I have been asked to write about the songs on this, my first commercially available cd. I don't know whether this is really that interesting but it's a dull afternoon and the appeal to my vanity is irresistible.
The songs were chosen from the collection I had available, both old and new, hopefully to make an interesting and varied songbook. As it happened, the only old song on the cd is The Silent Gap which I wrote in Athens in 1981-2. They were all new apart from this. A couple were only a few weeks old when I recorded them and actually displaced other songs I had intended to be on it.
So, in order then....
Every Night.
I was asked to write some lyrics of a very specific nature for an Omani guy about to record an album in various languages - Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Balushi etc. He wanted 2 English lyrics. I asked what kind of thing he wanted and he said one would be called What Kind Of Love Is This? but the other he had no idea about. I came up with lyrics for both - after much cajoling - and sent them to him but nothing happened.
In the meantime, I started writing again and it happened that I had music but no words for one song. Thinking that he had given up on my lyrics, I expanded the words of Every Night. It became a piece of candyfloss about 2 people who have trouble arranging their relationship to suit their different temperaments. Instead of leaving the conflict unresolved, I thought I would do the adult thing and find a rational solution. I also decided to include a little homily on human nature to make it a matter of universal appeal. Et voila!
(Later I used the other lyric too but I put it to music by Jaco Pastorius - 3 Views Of A Secret, in case anyone is interested - but, as I am not sure of the legality of this and cannot afford to find out, I am leaving that until later!)
The issue of autobiography inevitably raises its ugly head so I will deal with those elements as I go through every song but as far as this one is concerned there's not much here to interest anyone looking for clues as to my personality.
Romantic Warrior.
This was the second song I wrote in my renaissance as a songwriter. It is a slightly ironic take on the guy who eventually directed the video for the song and is a friend of my partner's. Nothing too complex about it, really. I just described more or less the situation he was in regarding this girl he was in love with. I just tried to make him sound even more quixotic than he really is. I also rather over-egged the gravity of his situation but I wanted to be relevant to the kids over in Sri Lanka in the same situation and also my own students. I presume that this is a common situation for young men in conservative societies. I suppose it must once upon a time have been relevant to kids in the west too but now they just leap into bed and family approval or disapproval is less of an issue. The song was just an excuse for an extended military metaphor. Was I ever in this situation? No. I was a well-brought up young boy and mothers always loved me! Though I didn't ask my partner's family about having my evil way. We haven't spelled it all out in gruesome detail but I stay in the family house and they look after me so I guess it's ok.
The Only One.
A fantasy of mine. I wanted to describe a relationship that had lasted from childhood and was expected to result in marriage and happy ever after. I was messing around with major and minor sevenths and the melody emerged. It seemed to suggest the outcome. It was a challenge to describe a youthful idyll. The father and mother bit did come from my memories of playing early sex games disguised as other games at the age of 10 or 11 but was not intended to be smutty. I wanted it to be as economical as possible and say as much as I could in a few strokes. The time slipping away is a bit of a cliche but the cliche was simple where anything else might have been overelaborate. I didn't want recriminations so I left it hanging in regret. The big job here was omitting. In the studio, I played the theme to Sarani and he turned it into a gorgeous Jeff Beck sort of sound. Perfect, as was his solo. Sort of bitter sweet.
Big Prize.
I like blues but I like complex blues forms that gently subvert the idiom. I also wanted to play with expectations by having the hero of the song being, instead of a thrusting, self-confident macho man type, a bit of wuss riddled with self-doubt. The idea of the song is that he can't quite believe his luck in having captured the heart of this person and doesn't think he is worthy. I also deliberately made hurdles for myself by choosing some challenging rhymes, just to see if I could pull them off. That makes it a bit far-fetched. I wanted to name check some things I liked (the Goodies, Iggy Pop, Candid Camera) and use some expressions not usually encountered in pop songs. Not sure if I used them correctly but having written them, I couldn't be bothered to check - a shameful confession, I realise! When we recorded it, I suggested a sort of Ray Charles organ sound, very churchy but we had a moment of cultural confusion since Ashanta had not heard of him, so we settled for this and he played a blinding solo.
But I'll Miss You More.
I always liked those songs of Arthur Lee's where the title seemed like the continuation or an incomplete sentence, so this is my little homage to him - more will come later. It was a rumination on how 2 lonely and improbable people can give each other support in times of need, the heroes in this case being a lonely drag queen and an unhappily married woman. I thought they could invent a little fantasy world to suit both their interests. It would have to be asexual, of course but that could give it charm. It would be, in spite of its unlikely dramatis personae, a story of innocence where each tries to rise above their particular hardship and things move in parallel. I give the husband short shrift but he is not intended to be a very sympathetic character.
The music actually came first - which is pretty unusual, when I was messing around with the D minor/C sequence. I liked the rhythm and repeated the effect on all the chord changes. Again, the problem was economising as far as lyrics were concerned. Personal relevance? Well, it obviously has resonances but I am not actually a drag queen and I do know/have met a number of dissatisfied women. The queen was actually based on a guy I used to know in Brighton - where else?! But they are not real people. I hoped that the slightly claustrophobic, smokey atmosphere of a slightly run-down but glammed-up bed-sitter would come across.
If You Want To Stay.
Playing with the chord sequence to Hit The Road Jack, I came up with this variation by changing the chords to sixths, sevenths and major sevenths. I wanted to write about a seduction and imagined how and where it would be. I wanted to create that tension where you don't know exactly what the outcome will be. I imagined a restaurant with messy tables, plates etc all over the place and a couple sitting amidst this when he makes his pitch. I wanted to put the ball in the seducee's court so it's rather an offhand seduction.
In spite of his diffidence, I wanted to communicate the electricity between two people with an uncertain outcome to their evening. To add to the interest, the other party has a relationship so there is an element of choice involved. I wanted it to be strings-free seduction with total freedom but everything on the table. My 'men' are pretty unmacho so maybe the songs do reflect me more than I think they do!
(One aside here: I wrote the bridge - then promptly forgot that I had used the phrase 'your honesty is a curse' and used it as a song title!) I am quite proud of my bass-playing on the recording as I managed to conjure a floating effect which I really like. (Another aside: this was going to be the song for the video as the romantic warrior really liked it but it is 6 minutes long and we couldn't get permission to use the most suitable restaurant - Barefoot in Colombo. Also the director and actor didn't really 'get' my suggestions for the story line.)
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