Weatherman

This is an old song, and when I say old, it dates back to the mid 90’s although it was somewhat different back then. What I will say is that I was never happy with it, even though I thought it had potential.

To explain…… Back in the 90’s I used to write songs all the time for the band I was in. We’d turn up to a rehearsal, I’d play them my latest song and we’d work out an arrangement together as a band. However, these songs were all very much first drafts. What I mean by that is that I’d always go with my first idea, without stepping back and letting the song breathe, or even consider ways of improving it. It was very much a case of quantity not quality. Weatherman was a victim of this work ethic.

I always liked the verse sections, but the original chorus was simply not good enough. It wasn’t even a chorus. I was so lazy back then. If only I’d known what I know now.

So anyway, fast forward to 2023 and I wondered if I could do something with this song as it would have been a shame for it to go to waste. I experimented with different rhythms for a start which led to a new reggae style chorus section, but that didn’t work. I even toyed with the idea of arranging it as a purely acoustic number, but that didn’t work either.

So I went back to basics. I kept the electric guitar based arrangement and worked on writing a new chorus which complimented the original verse sections. I picked a theme of the weather as a metaphor for the world constantly changing, but yet the protagonists stay the same so long as they’re together. Once I had the theme, everything else fell into place.

When I am in the mood, I find it extremely easy to come up with melody lines. I’m guessing it’s because over the years I have listened to mainly melodic music. The Beatles, Costello, ELO, Orbison, McCartney etc. What you listen to informs what you create.

Some writers get very pedantic about lyrics. To them, they have to be clever and make sense or tell a story. Sometimes, the music suffers for this. I tend to lean more towards melody as it is that which stays in someone’s mind. There are so many classic songs with bad lyrics, but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.

So that’s it, the song was finished and I feel it is all the better for the rewrite. It only took 30 years……….

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The Perfect Storm

I love playing the piano. I’m not that good but I like to think I know a few chords, so I can kind of make something resembling a nice tune.

This song was written one day when I was sitting noodling at the piano. I’d got a melody and the first line “Now the leaves are falling gently from the trees”, so I worked out what the chords were. It didn’t take long before the next line came “they flutter in the breeze as they face their final journey”. 

The piano is such a great instrument for adding texture to chords. The “final Journey” line had an Em chord under it, but instead of playing E on the bass note, I played a C# instead which turned it into a diminished chord and added tension to that part of the song. It’s much easier to do tricks like this on the piano than on the guitar. This is why writing on different instruments can produce entirely different types of songs.

A few weeks earlier, I had heard the phrase ‘The Perfect Storm’, and I made a mental note that it would be a good title and theme for a song, and as I was composing this, I remembered this so decided that this would inform the theme. It’s so much easier to complete a song when you have a theme to focus on.

I think it is important to make the chorus of a song the best part. It has to be the most memorable section of a song and should lift up beyond the verse sections, especially in a piano ballad like this song.

Therefore, I picked the highest note I could comfortably sing and went up a semitone just to push myself. My plan was that even though it was out of my comfort zone, when it came to recording the vocal I would prepare by doing an hour's worth of singing warm ups and exercises.

As often happens, I hit a brick wall with the song. I had a verse and chorus but I could not progress it any further. I’m a firm believer that song writing should not be rushed or forced, because in doing so, you only ever end up with something inferior to what it has potential to be, So I left it on the shelf until such a time that I could do the song justice.

When I did eventually come back to it, my mind was fresh and full of ideas, and so the middle 8 section came quickly. I brought the dynamics down so that it could lead into a big final double chorus. I am particularly fond of the ambiguous line “the clock in the hall remembers it all”.

There are two versions of this song. The first was recorded by a girl singer from Argentina called Julia. I gave it to her because at the time, I was not confident enough to sing it myself. Julia’s version is sublime and I can listen to it over and over. It sounds so good to me that it doesn’t feel like I have written it.

And to be honest, I decided to include my version on this album simply because I thought the song was worth it. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope it has been interesting.

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The Great Escape

The Great Escape was written a long, long time ago. I feel it dates back to 1992, which (at the time of writing) makes it 32 years old. As it was so long ago, I cannot remember as much about the writing process as I would the more recent songs. However, some memories still remain although they are sketchy.

At the time, I had just taught myself to play Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd on the guitar. Anyone who plays guitar will recognise the technique used which is basically playing an open G chord, but then making slight adjustments to play other chords such as C, Em, Am and D but retaining the G chord shape on the top three strings. Oasis used the same trick in Wonderwall.

I started playing around with a chord progression and melody, but wanted it sound sound a little darker, so after playing the opening major G chord, I then slipped down to the dark sounding Dm7, which changed the key before another key change to Bm, then D which brought it back into the original key.

It sounded a little odd, but quite nice so I went with it.

I recently read a book. I cannot remember what it was but all I know is there was a Missionary in it who was travelling around having adventures. I quite liked the imagery of this and so that informed the verse lyrics.

I may have also just experienced a relationship breakup (this happened a lot when I was a young man), so that could have been the inspiration for the chorus sections.

I was in a band at the time and we did record a basic demo, and I think we may have played it live a few times, but ultimately abandoned it as it did not fit alongside the rest of the songs.

Thirty years later, the song was still in my mind and I could remember and still play it as if it was thirty years ago.

I always assume that if a song is that memorable and has that staying power, then it must be pretty good, which is why I decided to record it properly.

Recording it was a challenge because my voice has changed so much over the years and when it was written, I could sing effortlessly over a big range, so the song was written for my young voice. I had to change the key and push myself to deliver the high bits when the song changes key for the final chorus. I think I just about pulled it off though.

Apart from that, the song was really easy to record and I did not change one lyric or melody line from the original version.

A good friend of mine told me that this is his favourite song on the album which surprises me as I always think the newer stuff is written to a higher standard, but at the end of the day you cannot argue with taste.

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Not the One

I’d been invited to contribute some songs for a project that a friend of mine was working on which involved a girl singer. Talking to her about the project, I asked what kind of music she liked so that I could hopefully attempt to come up with something original that had a similar feel to what she liked to listen to and sing.

One of the artists she mentioned was Fleetwood Mac, so I listened to a few of their songs to put me in the mood.

For some songs, I can describe in great detail how I wrote them. What inspired me, how the melody was formed, how they were structured and then restructured.

However, with this it just kind of happened all in one go. I was thinking about Fleetwood Mac (I couldn’t say which song in particular) and came up with a very simple chord sequence. I sang some placeholder words which actually ended up in the finished song. I wish that happened more often as lyric writing is not something that comes easy to me.

I think the only major thing I changed was the final double chorus. I changed the final one to end in a slightly more positive tone. Kind of like a twist at the end.

The arrangement didn’t need much thinking as it’s a very simple electric guitar based song which will be very easy to recreate live.

So I’d recorded a good demo for the other project, but listening back to it I felt it was probably good enough to release, which is why I included it on my Anyway album.

The other version with the girl singer will be released as well with a slightly different sound due to other musicians playing on it, and I can’t wait to hear that when it is released.

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