After the week’s intensive recording earlier, progress has been much slower as the viscissitudes of work, work-requred travel and family life intervene. Progress has, nonetheless, been made. For what purpose? That isn’t yet clear. This set of songs doesn’t seem yet to suggest that outmoded, 60s-hippy concept the ‘album’. That is, they don’t hang together or seem to feel any familial relationship to each other, much as I would, in my outmoded, 60-s-hippy way, would like them to. So, whether to keep adding songs until some thread is discernable, or to just say ‘here are some individual songs’. That is for later. Here is some market testing. I made significant improvements to Roadblock by accepting comment and criticism before the final versions, so your comments and criticism are welcome.
The Last Man – this is the nearest to completion. I think it only lacks some female backing vocals. I’ve deliberately tried to distance it from the Wright Brothers more acoustic version, which I hope will also be recorded one day.
Jerusalem Blues – an old song, which has had several abortive recording attempts. This is the most promising. A rather bleak comment on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I’ve kind of lost my editorial distance from this, so I need to know – does it sound like a song or a rough demo?
Anniversary – not a wedding anniversary but the anniversary of a bereavement. I was depressing audiences with this from the time I first arrived in Edinburgh in 1990. I put out one acoustic/violin recording of it with the Hungry Ghosts band in that decade and pretty much abandoned the song thereafter. For some reason, the muse seemed to urge me to take it up again and provided this resolutely downbeat approach which, nevertheless, seems to me to have a kind of atmosphere. This may be all I need to do with it.
Your comments on any or all of these extracts are welcome.I don’t promise to act on them, but I need the perspective. I do promise not to get huffy!