Last week’s film-making activity has caused me to fall a bit behind with my weekly songs, but don’t worry, I shall catch up soon. Here’s song 32, recorded at the end of a very busy couple of weeks by Sam. It’s the first truly live song I’ve included in this project, and also the first song I’ve written using an open tuning. This gives me, as you’ll spot, the ability to keep playing and adjust my glasses, fiddle with my hair etc without losing my thread. Good stuff.
This one’s called ‘Waiting’.
Here’s this week’s song. It’s predictable in the circumstances. Regular readers may have noted that I don’t much go on about being a Londoner; I’ve lived in Brighton for so long now that it truly feels like home. My memories of growing up in North London are not in the least bit difficult, but I rarely experience a desire to be back there. I’ve not visited Barnet, or Enfield – where some of the worst riots took place – since 2002 or so. Every now and again I’m reminded where I’m from, and I feel a sudden, strong, longing emotion. I am a Londoner.
So impressed with the people who cleared up London after the disturbances – I wish I’d been there to help you. This video was cribbed from a lot of home videos uploaded to YouTube celebrating their efforts. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to make a video of my own clips – but the song is from my heart.
Another video courtesy of Dan, and a song which is up amongst my best I think – nice and spontaneous, badly recorded, and sort of truthful and sort of dreamed. This is the 30th song I’ve written this year. It’s about West London.
(G D Em D x2)
Well there’s seconds on the clock,
kissing in the dark,
and we stole our way home from Ladbroke Grove.
Your backbone and your slip,
I wrote letters across your hips
and I kissed them with vodka-marked lips
(C D G D x2)
But darling, we’ve done all this before.
But darling, we’ve done all this before.
(G D Em D x1)
And now that I see there is hope left for me
I drink it all down and I walk through the town
(C D Em Bm x1)
And I don’t mind, no I don’t mind, if it ends tonight, after all.
(C D G D x1)
(C D G x1)
But darling, we’ve done all this before.
But darling, we’ve done all this before.
I was a bit disappointed I didn’t get the time to include more friends in this video. For this, my 29th weekly song, I wanted to try to include footage of all my friends in the chorus, with the centrepiece being Dan’s dramatic fall from the roof (yep, another cheery lyrical subject this week), but time was against me and I ran out of it – so there are some dear friends who didn’t make the cut, and for that I’m sorry. But here are some, jumpy and stuttering over a painting my father did for me a couple of years ago. So there are two themes here, my chums and the place I come from, and both in their way are vital to holding it, or the many manifestions of it, together.
Song 29. If you’re in the video, sorry I made you look like an idiot.
* I’ve just realised there’s another nice work of art in that video (and I don’t mean ME) – I’m stood in front of a print made by the brilliant Mark Gamble, whose work you can find here. I probably should have asked him permission, but I didn’t think. It’s just a nice print that I have in my house. But thanks, Mark, for your unknowing contribution. Hope you don’t hate the song.
Whooops; alright, so I nearly slipped this week. I am posting this on the 7th day of the allotted time period for this week, so I’m just about still on track.
Apologies for the dissonance here – I wrote this song recalling being homesick in Montreal a few years back, but cobbled together the video with footage from London Bridge. Hardly fitting stuff – but perhaps I can blag it by virtue of the song being about missing home. Let’s call London Bridge home for the time being, yes?
Here it is – week 28′s effort. Do comment, and do share. Ta.
Sorry this one is a few days late; completed on time, uploaded on time – embedded on my blog late. I’m an idiot. Week 27: this one is a bit of a lo-fi type thing; half improvised, as it turns out, which is why the bass goes so regularly and embarrasingly out of kilter with the guitar. The lyrics are about vague senses of loss and unreliable memories, as usual.
Please share with the Twitterverse, Google+, all that rot.
Well, I’m half way there; this one is the 26th song of 2011. It’s freewheeling from hereoin in. This song started out a bit harder, trying to sound like Wire or mid-period Blur, but it ended up a it more relaxed and tuneful, as my songs generally do.
The video was shot in Portslade at the weekend, where to my shock and surprise there are horses. I didn’t have the finished vocal yet, so we filmed me singing the backing vocal. It makes the video quite hard to watch, actually, so it wasn’t an unequivocal triumph. It’s counter-intuitive to watch me sing words that are in the background not the foreground, and it actually makes it quite hard, I think, to hear the main vocal. But be interested to hear what others think of that? Anyway: week 26:
Instead of just saying, here is my latest song, it’s about… I thought I’d use this week’s post to describe something, if I can, about my experience of writing lyrics. Specifically about the way that songwriting in this way is very different to any song writing I’ve done previously. I’m writing a song every single week of this year, and doing so, with all the time limitations that come with it, means adapting my technique according to circumstance. Previously, it would have been quite normal for me to occasionally get my phone, or a notebook, out, and jot down lyrics on the train, with the knowledge that, one Saturday in the future, I could sit down with my guitar and spend a few hours cycling through chords and looking for ways to hang the words on interesting melodies. In that scenario, there’s no urgency at all in the equation; you think through, abstractly, a few ideas, until the opportunity presents itself to do something with all that unguided preparation.
Having a deadline, naturally, changes everything. It’s unavoidably true that while, in the greater scheme of things, I regard lyrics as being unarguably more important than music, I can do less at the end of a week with a complete set of words and no tune at all than I can with a chord progression, a melody and no words to use. For that reason I sometimes idly fantasise about spending *next year* writing no music at all, and concentrating exclusively on writing words which I can come back to the year after. But this is planning gone mad. Either way, the fact remains, I’m now having to write chord progressions, bass lines and drum patterns on the train, and until Sunday afternoon, lyrics are forgotten. (Thank heavens for my iPad, which enables me to do this stuff – otherwise it’d be pretty impossible).
So I’ve had to approach words in a different way, and the whole song-writing process has changed as a result. For example, imagine that I had started off with the notion of writing a song about, say, being haunted by ghosts. Starting with the idea, it’s deeply unlikely I’d have opted for a bunch of cheerful major chords, and would instead have opted for eerie minor chords and a stilted, atmospheric rhythm. But writing the other way around, the scenario is reversed. I create something bouncy and optimistic sounding? There go lyrics about the First World War.
What happens more and more is a kind of free association, and it’s an oddly accurate way of working. I’ll record the bare bones of a song, with a few suggested melodies picked out on my guitar or in garageband, and from then on it’s the case of looping the recording and singing nonsense over the top, repeatedly, looking for harmonic clues that get me nearer to having a finished song. On almost every occasion, in doing so, I find a phrase that seems somehow apt, and it’s from there that the lyric springs. (Sometimes I leaf through a book of poetry while I’m searching for vocal melodies, so quite often the turn of phrase which sparks my imagination is not my own at all).
Anyway, this week’s song worked in the following way. I wrote the chord progression on the train between Kings Cross and St Neots on Wednesday, embellished it in the kitchen of my parents’ house in Cambridge on Thursday, added guitar at home in Brighton on Sunday morning, and worked out some lyrics that afternoon. The free association here came from finding something in the music which had that kind of mournful, country rock grief which centres on a failed relationship. There’s a wonderful lyric on the (terrific) Caitin Rose album which goes:
“remember the day that the whole thing started / and the little black box in the glove compartment”.
I found myself forming a mental picture of a couple sat in a restaurant, with the guy opening up a jewellery box to reveal… not a ring but a necklace. That was all really. But from that sudden image, summoned up through sheer free association, I present this:
Week 25 of 52; hope you like it.
This week’s song is a bit late, I’m afraid, but only because of technical gremlins and technological, erm, worms, messing with the video. All up to speed now, so here is the 24th effort in my year long song-writing project. It’s called ‘Raw Recruit’ and I owe a debt of thanks to my fine film-making friend, Dan, who has leant his expertise to making me a video for it. Dan has already contributed a few films and plenty of footage to proceedings thus far, but this is easily his best effort, I think. The song is inspired by the war poetry of David Harsent, and by a walk in the mountains of Strasbourg a few weeks back with my friends.
Out of the mess of paths / into a clearing,
out of the field of grass / onto a stretcher.
Him with the fist of smoke / him in fine fettle,
him holding on to hope / down in the nettles.
Here’s one about the raw recruit / that crawled out from beneath
Out of the cold stream / crouching on blisters.
Him with a postcard for / a distant sister.
Away from the air-raid wail / back to the village.
Back to the village / back to the village.
Here’s one about the raw recruit / that crawled out from beneath
(chords: verse – Bm/Em; chorus – F#m/C/G)
Part of the reason I finally got round to posting, yesterday, a link to my video of Holy Ghost from the Great Escape last month, was that the gig itself was a bit of inspiration for me in my song-writing project, or at least, a prompt for me to write a specific song – this one. It’s not a masterpiece lyrically, I’m afraid, but I took a lot of care with the composition and although it’s pretty simple – just a rolling, shifting groove – it has lots of tiny pieces, which I enjoyed sequencing together. There’s something of Holy Ghost in here, I think, and obviously Gorillaz, but there’s still some continuity with what else I’ve been doing through the year; not least the fact of the instrumentation – I hope it’s charming, not irritating, that I resort to using my acoustic guitar to play a funk riff, something few others in the history of pop have been stupid enough to do.
This is the 23rd in a sequence of 52 songs I’m writing this year. To see the other songs, click here.
This song is so morbid lyrically, and personal sounding, that I thought I’d better start with a disclaimer – I wrote it cheerfully on Saturday morning, sat bleary eyed at my desk watching a glorious day ferment over Brighton, looking forward to a day wondering around the suburbs of Brighton & Hove with a friend. So while it sounds avowedly miserable – the theme I had in mind wasn’t just that of someone whose partner has left, but of someone who fears for the disappeared partner’s safety – it is a complete work of fiction.
It’s also one of a number of songs I’ve written this year which has come out well despite being terribly simple. Just three chords, a very simple pattern, and a squiggly synth riff. Quite pleased with it though. It’s the 22nd song I’ve written in 2011 – meaning I’m not far off being half way through this mammoth challenge (for latecomers, I’m writing a song every week this year). Hope you stick with it ’til the end – I’m going to!
I won’t list the lyrics ‘cos they’re not that good, but the chords are A, Am and Dm, so figure out the sequence and you’ll be able to play along to your hearts content. Not sure why you’d want to, though.
Making a video a week is significantly less arduous than writing and recording a song a week, but it still takes time. For that reason I try to maintain a library of video clips I can use, but occasionally that footage runs out and it means I have to create something from scratch. This weekend I was lucky enought to have some help from Dan, who helped me pull together the idea of an imitation steady cam vid, where I lodged a tripod against my stomach and marched along the beach, singing my song loudly and attracting attention from tutting strangers. So this week’s song – which is about monsters – comes with a rather cool video.
Video, lyrics and chords below. For reference, this is the 21st song I’ve written this year. Click here to see all the other weekly songs.
Lightbulb Eyes
F – C – Eb – Gm
He had lightbulb eyes
lighting up and popping out on stalks.
He had those clip on ties.
Dragon jaws, dragon jaws.
Check those filmy eyes.
Cotton wings, polystyrene.
Comic books don’t lie.
Calenture, miniature.
When will I see you again?
’til then I’ll keep my enemies close.
When will I see you again?
’til then I’ll keep the monsters near.
I must have heard something.
Creaking shelves or railway sidings.
He had a knot-hole eye,
walking free, but sleeping blind.
The coughing/coffin passed you by.
Young and sly, handsome while
you reached for the light.
Euphoria, Angelica.
Well, this one is late, but it was worth it, I hope. I normally write and record my weekly song on Friday and Saturday, so this one was delayed by a very lovely trip to see Anne-Sophie (who is of course my erstwhile bandmate until anyone tells me any different) and Rich. We spent the weekend traipsing around Alsace filling up our bodies with alcohol and having a frankly brilliant time. On Sunday morning, while AS, Rich, Vic, Alec and Ant headed off to get some bread, I sat down on the balcony and wrote the following song. The video contains footage shot over the course of the weekend.
Lyrics:
Thought there might be a storm,
Fattened rain breaking up on skin,
Thought we might be locked in
wondering if things had taken a downward turn.
Just earlier, we ate white asparagus with cucumber,
walked in the sun,
through trenches and castles
from Strasbourg to Basel.
We walk down the road, it’s not so far,
and we’re not nostalgic.
It’s not that far to Danny’s Bar.
We’ll jump on a plane it’s not so far,
not even that expensive.
We’ll jump on a plane and rent a car.
We break into grins
Another car triggers the car park lights
the barriers rise
and we drive away, looking for birds of prey.
We could eat for hours,
sharing jokes, discussing summer plans.
The next table laughs;
bad pronunciation and daft conversation.
We walk down the street, it’s not so far,
Everything seems so present.
We’ll go for an hour to Danny’s Bar.
Notes:
- Danny’s Bar is a weird little bar about half a mile from AS’s and Rich. We went for dinner round the corner and strolled there afterwards. It’s a nice little place, except for two oddities: funny glass tables stuffed with goose feathers, and a big TV overhead showing pornography. Couldn’t quite get our head round either.
- The first and third verses refer to our trip to Strasbourg; at the end of a long day looking around town, we went back to the car-park and, halfway to the cars, were plunged into darkness. We thought we’d be locked in overnight. Cue a short panic. We got out.
- The laughing dining companions were nice; they found our French pretty hilarious. I don’t blame them.
Weeeek 19: sorry, too tired for a long explanation – the endless weekend of gigs has taken all life out of me. It was The Great Escape in Brighton. I am exhausted. In a rare moment of energy, I recorded this: mad people sat in cars by river banks.
This is the eighteenth of my weekly songs; another attempt to use a beat which isn’t quite as straight as those I normally employ, although I’m not sure it ends up sounding so different. Nevertheless, this is a dreamy, vague sort of thing which is essentially a straightforward chord cycle repeated incessantly, but hopefully with enough variation over the top to stop it being too boring.
The video was filmed by Dan last weekend, at the Prince George pub quiz, and on the walk home afterwards.
Here’s the 17th of my weekly songs – this one is called ‘Paragraphs’ – and it’s a vague one, ever so slightly informed by the Royal Wedding palavar which dominated – at least until Osama bin Laden found his way dramatically back into the news – the sunny bank holiday weekend.
The video was shot by Dan in Snooper’s Paradise on Saturday. He kept gravitating towards the Star Wars cabinet. I wrote the song over a few days, finishing it up on Sunday morning. Lyndsey said the ending has shades of David Tattersall – a compliment for which I thank her enthusiastically.
It’s been a stunningly colourful and sunny Easter in Brighton; lots of wonderful lime green trees and blooming flowers, so although this week’s song is about less local pastures, it was kind of inevitable that my video would end up being in shot in the parks of Seven Dials. It’s been a long bank holiday weekend of gradual sun-burn, lots of reading, and squirrel-chasing. Then, last night, after the pub quiz, Lyndsey and I stood at the end of a breezy Buckingham Road in a shower of tree blossom.
This weekend’s song has been through a few various iterations – coloured by hangovers, heatstroke and contrasting moments of urgency and ennui. It had lyrics about rheumatic disorder, churchyard theft and story cassettes. Eventually it ended up, as all of the best weekends do, in the zoo. It’s called ‘Berlin’.
The gestation period for songs, when written on a weekly basis, is short. Often the whole things are done in a 2-3 hour burst, leaving little time for reflection or reworking. The best way to write, I’ve found, is to get something basic done very early in the week, which allows the tune and a selection of possible memories to ferment in my head for a few days before I come back to it and finish the song. Paradoxically, this usually leads to a better song but a harder to finish process. I suppose I become more ambitious if I take my time, and lose the momentum that a quick composition brings.
I’ve an excuse for delivering this week’s song a couple of days late – busy with work last week and occupied with a parental visit this weekend – but the fact that I wrote this week’s effort across the week, rather than in one burst, definitely complicated and slowed things down. I started off last Monday with a quite electronic composition, and edged it towards a more low-key acoustic song in the tail end of the week. What I had was neither one thing nor the other, and hard to resolve.
By the time I’d entertained my parents and taken a day or two off from it, I came back not quite knowing what I’d end up with. And yet when I plugged in my microphone last night to finish it, it all came together in a fairly dreamlike fashion – as close to auto-writing as I recall this year; the melody had been lurking somewhere and the lyrics came easily. And the dissonance between acoustic strumming and electronic squiggles didn’t seem quite so dramatic. So here’s week 15’s song – it’s called ‘The Stained and The Sick’.
Here’s week 14′s song. Lyndsey has pointed out that I’ve committed the cardinal film making sin of including a shot of flowers in the video, at the precise point I sing the word ‘flowers’. Sorry. The song is my song-writing taking a turn in the sun – feeling v cheerful this week. Ignore lyrics about bombs falling and admire my attempt to squeeze a hip-hop beat into proceedings. Fittingly for my upbeat mood, the song’s called ‘Yeah’.
Sorry this is late. Here’s week 13′s song – meaning I’m now exactly a quarter through the year’s challenge. Pedants who wish to accuse me of missing this week’s deadline will note the video was up on Youtube and advertised on Twitter at the weekend – I’m just tardy posting to this blog.
Week 13′s song is called ‘Piece’ – it was composed on the iPad over a couple of days last week and beefed up a little in Garageband. Lyrically, I wasn’t aiming to say anything specific, but I had a phrase I wanted to use – “we make our own beds and we break our homes”. So it grew kind of mournfully out of that.
The video was shot, like last week’s, in Marseille.
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