And then there were these songs
Anyone who knows me now might be surprised to know that over the years I have written a bunch of songs.
This is the story of a prolific period of writing and some of the things that lead to that time.
I’ll try and keep this short. The details are rather sketchy.
Somewhere in my early to middle teens I got a guitar. I’m really not sure where it came from. I guess it’s most likely to have come from mum and dad. I have a vague memory of a ukulele preceding the guitar’s arrival and the ‘little guitar toy’ not making much of an impression. Anyway, a cheap acoustic guitar came from somewhere and I got some lessons. As far as the lessons went, I wasn’t really paying attention and I rarely practiced what I was supposed to be learning. But, somewhere in all that, I picked up some simple chords. And, rather than learning other people’s songs (that seemed a bit difficult) I started writing some of my own. Most of those early musical musings are lost in the clutter of other things that now inhabit my mind. Many of those songs were, however, written down (the lyrics and some chord scratchings, at least) in a small, red, clip book. Sadly I have not the slightest idea where that little book is now. A couple of those songs, though, remain in my head. They are, I like to think, the best of them, and they have, to me anyway, a kind of naive appeal.
In my later teens there seems to have appeared, from somewhere, an electric guitar. And, like its acoustic predecessor, its origins are shrouded an almost opaque mist. I remember my mum and dad giving me, for xmas one year, some money that they said amounted to half a guitar. So it’s likely that I used that money, added some of my own savings and purchased it from a local music shop. It was a black Les Paul copy. There was an amp, too; pretty nasty, from memory.
Jumping forward to my early twenties, I purchased an Ibanez Hummingbird copy (acoustic), and a red Ibanez SG copy (electric). I still have both. Also a small Music Man amp. By then the old acoustic and electric seem to have disappeared (the nasty amp, too). I know not where. I had some work done on the SG (replaced the pickups and some other minor bits of work). Over the next few years there were a couple of bands; neither were successful if measured by any of the conventional criteria. But we had a bit of fun. Colour Comix: a kind of middle-of-the-road pop; mostly originals, some of them mine. Hooker: Rose Tattoo, Thin Lizzie and Status Quo covers, some of my originals (I attempted to write some rock and roll).
Forward again, to my late twenties. I purchased a four-track cassette recorder, a Rolland drum machine and a second-hand bass guitar. Over the next couple of years I would write and record (in my bedroom at a shared house in Newtown) a bunch songs. Some half finished, some just sketches of ideas, some pretty much complete. The tapes produced during that time show the creative work of which I am most proud.
So, here’s the plan … over the next few months (maybe years) I’m going to upload my final mixes of that material; all of it, unedited, complete, as it was at the time. It’s rough, ugly, embarrassing, naive, messy, muddy, originally intended for my ears alone. But you might find it interesting. I certainly do.
I accept that this is deeply self indulgent.
The material is divided into two (maybe three) sections. The songs are presented here in the order that I recorded them and the sections are dictated by the length of the cassettes that I mixed the final songs onto.
I named the sections (rather arrogantly, I suppose) as if they were albums.
And so …
Back to Camera
I don’t actually have the third one anymore. It was the beginning of a third cassette. I have a bunch of old cassettes in a box here in my shed. It might be in there somewhere. At the moment I don’t even have a cassette player. I still have the four-track recorder, though. And it may still work (it has a broken button).
So, if you’re interested, the songs that have been uploaded so far can be accessed by clicking (or tapping) the ‘album’ links above.