lyric's very old-fashioned-English feel, I used clips in the video from the archetypal English film Brief Encounter and I feel it works well in the context.

Although I was satisfied with the written song I was never very happy with If Ever's vocal sound. So, spurred on by my successful voice-editing of Childish Dream, I decided to give it a new lease of life by improving not only the voice parts but also the acoustic guitar, bass guitar and drum parts of the original recording. I was determined not to re-record anything although I did add some extra programmed drum notes - most noticeably a four-in-the-bar bass drum part in the introduction and early verses which helps to blend the off-beat guitar and vocal parts together and makes them sound less jerky.

I soon discovered that this was a very difficult song to mix properly so I muted everything apart from the acoustic guitar and bass guitar and once I was happy with their mix throughout the song I gradually turned up the drum part until it fitted in. Then I added the two flutes and string orchestra before I started work on editing the vocal parts. Of course then everything needed tweaking again. A mix is never really finished - only abandoned!

Click on the image below to hear the new mix inserted into the original video:

If Ever

If ever you have a moment free
With nothing in your diary
I’d be thankful if you would think of me
And answer my enquiry
I don’t care if you think I’m pushy
I don’t care if you feel that I’m bad

If ever you’d like to pass the time
With someone who admires you
I’d be ever so pleased to stay a while
And be right there beside you
I don’t care if you think I’m stupid
I don’t care if you feel that I’m sad

Woah. Woah
If ever you want me
You know where to find me
If ever the need should arise

If ever by chance you’re feeling down
And nothing will sustain you
I would caper around and play the clown
If that would entertain you
I don’t care if you feel I’m foolish
I don’t care if you think that I’m mad

I don’t care if you feel I’m forward
I don’t care if you think I’m a cad

Woah. Woah
If ever you want me
You know where to find me
If ever the need should arise

If ever you need a guiding hand
To steer you free from danger
You can safely assume that I’m your man
So please don’t be a stranger
I don’t care if you feel I’m childish
I don’t care if you think I’m a lad
‘Cos once I’d trodden the route and I’d tasted the fruit
There’s no way that escape could be had

Woah. Woah
Woah. Woah

Song of the week #5

Some People

I was definitely chanelling my inner Paul McCartney when I wrote this song which was included on my 2019 album mE. I even made the drums sound like he was playing them! However, others have heard echoes of the Hollies and Squeeze as well.

I wrote and recorded it in just 15 days back in April and May 2019 immediately before I wrote Hampshire Born (which took just 11 days to complete!).  I certainly seemed to be on a mission in those days. Nowadays I'm lucky if I can write and record a song in that number of weeks!

Some People is a song with a message: a plea for tolerance for others' views and for people to be less evangelical about their own beliefs: 

“But how can anybody dare to suggest 
That their way is the way that's the best
‘cos no one’s come the same journey as you. 
And no one knows where that journey's leading to."

I'm especially pleased with the acoustic guitar sound on this track. It's actually four separate tracks recorded using my Fender acoustic (capoed and not capoed) and my Variax guitar which emulates, among many other guitars, a 12-string acoustic. The lead guitar used another of my Variax emulations - a Les Paul electric, this time - and the string-bending technique comes directly from Jimmy Page (the opening of his Stairway to Heaven electric solo which I often played during my band days).

To view the YouTube video, click on the image below:

Some People

Some people need something to believe in
Well that’s okay
While others think that it’s only self deceiving
It’s had its day
But if it works then there’s nothing to say
'cos ev’rybody rolls a different way.

Some people need no-one to rely on
Well that’s okay
And some people need a shoulder they can cry on
From day to day
But when there’s trouble or if the times are tough
That certain someone might just be enough

Some people love one another
Don’t need to be a sister or a brother
Makes no difference their colour or creed
'cos everybody has the same old needs
Some people. Some people.

Some people need a team they can follow
Well that’s okay
While other people need to plough a lone furrow
In their own way
But this old world is a big enough place
For everybody in the human race

Some people love one another
They don’t need to be a sister or a brother
Makes no difference their colour or creed
'cos everybody has the same old needs
Some people. Some people.

But why should anybody dare to suggest
That their way is the way that’s the best
'cos no-one’s come the same journey as you
And no-one knows where that journey’s leading to.

Some people love one another
They don’t need to be a sister or a brother
Makes no difference their colour or creed
'cos everybody has the same old needs
Some people. Some people.
Some people. Some people

Song of the Week #4

Easy Peasy

Easy Peasy is my only venture into the musical world of Berry Gordy and Motown. I wrote it in September 2017 for my second album Up on the Downs and it joins a long list of Motown-inspired songs which include Wham's Wake me up before You Go-Go, Steps' Reach, the Beatles' Got to Get You into My Life, the Foundations' Build Me Up Buttercup and just about everything in the solo back-catalogue of Phil Collins' (he also wrote Loco in Acapulco for the Four Tops).

Re-creating the Motown sound was far from "easy-peasy" if, like me, you don't have musicians of the ability of the legendary Funk Brothers on call . The Funk Brothers were the loose collective of Detroit-based session musicians who provided the backing for all the famous tracks by the Four Tops, the Supremes and a host of other Motown acts.

There is no uncontested list of the Funk Brothers members. In all they number more than a hundred, some combination of whom played on each of Motown's 100-plus U.S. R&B number one singles and 50-plus U.S. Pop number ones released from 1961 to 1972.  However, there are thirteen core members of ther Funk Brothers who were recognised in 2013 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I used virtual instruments for the brass section, drums, keyboards and strings on Easy Peasy but played the bass guitar and electric guitars live - as well as singing the lead vocal and and backing vocals. The feel of Easy Peasy is a swung shuffle where each beat is divided into three. However, if these beat divisions are of equal length then the result can sound jerky and mechanical; it needed a lot of experimentation before I came up with a convincing result. The “correct” division of the beat is not a fixed figure but is organic - depending on the context of the musical phrases.

One of the oddities of the Motown recorded sound is that drummers very rarely used cymbals. In the early days, before multitrack recording was invented, all the Funk Brothers musicians played together live in the same room where a single crash of the cymbal would completely wipe out the sound of the other instruments, so Motown drummers (who included Benny "Papa Zita" Benjamin and Richard "Pistol" Allen) soon learned to play cleaner drum parts without cymbals. 

There is a famous drum fill which featured on just about every Motown track. It is analysed and reproduced in a short YouTube video here. Once you learn the sound of this fill you can't unhear it. It's at the beginning of the Temptations' My Girl and Ain't Too Proud To Beg and a slower modified version opens Phil Collins' Missed Again (click on the titles to see these videos). So I couldn't resist the temptation to use it at the beginning of my song!

I also used conga drums and a tambourine as well as an electric piano, vibraphone and Hammond organ to augment the sound - but I stepped outside of Detroit to visit Nashville for the country-style guitar solo (which I played on my Variax guitar).

As with my Butterfly's Wing video I shot multiple copies of myself singing Easy Peasy. The video here is an homage to the Four Tops singing on Top of the Pops (in black-and-white, of course!) and I had a lot of fun recreating their look and sound.

Click on the picture below to view the video:

Easy Peasy

It’s Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
You never know what you gonna do till you try
It’s Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
There’s nothing anybody can say
And no-one’s gonna get in your way. Easy peasy

If someone comes along and they say “Hey you!
What d’you think you’re doing here?”
What are you gonna do?
You gotta stand tall and look ‘em in the eye
Take a deep breath and then give ‘em your reply

You say “This is my world. This is what I do
And if you don’t like that more fool you.
I’ve written all the rules of the games that I play
And I’m the only referee and this is what I say”

It’s Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
You never know what you gonna do till you try
It’s Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
There’s nothing anybody can say
And no-one’s gonna get in your way. Easy peasy

If someone looks at you and they say you don’t fit
You’ll never come to anything. You’d better just quit
All you gotta do is stare ‘em in the eye
Take a deep breath and then give them your reply

You say “This is my world. This is how I play
You’d better get used to it. I’m not going away
I’m staking my claim to be here right now
I won’t be talked out of it any old how

Because it’s Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
You never know what you gonna do till you try
It’s Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
There’s nothing anybody can say
And no-one’s gonna get in your way. Easy peasy

You say “This is my world. This is what I do
And if you don’t like that more fool you.
I’ve written all the rules of the games that I play
And I’m the only referee and this is what I say”

It’s Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
You never know what you gonna do till you try
It’s Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
There’s nothing anybody can say
And no-one’s gonna get in your way
Easy peasy 
Easy peasy 
Easy peasy 
Easy peasy

Song of the Week #3

The Final Dance of the Year

I have a soft spot for this song of mine as it caught me by surprise. The Final Dance of the Year, which I wrote and recorded in November 2022, began life as an academic exercise. I wanted to write a song in the style of Ray Davies so I began with the same three chords as the beginning of Waterloo Sunset. 

I don't want to get overly technical here but a little musical explanation is necessary. Common chords, or triads, have three notes - hence the name. These three notes in a chord of C major are C, E and G. The C note is the first, the E is the third and the G is the fifth. Imagine playing a scale on the piano using the white notes C D E F and G for the thumb and four fingers and you can see why these notes of the chord are called the first, third and fifth rather than the first, second and third.

The opening phrase of Waterloo Sunset is a falling “sigh” from note 6 (A in a C major scale) to note 5 (G) on each of the three opening chords. This is what gives the song its wistful, melancholic feel. For my song, instead of using the “sighing” phrase that Ray Davies used on “river”, “rolling” and “to the (night)”, I used the third of each chord instead and sang a rising phrase which gives the tune a combination of sweetness and strength. Much to my surprise the tune acquired a life of its own and I liked it so much that the lyrics tumbled out. I wanted the song to have an autumnal feel, probably influenced by Ray Davies' Autumn Almanac, so I used the imagery of autumn leaves falling from the trees, swallows preparing to fly south for the winter and a couple having their final dance - perhaps their final dance of the year or the final one of their lives - as snow falls around them. I used the word “preternatural” (meaning “unusual”) in the opening lines as it's the sort of word which Ray Davies would have used - and it sings well.

For the video I used copyright-free video clips which I found online. The couple dancing at the end was an absolute gift! They were originally dancing on a sandy beach but I used some green-screened snowflakes to create the illusion that they are dancing in a snowstorm. It was completely fortuitous that the couple appear to be obeying the words of the song “Standing close. Moving near.” “Whirling round and round. Feeling like our feet don’t touch the ground” - it just happened! I love it when creative accidents like this occur - it's a joyful part of the song-writing process.

To view the YouTube video, click on the picture below:

The Final Dance of the Year

The autumn leaves are turning brown on the trees
They’re waiting for a preternatural breeze
Down they fall and disappear
For they just had their final dance of the year

The swallow birds are soaring high in the air
Departure time postponed as long as they dare
Swooping far. Swooping near
And soon they take their final dance of the year

Watch them dance. See them dance around
South of France is where they’re homeward bound

The air is still; the snow’s beginning to fall
The feathered flakes weigh next to nothing at all
Drifting down all around

The sky is grey; the night’s beginning to fall
So take my hand and we’ll be safe from it all
Standing close. Moving near.
And then we’ll take our final dance of the year.

Then we’ll dance. Whirling round and round
Feeling like our feet don’t touch the ground 
Then we’ll dance.

Song of the week #2

Butterfly’s Wing

Originally entitled (Lighter than a) Butterfly’s Wing, this song dates from 2016 and was included on my 2017 debut album Better Late… 

Butterfly’s Wing is my attempt to write a song in a similar style to Paul McCartney’s Blackbird. I remember thinking “I wonder if I could write a song where I am playing two notes of a chord and singing the third. Could I sustain that idea for a whole song?” 

I think I came pretty close to achieving it! I’m especially fond of the chorus of this one – the “Evening Showers of Rain” part. Technically, it contains what is known as a “false relation” with a B-flat clashing with a B-natural, creating an archaic feel, much the same as in Seal’s Kiss from a Rose. 

I worked out the middle section, “You can say what you want”, quite clinically on (manuscript) paper so that it would work as a counter-melody to the “Lighter than a butterfly’s wing” line. I had half an eye on Paul McCartney’s Silly Love Songs here which features THREE counter melodies: “I can’t explain…”, “I Love You” and “How can I tell you about my loved one”. I had the other half an eye on his Wanderlust from the Tug of War album which has 2 counter melodies (“Light out Wanderlust” and “Oh where did I, go wrong my love”).

The accompaniment of Butterfly’s Wing is probably the sparsest of any of my songs – just a single finger-style guitar. I resisted the temptation to add bass guitar and strings because once you start adding instruments it’s very difficult to know when to stop. The essence of this song is its fragility, both lyrically and musically and, just like a butterfly, it could so easily have been crushed under the weight of too many instruments. I even avoided adding a tapping foot, as Paul did in Blackbird!

I was never happy with the sound of the vocal on my original recording so I have recently taken the opportunity to edit it, using techniques I have learned during the past eight years, and make a new YouTube video with this fresh audio track.

I made the video for the song in December 2016. It contains five elements. There are three versions of me (wearing a different leather jacket for each one!): two singing and one playing guitar. All three were shot against a green screen which can then be made transparent using computer software. I also videoed myself walking from right to left in front of an autumnal backdrop in the Devil’s Punch Bowl near Hindhead. Lastly I found a copyright-free green-screened wooden bench. Put all those elements together and the result can be seen by clicking on this image:

Here are three still shots from the original green-screen footage - all shot in the comfort of my home – along with a still from the location shoot in the Devil's Punch Bowl on a bitterly cold late-Autumn day..

Butterfly's Wing

Lighter than a butterfly’s wing
Came the evening shower
Breathless as the nightingales sing
Darker by every hour
Who would think those showers could wash away the pain?
That all those tears could now be swallowed by the rain?

Softer than a humming bird’s song
Borne upon the breeze
Shows no sign of anything wrong
Whispering from the trees
Who would think that all those moments that we shared
Should now be thrown away just as if nobody cared?

Evening showers of rain
Can wash away the tears and pain and so.
Can bring life back again so slow.

You can say what you want
I don’t care anymore my friend
But if you so choose to do
Then what would be your profit in the end.

Who would think those showers could wash away the pain?
That all those tears could now be swallowed by the rain?

Lighter than a butterfly’s wing
[You can say what you want]
Came the evening shower
[I don’t care anymore my friend]
Breathless as the nightingales sing
[But if you so choose to do then]
Darker by every hour
[What would be your profit in the end]
Who would think that all those moments that we shared
Should now be thrown away just as if nobody cared?

Evening showers of rain
Can wash away the tears and pain and so
Can bring life back again.