Assistant Blog

Because I’m writing so frequently, and seeking to prevent things from sounding samey, I’ve noticed little trends in terms of how I arrange songs – early on I was introducing electronic elements and looking to borrow from dance music and hip hop in how I structured things; a bit later I seemed to be working hard on intricate string arrangements. Following that, I concentrated hard on glockenspiels and harps, looking for warm ringing sounds to offset the bleakness of my strumming. Recently, I’ve used woodwind instruments and accordians, instruments I wouldn’t have dreamed of incorporating twelve months ago. I dunno if these surface differences keep things interesting for my listeners – assuming I have any – but they certainly keep things fresh for me. Anyway – here’s an example of the more organic sound I’ve opted for recently. This one’s called ‘Aldrington’.

For this week’s song, I was satisfied to shy back from creating something with a verse and chorus and, for the first time, dispense with lyrics. For reasons I’m not altogether sure of, I’ve never listened to any instrumental rock music; the likes of Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor bore to me tears, although when you consider that I very much like listening to Durutti Column, jazz and modern classical stuff, perhaps it makes more sense to simply say I don’t like post-rock. Either way, I always think it’s rather pointless writing music and not lyrics, but that’s my own prejudice and one I should get over. For this, I tried.

It’s really just a slightly awkward riff, looped with some weird distortion over the top – but I’m pretty pleased with it. My friend Dan shared it with a friend of his, Linda, who took a bit of time out of her day to dance along; and Dan created the accompanying video. Thank you, both.

The song is called, aptly, Forty – it’s the fourtieth song in this project.

Get up to date with the other 39 songs here.

This song is really just another collection of images, inspired by a walk through Brighton on a foggy morning this week; watching prescription lines snake out of chemist doors and postmen rattle their carts down Buckingham Road. It ends with an image I didn’t spot, but which sprang organically to mind as I was writing – that of kids on bridges, noting down trains or dropping pebbles on cars. Lyrics below.

There’s a stupid typo at the end there; ‘kids go two ways, getting older / up on the footbridge / carrying notepads or boulders’.

I feel like talking about this song is kind of pointless when the obvious point of interest is Dan’s regal, rather scary video, made using his brother’s iPad and some somewhat emerging technology. The song itself is about being over sentimental and squeamish. Which I am.

Yet another song about siblings from someone who’s never had any. This was loosely inspired (in mood, if not in subject matter) by a couple of books; The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt, and Spurious, by Lars Iyer. Both are books in part about wandering, and looking for something. A mournful family song about trading, making compromises and deals.

Lyrics below.

The chords are Am, C, G all the way through.

Done Driving

So on the road to the old town,
This doesn’t go, this doesn’t go fast enough.
I was on the road to the old ground,
where my brother lay.

I was on my way back home,
and then I asked myself,
“Do I know why I’m going here or not?
I know he’s old, and not in love”.

And maybe I’m done driving,
all of the road is edging me
back to where I’ll be in the end.

So I turn round and come back again.
I don’t know, I don’t know if I can.
I was on the road to the heartland,
where my brother lays.

I was on my way back North
and then I realised,
I don’t know how my brother came to this.
To call me in, without giving in.

This song started as a sort of joke, so it’s odd to be presenting it as a serious contribution to my Weekly Songs project; but I felt like I was getting a bit bogged down in regretful, slow indie rock so I wanted to try to capture some of the spirit of the music I was enjoying this week – the perky lyricism of The Kinks and the clean elocution of Laura Marling; and I felt like I wanted to try a more traditional accompaniment, too, switching from my normal fare of synths, glocks, pianos and electric guitars to accordians and fiddles. The resulting song is half serious, half comic – a quickly penned and slightly arch story about a little town that decides it’s had it with marriage. Thanks once again to Dan for the video.

Here’s the 35th song of the year; written in the week after the End of The Road festival, and with some lovely EOtR footage in the video courtesy of Dan.

This song was influenced, I think, by the book I was reading that week – The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt; it’s a tale of two brothers on a long journey together, and I had fixed in my mind some notion of a final journey, almost hallucinogenic, weighed down by the symbolism of its finality. I think maybe there was some chasing in there; bolted horses or UFOs.

Thanks Dan for the vid!

I’m a massive fan of character songs – Colonel Brown by Tomorrow, Casey Jones by the Grateful Dead, David Watts by The Kinks, Tracy Jacks by Blur, Peter Pumpkinhead by XTC – and this is my contribution to the genre. Wilson Brown we don’t know an awful lot about, except that he works out of town and keeps coming back. No-one really knows him, or knows why. In my imaginary England, there’s a Wilson Brown in every town. And there probably is.

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’.

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: