On my first EP there is only one
song that has been written outside of the past 12 months. All the
other songs are charting where I am now, musically and emotionally.
The only song to have survived my very critical process of selection,
has been Your Reprieve. Overall the EP has made me very happy, and I
feel proud handing it out to people.
I am open to
everyone’s opinions, good and bad, as I would like a balanced
perspective. I am grateful to anyone who is willing to listen to the
songs, and pass their thoughts back to me. You can listen to 'taster'
samples of each of the eight songs on the EP. If
you would like a copy of my EP please email me and I will send you out
a copy. Of all the songs I have
written these are the only ones I feel are good enough to share with
the world. I have a few others still in the works but they weren’t
ready when the EP was recorded.
I would truly
appreciate any comments or thoughts you have on these tunes, please
comment on the forum or send me an email.
I’m Watching Youis a song that, again due to cuts in lyrics, lost
the verse with the title line in it. This song was written because
I was very angry. I had been having a lot of problems with a band
member and this was written to let that emotion out in someway. I
used very grandiose lyrics to cover how angry I was. I feel it has
been disguised well enough so the specific situation is not
obvious. This song almost didn’t make it onto the EP as I was
unsure about whether it was good enough, however, this has turned
out to be the nicest surprise. I was very happy with the way the
song ended up, and it was the first time I had used an organ on a
track!
Santa Monica
Blvd. is one of my most unusual songs. I was not quite
sure where this song came from or quite what it means. Many people
have suggested different reasons and explanations for the lyrics and
style in which it is played, but I have yet to decipher what I was on
about. Thoughts and explanations on a postcard please...
Coming For Youis a story about death. This is my most recent song,
and has more depth than one may initially think. The lyrics start off
about a man who is walking on a beach, and meets an angel. The angel
tells him he is going to die and then death appears. Death takes the
man away and then tells him to reach the afterlife he must become the
Grim Reaper and bring someone back. This was an idea I had for a film
when I was a little younger, and it felt natural to put it into a
song. There are many, many, many more verses written to this song
detailing what happened, how it goes, what the afterlife is like, but
I felt that this left the song open ended.
As The Sky Falls
Down On Mewas written when I came up with a chord
sequence that I liked and then sang random lines until something
stuck. I had written the title line a few years back, but could never
fit it in. I remembered it, as it happened to be in the same key, so I
glued it on and it seemed to work. The electronic backdrop for this
song was created by Neal Gaunt, who recorded the EP with me. He took
the song to a level I never dreamed it could be.
SKFHB means nothing. Honestly. Nothing. At all. They are random
letters typed into the keyboard as I had to think of a filename. My
composition lecturer was always telling me that I cannot keep ‘banging
away on four chords, as it just gets boring.’ So I wrote a song that
has nigh on 40. Just to show that I could. It changes style about
every 30 seconds and speeds up, slows down and changes key about as
often. This is my most musical song and my most tongue in cheek.
Catastropheis a song that is very sad, however, I wrote it when I
was feeling my happiest. I was very satisfied with my life, it was not
long after the gig with Sting and I was feeling great. Perhaps this
song was an antidote to that feeling of joy, maybe in my crazy head I
needed to create an equilibrium with myself. Or maybe I just write
depressing lyrics…
Underestimated was a song written for a very close friend. An
additional lost verse had the line ‘…you have been highly
underestimated…’ and therefore was the title of the song. When it came
to write the music around the lyrics I got to the end of the chorus
and I couldn’t think where to take it, so I just ended it there, so
the verse with the title was cut. It still feels natural to end the
song, just as it is kicking off. The bass riff sounds,
unintentionally, film noir. It always manages to get people clicking
to it. The chorus is based on a slight swing feel to give the song a
slight lift and change in style.
Your Reprievewas written as a thank you to everyone who had stood
by me when I was in trouble. This song almost defines my teenage
years, it opens them with the troubles I faced and closes them with
surviving them. I always feel good singing this song. Harmonically,
this is my most simple song, and I felt that the simple chord
structure helped underline the lyrical content.
