Aaron
This
is me singing to an ex-boyfriend. Short of using his name. Well,
Aaron sang a whole lot better! But I can also see with the benefit
of hindsight that the core of the message, being true to yourself and not
hiding, applied as much to me. Maybe I was dimly aware of that at
the time....Too busy fooling myself that I was more 'Highly Evolved' than
him. Yeah sure.
Danny
Late
one night in my Kilburn basement studio, with a Jupiter 4 and Teac 4-track
tape recorder, I wrote this and thought, 'This is WAY too country!'
Yet, how could this be (country being such a dirty word in my 80's lexicon)?
I loved it! So did the people at the record company, and my producer.
So, it got recorded. I was remembering a time in Munich when
Julian (Marshall) and I had been there to promote Dancing In The City. The
wet streets, far from home, both of us feeling out of our depth and missing
our respective partners. Imagining how
it would be if both people in a couple were out on the road, how tough
that would be. I think DJs thought (or liked to think) that
Danny was a DJ. But actually, I was imagining that he was
a rock hero, and that I was tuning in to the radio to listen to his Live
Concert at Madison Square Garden or somesuch. The song is a bit
of an oddity by dint of being so straightforward. But I think it
still holds up over the years. In fact I'm thinking of re-demoing
it and sending it to Nashville.
Force
Grown
Always
loved the droning build of this one. The song was inspired by the
comment of an elderly friend about one of those popular 80's Self-Improvement
movements. 'ChangeYour Life in a Weekend,' that kind of thing.
The course seemed particularly brutal and controlling. Some of its
tenets made sense, and some people were able to synthesise what they needed
and translate it well into their lives. Other people's thoughts
became a pain in the backside: very didactic and tactless all in
the name of Honesty and Integrity. Anyway, she and I were talking
about this, and she drew a parallel to hothouse flowers, being force grown,
not as strong. That got me thinking. About how heartless a
lot of it felt, how disconnected. How in our haste we bypass the
depth of understanding that can only come with the passing of time. Bit
serious, really.
I'm
The One Who's With You
Or
maybe, Love The One You're With. Ooops, sorry Steve Stills
I always loved your song! No particular story to this one, more
a reflection of times past, teen years when the Crush of the Moment was
so enamoured of that bitch! Why? When I'd be so right for
him? Actually there was a time before Aaron and I were together
that he was in love with someone I thought was pretty cold. So
it was a while until I was the one who was with him.
Spirits
Walking Out
This
was tremendous fun recording! I think that still shows....manic.
I'd recently finished reading a book. It's a while ago and I couldn't
swear to it but I think it was C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength (amazing
stuff, that Space Trilogy). Anyway, in it is the prediction about
King Arthur not being dead but lying in his grave waiting to return in
the nick of time to save Mankind. Then one night I was driving home
(Kilburn in those days) past what looked like some kind of riot ensuing,
and wondering, Where do all these souls come from? The world's going
mad! I started imagining what Arthur might be thinking as he turned
in his grave, getting more and more pissed off with the violence going
on over his head, like he was building up steam to break open his casket
and emerge! So, he was an angry Arthur in my song. But the
idea evolved into something a bit more ghoulish along the way so there's
definitely a comic element there too.
|
