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# Norman Lamont

singer | songwriter | musician | writer

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://normanlamont.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [Kintyre here we come!](https://normanlamont.com/kintyre-here-we-come/) - At the end of May, I'm heading to Kintyre for some gigs with Rosie Nimmo and her husband Tommy. We did this a few years ago and it was a memorable experience for us both - friendly audiences and wonderful scenery. Friday May 29th Clachan A house concert in Clachan. A set by me, a
- [Home and Dry (solo guitar)](https://normanlamont.com/home-and-dry-solo-guitar/) - I was playing around on my classical guitar after practicing some Beatles tunes in Dominic Miller's arrangements, when I found myself playing the melody to a song I'm going to record for the solo album I'm working on. I liked it so I thought I'd share it. (Beach image by https://www.123rf.com/profile_rawpixel)
- [I Am Not The One For You (lyric video)](https://normanlamont.com/i-am-not-the-one-for-you-lyric-video/) - I was looking around my computer for good stuff that I hadn't already released and found this. It goes back to 2012 or 2013. The artwork was created for my 2013 Edinburgh Festival show Stories My Killer Told Me so it must predate that. It all seems so long ago now ... Anyway I still
- [Covering my tracks](https://normanlamont.com/covering-my-tracks/) - Since I was 22 I've been keeping notebooks of thoughts and reflections, mostly in diary form and sometimes in 'morning pages' form. These notebooks I've carted around with me from address to address, cupboard to cupboard. After a few well-intentioned false starts I'm on a committed project to destroy them all. As I progress into
- [Gather Me the Summer Time (Di Williams)](https://normanlamont.com/gather-me-the-summer-time-di-williams/) - I was listening to Gather, one of my favourite songs by Di recently and I felt the mix was a bit of a barrier to entry. I would have liked to have mixed it differently. Thanks to a couple of AI tools I was able to extract several individual tracks from the original mix -
- [Experimental songwriting part 2](https://normanlamont.com/experimental-songwriting-part-2/) - In the previous video I took a snippet of instrumental and built it into a groove to use as the backing for a song. In this one I start building it into a song.
- [After All (The Twilight Show)](https://normanlamont.com/after-all-the-twilight-show/) - Here's a little Bowie for you - I had the notion to record this one night so I did! A stripped down version, no edits, trying to preserve a little of the mystery of the original.
- [Experimental songwriting pt 1](https://normanlamont.com/experimental-songwriting-pt-1/) - Background It's been a long time since I've written a song by the 'traditional' method of sitting with a guitar and making something up from chords, then adding words. Not that I don't like that method, but now I prefer doing that with someone rather than alone. On songwriting workshops I've done that usually leads
- [Mike Heron: Smiling Men](https://normanlamont.com/mike_heron_smil/) - Step this way – How Mike Heron opened the door for meThis review of Mike Heron’s Smiling Men with Bad Reputations was previously published in the Incredible String Band fanzine Be Glad.Try this!https://open.spotify.com/album/6uZo97caFpbP7Og49Mbv0I?si=BACD130QQ3WDzm7nq4w6Fw
- [Thor - at last!](https://normanlamont.com/thor-at-last/) - When I was 12, I came across Thor Annual #2 in a local chip shop cum newsagent. I liked all forms of comics but not in any serious way. I'd read some American comics, all DCs like Batman and Superman but only the occasional Marvel and what I'd seen of them just confused me. But
- [Who Are the Invisible Helpers?](https://normanlamont.com/the-invisible-helpers-in-madame-blavatskys-baboon-a-history-of-the-mystics-mediums-and-misfits-who-brought-spiritualism/) - The Invisible Helpers In Madame Blavatsky's Baboon, A History of the Mystics, Mediums and Misfits who Brought Spiritualism to America, Peter Washington describes how C.W. Leadbeater and the Theosophical Society responded to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914: As to practical help, there could be no question of Leadbeater taking part in the
- [Move On You](https://normanlamont.com/move-on-you/) - Here's a new song. Like so many of my 'new' songs I actually found the lyrics in an old notebook and took it from there. If you fancy buying me half a cup of coffee, the song's available on Bandcamp. Footage by Getty Images, via Cyberlink PowerDirector.
- [My Faraway Month](https://normanlamont.com/my-faraway-month/) - We got back at the start of November from a long trip abroad, which took in a visit to relatives in Brisbane, Australia, followed by two and a bit weeks in New Zealand and a few days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It's taken me a while to sort out the photos, of which we took
- [Christmas Revolution!](https://normanlamont.com/christmas-revolution/) - Earlier in the year the band and I recorded a new version of my song Christmas Revolution, more upbeat with a cracking saxophone from Konrad Wiszniewski. Jennifer Ellen Clark, who produced the Turn album, made it fizz and pop nicely. In October we teamed up with video maker Terry Dray and the Bowler's Rest in
- [Just like old times](https://normanlamont.com/just-like-old-times/) - When I used to write a lot of songs, it was almost always when commuting to the office I used to work in, in Edinburgh. Yesterday I had a meeting to go to in another office and, as I waited for the bus, I started humming a song (by someone else); my old practice of
- [Waveforms album sample](https://normanlamont.com/waveforms-album-sample/) - I'm in the process of turning my rehearsal recordings for the last WaveForms gig into an album. Here's a taster. The Plain People of Edinburgh: When will you get over this need to set up drones then set up more drones on top of them? It's like a murder scene in a bagpipe factory.
- [New single - Blue Guitar](https://normanlamont.com/new-single-blue-guitar/) - One morning in 2020, just before getting up, I dreamt I was sitting in a poor area of a city - it seemed like Rio de Janeiro - listening to a boy of about 13 playing a beaten-up nylon-string guitar, atop the hulk of a rusting car. He was singing 'I got a blue guitar,
- [The Failed Astronomer](https://normanlamont.com/the-failed-astr/) - THE FAILED ASTRONOMER They named a star after me But that's no constellation.
- [Three songs from a house concert](https://normanlamont.com/three-songs-from-a-house-concert/) - On 29th June I played a solo house concert collecting funds for the charity Freedom From Torture. It was a fantastic night for me, particularly just having an audience who really listened to all the words. Friendly and intimate. My thanks to Alison Fish Paterson for inviting me to play, and John Farrell for lending
- [John Cale - a beginner's guide: 3 albums and 5 tracks](https://normanlamont.com/john-cale-beginners-guide/) - There’s hardly a boulevard in modern music in which John Cale wouldn’t merit a star with his name. Classical viola player, avant-garde composer, Velvet Underground inspiration, producer of Patti Smith and Iggy Pop, solo artist - from songs to symphonies - the man who launched Cohen’s Hallelujah, and to this day an artist who refuses
- [My birthday party by Norman Lamont aged 70](https://normanlamont.com/my-birthday-party-by-norman-lamont-aged-70/) - We put on a small gig at the Bowler's Rest in Leith to celebrate my beginning to relinquish my youth and good looks. We had sets from The Heaven Sent, the Lost Headband, Boulderfields, Liz Jones, James Igoe and Rosie Nimmo. If you were there, you're probably in one of these videos. If you weren't,
- [Miller's Lake](https://normanlamont.com/millers-lake/) - Here's a new song. This one started life as a poem, some time before COVID. I had a daily practice of writing a couple of pages before breakfast, most of it rubbish, of course. One morning this just wrote itself; I was quite astonished. A year or so later I asked Gerry Callaghan if he
- [Pierre de Grenoble revisited (the Twilight Show)](https://normanlamont.com/pierre-de-grenoble-revisited-the-twilight-show/) - Many many years ago, before you were a twinkle in your mother's eye, I was at the flea market in Clignancourt when I heard some music drifting across the stalls. It was like traditional Celtic music with Indian drones, but had an odd melodic twist that told me it wasn't any of the British folk-rock
- [Henderson Hospital, Peggy Seeger and the Blue Plastic Cups](https://normanlamont.com/henderson-hospital-peggy-seeger-and-the-blue-plastic-cups/) - This is the story of the best accolade I ever received as a songwriter, and how I never thought I’d be able to share it with anyone. The Henderson From 1979 to 1980 I worked as a nursing assistant in a very unusual psychiatric hospital called the Henderson Hospital in Sutton, Surrey. Although it was
- [Happy Zimday!](https://normanlamont.com/happy-zimday/) - On Monday 24th I took part in a Bobathon - about five hours of Dylan covers from singer songwriters in the Ruby Tuesday Sessions page of Facebook. I did, of course, The Ballad of Bob Dylan but also two Dylan covers which I'm quite happy with: The Wicked Messenger I Threw It All Away Bob
- [Open letter to Norman Lamont from his audience](https://normanlamont.com/open-letter-to-norman-lamont-from-his-audience/) - I don't know where this came from - it was an improvised, spontaneous writing session. I had been thinking about how the humorous stuff I do is the most popular and maybe the somewhat 'darker' stuff I've been writing recently (most of which you haven't heard yet) may not please people. But don't worry, I'm
- [New song: The Prophet](https://normanlamont.com/new-song-the-prophet/) - Here's a new song. More info about it below the video. What's it all about? Anyone who's dabbled in the domain known variously as religion, spirituality or belief knows that there can be a big disconnect between what you want to believe and what you understand is realistic or true. I've been there myself on
- [The Twilight Show compendium](https://normanlamont.com/the-twilight-show-compendium/) - The Twilight Show series of videos started in 2020 as a version of the 'tiny desk concert' idea - a way to present an intimate, close-up version of a song with no fancy acting and no attempt to create excitement. This was, of course, during lockdown. The idea of tinting them blue and the 'twilight'
- [Winter songs](https://normanlamont.com/winter-songs/) - All across the UK, we're freezing. I hope you're able to keep warm. In the meantime, here are a couple of winter songs that I hope will cheer you up! Christmas Revolution Winter Sky This was a song from my first real album, 2004's The Wolf Who Snared The Moon. I've always had a soft
- [Waterloo Sunset - Kinks cover](https://normanlamont.com/waterloo-sunset-kinks-cover/) - This is my first recording in my new playroom. It won't sound any different to you but it means a lot to me to be able to record in our new house. And the best of it is, since it's an old property and the walls are thick, I don't disturb anyone else. To test
- [Glasgow Songwriting Festival 2017 - swimming in the air](https://normanlamont.com/glasgow-songwriting-festival-a-dive-into-the-pool/) - This past weekend I was at the Glasgow Songwriting Festival 2017. A weekend course rather than a festival. Here’s what happened and what I got from it. Govanhill Baths The course was held in one of strangest venues I’ve been in. A hundred-year-old building housing several swimming pools, rows of private bath cubicles and a
- [John Martyn for beginners: 3 albums and 5 tracks](https://normanlamont.com/john-martyn-3-albums-and-5-tracks/) - First of a series following from my Inspirations series, where I'll offer a beginners' guide to some of the artists I love. Three albums and five tracks. A virtuoso musician with a voice to melt the coldest of hearts. (John Hillarby) Three albums Solid Air (1973) The definitive John Martyn album, where he found his
- [Shawn Phillips - a voice in the wilderness](https://normanlamont.com/shawn-phillips/) - In any time historical period, history is written by the winners. We remember some artists from any period of music and some are lost. One unsung hero of psychedelic folk-rock is Shawn Phillips, a voice as striking as Tim or Jeff Buckley, and a prodigious guitarist and arranger. Here’s a taste of his story. I've
- [Jonathan Richman: Innocent like a Rock](https://normanlamont.com/jonathan-richman-innocent-like-a-rock/) - For over forty years, Jonathan Richman has been scattering gems of wide-eyed wonder and celebration, set to a rockin' beat. But don't mistake his innocence for naivety or lack of intelligence. Far from it. He knows exactly what he's doing and has had a clear vision and world-view from the start. Here's my take on
- [Gabriel Yacoub - raconteur extraordinaire](https://normanlamont.com/gabriel-yacoub/) - Gabriel Yacoub is probably the Richard Thompson of the French music scene, from his first album with his then-wife Marie in 1975 to the recent reunion of his folk-rock-prog band Malicorne. Here’s a short introduction to his work. Across a crowded market I was in Paris, my first time abroad with my girlfriend, in the
- [Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks: Original Recordings](https://normanlamont.com/dan-hicks/) - There are lots of people who can point to music on the shelf. Some like to light candles to it, others seek only to snuff them out. Dan burned them all brightly, and here is his tale. (Elvis Costello, from his foreword to Hicks's memoire I Scare Myself) Dan Hicks was defiantly unfashionable in
- [Kevin Ayers - champagne and valium](https://normanlamont.com/kevin-ayers/) - Kevin Ayers and Syd Barrett were the two most important people in British pop music. Everything that came after came from them. (Nick Kent) For six or seven years in the late 60s and early 70s, Kevin Ayers came to the brink of mainstream success. With his debonair English charm, deep wine-soaked voice and lost-boy
- [Nick Cave - the Red Hand Files](https://normanlamont.com/nick-cave-the-red-hand-files/) - Here’s something you may not be aware of. The Red Hand Files is a blog by Nick Cave, but an interactive blog: every post is in response to a question from a fan. He started it in September 2018 so it’s a fairly new venture but already there are 25 posts - about four to
- [Songworks #3: Feast of Stephen by Mike Heron (and John Cale)](https://normanlamont.com/feast-of-stephen-mike-heron-john-cale/) - On the face of it, you couldn't think of two bands more diametrically opposed than the Incredible String Band and the Velvet Underground. Yet in 1970 two of their number collaborated on an all-star album and, in particular, on one song: Feast of Stephen. Dramatis personae In 1970 Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band
- [Winter Sky](https://normanlamont.com/winter-sky/) - When I planned this I thought there would be more of a snowy February. But anyway ... This was one of those notions I just decided to do because I can. A song from my long-ago album The Wolf Who Snared The Moon, and one of my favourites from that period. I don't think it's
- [What has John Martyn Ever Done for Me? (and other stories)](https://normanlamont.com/what-has-john-martyn-ever-done-for-me-and-other-stories/) - Today I had a look to see what the most popular posts and pages on my site over the last year have been. These ten pages (filtering out things like email signup pages and sales offers) account for 20% of the visitors to this site. Robbie Basho John Martyn 3 albums and 5 tracks Island
- ["New old" song - Jerusalem Blues](https://normanlamont.com/new-old-song-jerusalem-blues/) - Here's a new Twilight Show song. Actually a very old song that I've never felt it was the right time to put out there. I wrote this song around 1987, about the time of the first Palestinian Intifada (uprising). I've sat on it since then. Partly because I couldn't think of a good musical arrangement,
- [Listen out!](https://normanlamont.com/listen-out/) - In any given situation there are two ways we can listen: listen in to what's going on inside, including your own inner dialogue, imagined conversations etc, and listen out to what's going on the world. There's value in both, but sometimes listening in gets addictive and overwhelming, and we need to find an escape. Coming
- [Recording the good old-fashioned way](https://normanlamont.com/recording-the-good-old-fashioned-way/) - Went to Fraser Drummond's house last night for a recording session with him and John 'Fingers' Farrell. Unlike virtually all the recording I've done for the last ten years we did this by sitting around a couple of mics and playing together. I'd brought a skeleton of a song for Fraser to sing and play
- [Songstories #9 The Last Man To Touch You](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-9-the-last-man-to-touch-you/) - This is a strange one. I guess the primary influence here is Momus. Momus is a singer-songwriter, video maker, and author who lives in Japan. He's actually Scottish by birth. His real name is Nick Currie. During the 80s he released a series of albums which moved gradually from being acoustic guitar based to electronica.
- [songstories #17 - Ricky](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-17-ricky/) - Ricky is a song I introduce at gigs as 'a collaboration with two other writers, neither of whom know they've collaborated with me on it'. The first was Jacques Brel (1929-1978 see Jacques Brel on Wikipedia). He called it Jacky (or Le Chanson de Jacky) and in it he imagines himself growing old as a
- [Songstories #22 - History](https://normanlamont.com/history/) - Not a political song as such, but one arising from the current state of play. On the drive home from a rehearsal I was chewing over an explanation I'd read of why I and so many friends have been so shaken by Brexit and Trump and all that. The article (not in the public domain)
- [John Martyn - the wounded giant](https://normanlamont.com/inspirations-john-martyn/) - This is part of a series of posts about the musicians who've inspired me. Today it's about the wounded giant that was John Martyn. You know John? One summer when I was at Glasgow University, I worked lunchtimes in Glasgow’s first vegetarian restaurant, Gemini, on Sauchiehall Street. Sometimes after my stint I would stay and
- [My life in music: Egypt, Manchester, the Portastudio and Cupid](https://normanlamont.com/egypt-manchester/) - Continuing my long and winding road through music. How I found moved from Egypt to Manchester and found multi-track heaven in the Teac Tascam Portastudio 144. Cairo At the age of 28 I was living in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, and teaching English to working people in an evening school. This was my second
- [Cat Stevens - European folk-rock](https://normanlamont.com/inspirations-cat-stevens/) - I read an news story in the Guardian in 1979 showing a blurred photo of a bearded man and veiled woman. The article declared that not only had Cat Stevens become a Muslim, changed his name and got married, but that he’d left music altogether and given away all his instruments. A few months later
- [Ronnie Lane - gypsy dreams](https://normanlamont.com/ronnie-lane/) - Throughout his short life Ronnie Lane's warmth and sparkle endeared audiences - and musicians - to him. From quirky pop star with the Small Faces, to stadium rock with the Faces to rustic troubador in a circus tent, he went his own way. The Passing Show comes to Falkirk Ronnie Lane's Passing Show, his rock'n'roll
- [Robin Williamson - the explorer bard](https://normanlamont.com/inspirations-robin-williamson-the-explorer-bard/) - In a recent video I covered Robin Williamson's Zoo Blues. In case anyone came away with the idea that Williamson just wrote funny skits, here's a bit more about the man behind the Incredible String Band. Where did that come from? Robin Williamson seemed to burst fully-formed onto the Edinburgh folk scene in the early
- [Robert Fripp - attention, attention, attention!](https://normanlamont.com/fripp-attention/) - There’s a great book to be written one day about the life and music of Robert Fripp, but it would have to be a fat one. The consistent theme of his life has been attention to detail, and it’s only in the details of the projects he’s been involved with that the insights would come.
- [Witchseason & Joe Boyd](https://normanlamont.com/witchseason-joe-boyd/) - This little logo appeared on the sleeve of so many of the albums I listened to from the end of the sixties and the early 70s that it was a kind of quality assurance stamp. Mostly on Island but some on Elektra. This was the symbol of Witchseason Productions, and of Joe Boyd and it
- [Jackie Leven: beauty in his wounds](https://normanlamont.com/jackie-leven/) - Remember how you discovered new music before the internet? There was radio, the occasional TV programme and the music press. Sometimes you’d hear something and decide you wanted to buy it (so you could hear it whenever you want) and sometimes you’d take a chance and buy something without hearing it because of a writeup
- [The Handsome Family - Twilight](https://normanlamont.com/the-handsome-family-twilight/) - In which the blogger raves about one of his favourite albums, Twilight by The Handsome Family, in the hope that he'll encourage more people to hear it. Snow White Diner I like Janice Forsyth on BBC Radio Scotland. Not only has she given my songs airplay, but one evening in 2001, I was stopped in
- [The Desert Was Better (lyric video)](https://normanlamont.com/desert-lyric/) - Or, What Have You Got Against Linlithgow, Norman? Here's a previously unseen video from the 2017 Bridge of Orchy sessions, featuring our late keyboard player John Lawrence. This song has always been a favourite of mine to play and people seem to remember and like it. It's the first song on my first album, The
- [The Glasgow Songwriters](https://normanlamont.com/the-glasgow-songwriters/) - This is a followup to my post on the Edinburgh Songwriters Showcase. My friend Tom Warrington wrote with his reminiscences of a similar venture in Glasgow: I really enjoyed your email a few weeks ago flagging up the post on the Edinburgh Songwriters Showcase. You’re very possibly aware that something vaguely similar took root in
- [Come With Me (all you never wanted to know)](https://normanlamont.com/come-with-me-all-you-never-wanted-to-know/) - This is an updated and expanded version of a previous post about this song, prompted by several recent comments from friends about how much they like it. They reminded me how much I like it too, and think it’s one of my better pieces of songwriting. You might find the story interesting. I’m not sure
- [Gurus At The Bar](https://normanlamont.com/gurus-at-the-bar/) - I’m beginning to wonder if the old ‘album a year’ paradigm is the one to stick to for the future. After In Another Life, it took about a year to produce Ten Objects, during which time I shelved various ideas that didn’t fit the style of the Ten Objects album, but of course that meant
- [The Moody Blues - a Lost Chord rediscovered](https://normanlamont.com/the-moody-blues/) - Not moody, not blue, not cool After their heyday in the early 1970s the Moody Blues never seemed to be a ‘cool’ band. The 1977 punk attack on progressive and hippy music of course put them in the firing line. But even as retrospect has showed artists from the Sex Pistols to Nick Cave and
- [If I Could Be With You](https://normanlamont.com/if-i-could-be-with-you/) - A few weeks ago, Chris Denerley kindly played this song on his radio show The Beyond Folk and Acoustic Show on Beyond Radio, a station in Lancaster. He said it summed up what a lot of people were feeling, separated from friends and loved ones by lockdown. I hadn't made the connection myself, but since
- [Nothing, Through the Rain (The Twilight Show)](https://normanlamont.com/nothing-through-the-rain-the-twilight-show/) - Here's a new Twilight Show episode, a little more upbeat than previous offerings. This song has quite a long history. When I was teaching English in Cairo in the 70s, some friends - Rodney Blakeston and Andy Harper - and I decided to write some songs to teach points of English grammar, usage and vocabulary.
- [Saz who?](https://normanlamont.com/saz-who/) - Cheap pun, I know. Following from my recent demo of an 'interesting instrument', the tongue drum, here's another that I've literally dusted off recently, the bağlama saz (pronounced similar to 'balama'). I got it in Turkey many years ago and like some other instruments that have sat unused in my room for years I decided
- [Songstories #11: Roadblock](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-11-roadblock/) - My Roadblock album doesn't get mentioned much when people talk about my music. Maybe because I don't tend to play many of the songs live. Or maybe because it's pretty gloomy. The title track is one of the darkest things I've done. The inspirations were the blues and the call and response worksongs of the
- [Why I listen to music](https://normanlamont.com/why-i-listen-to-music/) - I had a little flash of illumination the other day. I went into HMV, drawn by a sign saying CDs were £2.00. Sure enough there were a lot of them, many of which I was sure I'd enjoy. But I realised if I bought them I'd probably only listen to one or two tracks. And
- [Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run](https://normanlamont.com/bruce-springsteen-born-to-run/) - I've just finished reading Bruce Springsteen's autobiography Born To Run. It's a strong book, as strong as his best songs. That same mix of drama, fervent belief, bluster and a sense of the ridiculous that marks his live show is here in every chapter. Perhaps surprisingly it leaves you with a strong sense
- [Keeping seen, keeping sane - how I market my music](https://normanlamont.com/keeping-seen-keeping-sane-how-i-market-my-music/) - Six months ago I wrote this post about mistakes I'd made in marketing my music and how I was trying to rectify them. Here's an update. The problem If you make music, or any kind of art for that matter, there’s no point in leaving it hidden under the bed to be discovered when you
- [Shock! Lamont lists music made after 1975!](https://normanlamont.com/shock-lamont-lists-music-made-after-1975/) - A quick post before I go on holiday. I'm always blethering on about bands from the early 1970s - that's what I do - but here are a couple of current bands I've discovered this week that I really like. First Tiger A Glasgow trio. I believe they're playing Leith Depot soon. Articulate, funny, eclectic.
- [A Forest Trail in Autumn (Desk performance)](https://normanlamont.com/a-forest-trail-in-autumn-desk-performance/) - Here's a quick video made a couple of months ago, of one of my favourite songs from my Wolf album. It's a spin on an old folk song tradition where the narrator 'chances to meet' someone, and has their life changed. It's a bit of a mystery why, though. But we like mysteries, don't we?
- [Moving the last Roadblock](https://normanlamont.com/moving-the-last-roadblock/) - The other day I had an order from a Bandcamp customer for a couple of albums including Roadblock. Just getting an order of any kind is a morale booster, but this was special as it was the last CD copy of the Roadblock album, which I put out in 2008. I don't know how many
- [Reviews and the Imposter Syndrome](https://normanlamont.com/reviews-and-the-imposter-syndrome/) - The other day I posted a review of In Another Life that appeared in RNR, an ‘actual glossy magazine’. I’ve had a fair number of congratulatory notes and Likes on Facebook and Twitter. I felt good about it, even though it’s not a mass market magazine - magazines are declining generally and reviews rarely tend
- [Robbie Basho - a mystery within a mystery](https://normanlamont.com/robbie-basho/) - I can't say Robbie Basho was ever really an influence or inspiration to me, but he's an intriguing artist from the same period as many of the ones I write about, and hardly known at all, so I'm happy if this introduces some people to his music. I don't try to follow the masters; I
- [Who Was The Poor Girl from Dublin?](https://normanlamont.com/the-poor-girl-from-dublin/) - This is the story of a collaborative songwriting effort over the last six months or so between Gerry Callaghan and myself. The result was a three-song album -an EP if you will - which we're selling to benefit SAMH, the Scottish Association for Mental Health. Four Little Leaves - the beginning Early in 2018 I
- [Momus, covers and the Dave Clark Car Crash](https://normanlamont.com/covers-momus/) - Bit of a random mix today. Momus Momus has just released a new album, Pantaloon. As usual the wordplay is astonishing. I also love the fact that there's a home-made video for each song. He doesn't go for big productions, just an imaginative and effective use of home-shot and stock footage. Minimal budget but it
- [Bob Dylan Revisited](https://normanlamont.com/bob-dylan-revisited/) - Yes, I know, another version! But this one, from last week's food bank benefit gig at The Village, is a good one! I don't know if you've seen the recent Rolling Thunder film. I think it's only on Netflix. Even as a Dylan fan it was a revelation to me. I've never seen such intensity
- [Glasgow Songwriting Festival 2019](https://normanlamont.com/glasgow-songwriting-festival-2019/) - For the third year running I attended the Glasgow Songwriting Festival last weekend. It followed the same format as previous years - you stay in a group of about eight and spend a two hour session with each of the four tutors over the Saturday and Sunday - but unlike previous years in the unique
- [Speaking of Tongues](https://normanlamont.com/speaking-of-tongues/) - What have I been doing other than Turn? Well, I've been doing some instrumental music, and the latest piece used the tongue drum that my wife gave me many years ago. I've only recently started taking it seriously and trying to get better at playing it. In this video I'll let you hear what it
- ['Turn' review and airplay](https://normanlamont.com/turn-review-and-airplay/) - Thanks to West Norfolk Radio, Felixstowe Radio, Coast and County Radio, Roots and Shoots, and various others for playing tracks. And to the Scottish Daily Express for these kind words:
- [Marketing the unmarketable](https://normanlamont.com/marketing-the-unmarketable/) - I've just come to the end of a campaign to launch my new album. I'm writing the story here in case it's of use to anyone in a similar position - an older artist with a small audience who wants to promote an album. I've done two previous album launches since I got into the
- [TURN - how it was conceived, recorded, written, paid for, and everything](https://normanlamont.com/turn-how-it-was-conceived-recorded-written-paid-for-and-everything/) - Making the album Turn was a new kind of project both for me and the band. It started from a different concept, went through a different process, and the outcome, I hope is something fresh and powerful. Before 'Turn' Over the years 2016 to 2019 I recorded two albums with Gerry Callaghan as producer and
- [Note to Self - a song I wasn't expecting](https://normanlamont.com/note-to-self-a-song-i-wasnt-expecting/) - A few weeks ago I was staying with friends in London and remarked that I couldn't foresee writing any more songs. Not that I was giving up my whole music career, but just that I had enough unfinished songs and snippets of music and lyrics that I'd never really need to visit the 'starting from
- [Instrumental: Victory Day](https://normanlamont.com/instrumental-victory-day/) - In my ‘formative teenage years’, I had a couple of favourite orchestral albums. One was Holst’s The Planets. The other was a collection of current film themes which included Grand Prix and Dr Zhivago. The latter included a piece called, I think, Funeral March. Despite trying I’ve never again found this piece on any Dr Zhivago collections online or on album. I
- [Heaven Sent album - latest previews](https://normanlamont.com/heaven-sent-album-latest-previews/) - Here's a new preview of some of the tracks from our next album. There are a couple more tracks but we have to keep some surprises! We'll be in the studio in October to complete backing vocals for the last two songs we recorded last month. Then it's a matter of final mixes and adding
- [Ms Fi and the Lost Headband - Sunday](https://normanlamont.com/ms-fi-sunday/) - I've just rediscovered this little gem from 2012. I'd just joined Fiona Thom's band, the Lost Headband and when they were round at mine for a rehearsal we made a quick video. The song has all Fi's usual wit and observational skills. Fiona Thom and John Farrell - guitarsNorman Lamont - bass Lyrics (Fiona Thom)
- [Andrew Ferguson: I Still Believe](https://normanlamont.com/i-still-believe/) - Andrew's alias for this and other records is SIASA, or Songs in a Scottish Accent. This is his most accomplished recording so far, I think, thanks to the guiding hand of Gerry Callaghan (producer of my In Another Life and Ten Objects). I played some guitars, keyboards and bass parts and also some backing vocals.
- [The Twilight Show - Best of the Blues](https://normanlamont.com/the-twilight-show-best-of-the-blues/) - Another Twilight outing - this song from the Roadblock album. A defiant down-and-out chats to the Virgin Mary.
- [Interview by Helen St Helen](https://normanlamont.com/interview-by-helen-st-helen/) - Earlier this week I took part in an interview with Helen St Helen, an online journalist based in Ohio, USA. She has a connection with Edinburgh and, consequently, with Scottish musicians. We covered how I started songwriting, various bands I've had and my songwriting 'process' if it can be called that. Helen's site - Helen
- [Film music exercise - the Scottish Parliament](https://normanlamont.com/film-music-exercise-the-scottish-parliament/) - This is an exercise I was given by my guitar/composition tutor Ged Brockie. It was based on a piece of work he was commissioned to do for the opening of the Scottish Parliament building. He originally created an orchestrated version, then replaced that with a lighter, guitar-based composition. For this exercise we simply removed his
- [The Twilight Show - A Thousand Kisses Deep](https://normanlamont.com/the-twilight-show-a-thousand-kisses-deep/) - I hope this is at least soothing and consoling.
- [Only The Sea (at last!)](https://normanlamont.com/only-the-sea-at-last/) - I'm very happy to share with you a song that's been on the way to this version since sometime around 1979. This version has been an internet collaboration with bassist Bobo Lavorgna in Connecticut USA, the tabla player Ravish Shet whom I met in Kerala a couple of years ago, and his friend Santosh Chandran,
- [Give 'em Smiles](https://normanlamont.com/give-em-smiles/) - Over the New Year period, when I was isolating with COVID, I heard this song in a dream, an actual performance by an elderly jazz singer with a band. When I woke up I remembered the chorus and one line of lyrics, plus the bizarre backing vocals and recorded a chorus on my phone. The
- [Lyric videos](https://normanlamont.com/lyric-videos/) - I've done a couple of these. I don't know whether they're something people like - perhaps they're interested in words or they can't make them out. Sometimes I resisted it because songs aren't poetry, and doing a lyric video may draw too much attention to the words rather than the 'whole'. I don't know. I'd
- [Heaven Sent album 2 - percussing](https://normanlamont.com/heaven-sent-album-2-percussing/) - A couple of snippets from two days of recording percussion and electric guitars for our second album. Going like clappers Suzy, Fi and me adding handclaps to She Wants Out. (If you know the song you can sing along in your head.) This scene was from a level check and I've grafted it onto a
- [Heaven Sent album 2 - the adventure begins!](https://normanlamont.com/heaven-sent-album-2-the-adventure-begins/) - Last weekend the Heaven Sent convened in Falkirk with Jennifer Ellen Clark at her home studio. We've known Jen for a while as the producer of Liz Jones and Broken Windows, and she'd always liked our live act so we've wanted to do this for some time. Over the last few weeks we've rehearsed far
- [Mulling over Kintyre](https://normanlamont.com/mulling-over-kintyre/) - Last weekend was without doubt one of the most enjoyable musical experiences of my life. David Fee of Homesongs had arranged a series of four gigs for myself and Rosie Nimmo in the Kintyre peninsula. For him, this was a way of getting back to his first love - house concerts - after a long
- [Three acoustic cover versions](https://normanlamont.com/three-acoustic-cover-versions/) - Having a trawl through my archive vault deep underground, protected by fearsome robot warriors and smelling faintly of disinfectant, I came across this from The Village pub in Leith a couple of Christmases ago. Three quiet acoustic cover versions of songs I'd loved for a long time but never played until that night. The songs:
- [What meditation is like](https://normanlamont.com/what-meditation-is-like/) - There's space, and everything shining in itLike the light of Carravagio And the young man's voiceHas things to say about the situationAnd the old man's voiceSlaps him down The camera zooms in to their squabbleAnd the light is forgotten Until it isn'tAnd the contestants' raft disappears downstream In that moment …In that moment … But
- [Pretty Kerry (the return of the Twilight Show)](https://normanlamont.com/pretty-kerry-the-return-of-the-twilight-show/) - The year has just turned. Even though it's still daylight at 10pm, what better time to do another Twilight Show? This one is a cover of a song by Mick Bennett, recorded by Clive's Original Band on their wonderful 1972 album Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart. This is a first-take
- [Homesongs 4 life - some very old songs in three languages](https://normanlamont.com/homesongs-4-life-some-very-old-songs-in-three-languages/) - I asked on Facebook for requests before this session. I got one for a song going back to the 1970s which I didn't even remember existed. And one for a cover version of an Arabic song which I learned from some Algerian students in the early 1980s. And like a trouper, I relearned them! Cherchez
- ['And The Beat Goes On' interview](https://normanlamont.com/and-the-beat-goes-on-interview/) - Here's the interview which Bobo Lavorgna in Connecticut invited me to take part in. We talk about childhood music, songwriting, lockdown, the Edinburgh scene and lots of other stuff. And the Beat Goes On Thanks Bobo for a great chat!
- [Homesongs4Life 7th May 2021](https://normanlamont.com/homesongs4life-7th-may-2021/) - Last week's livestream with Homesongs4Life finally overcame some of the audio and video glitches that I've had with previous streams on that and other channels. Here is is - four songs: something old - New Eyes from The Wolf Who Snared The Moon albumsomething new - A Careless Blow - one of the songs being
- [Here's a new 45m live solo show](https://normanlamont.com/heres-a-new-45m-live-solo-show/) - On Tuesday March 30th, the Ruby Tuesday Sessions page on Facebook selected a few veterans of Edinburgh's Out of the Bedroom open mic to play some longer sets. I was one, so here's my live solo show. Despite extensive testing of my setup - audio and streaming - the day before, it didn't seem to
- [In memory of Dave Christopher](https://normanlamont.com/in-memory-of-dave-christopher/) - Dave Christopher was one of the finest songwriters to come out of Edinburgh. But you won't find him on YouTube or Spotify. Until recently you wouldn't find him anywhere online. Only a few cassettes and singles in the hands of friends. His life negotiated personal tragedy and challenges that few have faced, but towards the
- [The new site and another Twilight song](https://normanlamont.com/the-new-site-and-another-twilight-song/) - As you can see my website has had a new lick of paint. The previous design was from the colour palette of In Another Life, and I felt it was time to brighten it up and simplify it. Particularly, I had to simplify the Music section and the Shop, both of which were muddled and
- [Lennon cover on the Twilight Show](https://normanlamont.com/lennon/) - On December 8th 1980 I woke up from a dream in which I was on a rooftop in New York City, and saw a sniper taking aim at someone on the ground. I put on the radio and the first item in the news was that John Lennon had been shot dead. I have to
- [Guitar Craft day 1](https://normanlamont.com/guitar-craft-da/) - 6.45 sitting, in darkness, 45m. After breakfast, Tai Chi, waiting for first guitar meeting. Someone in the next room practising the Beatles' I Want You - sounds good. Guitar meeting - about 30 of us in a circle, Robert in the middle. Basic circulation, passing a note around the circle. Then counting 5, playing on
- [Guitar Craft day 3](https://normanlamont.com/guitar-craft-2/) - Most of the day in small groups practising circulating scales, or playing in 5 and 7. Some are trying to get us more into the Crafty 'form' - prescribed ways of running the circle; others are more casual. Tai Chi outside, pleasant spring weather. Ben and I are practising Flee As A Bird, a traditional
- [Guitar Craft day 4](https://normanlamont.com/guitar-craft-3/) - At the end of the day we got our 'challenge' - a performance tomorrow night by our group for the rest of the House. To entail composing, arranging and performing a piece for the large group, plus several sextets, quintets, quartets, duets and one solo, all drawn at random from the hat. Not just playing
- [Guitar Craft day 5](https://normanlamont.com/guitar-craft-4/) - Most of the day is spent working towards the evening's performance. Our trio (Trio el Reporter) ditches last night's idea and brew up a short piece that's about 80% improvised, which is Ben and Roberto's preference. I play as little as possible but the little I do play seems to enhance the piece. Discussions on
- [Guitar Craft day 6](https://normanlamont.com/guitar-craft-5/) - The group challenge over, I have a slight tension headache. Talking about applause and the need for approval, Fripp says he doesn't look for approval or liking, just someone who'll tell him honestly if a performance made it or sucked. At lunch, performed Flee As a Bird with Ben while Hernan mugged on the phone
- [Barcelona memories and photos](https://normanlamont.com/barcelona-memories-and-photos/) - Almost a week back from Barcelona and still catching up with the repercussions – partly things kicked up by the Guitar Craft course, and partly the repercussions of being away for almost two weeks just before Christmas. I had two and a half days as a tourist in Barcelona, my second visit. The weather was
- [Songstories #14 - Time Starts Now](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-14-time-starts-now/) - This was a song I recorded 'between bands' - the time in the mid 90s between the end of Hungry Ghosts and the birth of the Innocents. I'd sung it a few times live with Polly Phillips but didn't have the knowledge or skill to record it. The arrangement was almost all down to producer
- [Songstories #16  - Shift Shuffle](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-16-shift-shuffle/) - A few weeks ago I watched a video on Taxi TV where Chuck Henry, a musician living in California, showed how he makes a living building hip hop and dance tracks, not for the charts, but for TV and films. They're called 'cues' and you've heard them in the background of scenes - when someone
- [Songstories#5  The Wolf ...](https://normanlamont.com/songstories5-the-wolf-who-snared-the-moon/) - The Wolf Who Snared The Moon (2015 package) by Norman Lamont The Wolf was the title track of my first proper album, in 2004. It was the most ambitious recording I'd tried then, and has always been one of my favourite recordings. So why tinker with it again in 2015? Just ten years of learning
- [Songstories #7 - Song For A Walk](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-7-song-for-a-walk/) - Update I updated the video in November 2017 to include lyrics. Original post Rounding off 2015 with a new song, very short and sweet. Earlier in the year I had a daily practice of writing for 10 minutes each morning, just to accumulate ideas. Most of it was unusable, but this emerged one morning and
- [Songstories #8 Come With Me](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-8-come-with-me/) - [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/239698988" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /] Come With Me was written from my memories of a very hot summer in Edinburgh in 1976, when I'd moved here for the first time (the second time was in 1990). I lived near the Meadows and had a part-time job stacking boxes in a fruit shop before
- [songstories #19: Still](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-19-still/) - This goes a long way back. Hungry Ghosts was a band I formed in the 1990s, a trio with Tricia Thom as singer and Stephen Malloch on violin. We were later joined by Sean Doyle on bass and Dave Haswell on percussion. This was our 'greatest hit', which actually won some kind of song competition
- [My life in music: see Window Bill](https://normanlamont.com/see-window-bill/) - Continuing my musical autobiography ... You’d have thought going to University, suitcase and guitar in hand, would have been the perfect springboard for a teenage performing career. For some reason, when I went to Glasgow University at 18, it wasn’t. I never meant to be here Partly this was because it was unexpected. I hadn’t
- [A weekend to remember - the Orchy sessions](https://normanlamont.com/weekend-orchy-sessions/) - The last few posts I've been reminiscing over decades. Today I'll talk about something I expect to be reminiscing about for decades! The Orchy Sessions On the May bank holiday weekend I was part of a group of songwriters and musos who took over the Bridge of Orchy Ski Lodge for a recording weekend. There
- [COB - Moyshe McStiff & the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart](https://normanlamont.com/moyshe-mcstiff/) - In 1972 Clive Palmer, who had left the Incredible String Band in 1967 because he wasn't taken with their enthusiasm for world mythology, weirdness and ethnic instruments, released a classic of album of mythology, weirdness and ethnic instruments under the unforgettable title of Moyshe McStiff And The Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart. Clive Palmer
- [Painted Chariot - an Incredible String Band cover by Hungry Ghosts](https://normanlamont.com/painted-chariot/) - In which we decide not only to do a cover version but to write an extra verse and get the original artist to approve it. Something to Be Glad about In 1994 the editors of the tentatively launched Incredible String Band fanzine Be Glad realised they had tapped into an expectant and enthusiastic audience. Articles
- [Marketing your music - 5 big mistakes](https://normanlamont.com/how-not-to-find-people-who-like-your-music-5-big-mistakes/) - In this post I’m going to talk about my journey in marketing my music, which just means trying to bring it to the attention of people who might like it. I’ve no great achievements to point to, but I have learned from my mistakes. If you’re a musician trying to widen your audience, maybe I
- [Quintessence - things look great in Notting Hill Gate](https://normanlamont.com/inspirations-quintessence-things-look-great-in-notting-hill-gate/) - I don’t know what kind of image younger people have of the cusp of the 1960s/1970s. ‘Hippie’ has become somewhat of a disparaging term, if not a parody. Bummer, maaaan! In South West Scotland and Glasgow, there weren’t many people floating around talking about bliss and sitting at the feet of their guru. Billy Connolly
- [Come Together (Beatles cover) - Norman Lamont & the Heaven Sent](https://normanlamont.com/come-together-beatles-cover/) - During the Bridge of Orchy sessions, we had a go at our cover of the Beatles Come Together from Abbey Road. Okay the singer flubs the words at the start but there are a lot of words and he's old - cut him some slack! It's not note-for-note but I like the feel of it.
- [Song for a Walk (lyric video)](https://normanlamont.com/song-walk-lyric-video/) - I added lyrics to a video I made in 2015, and it's proved the most popular video I've had on Facebook. Let me know if you like it - please share it if you do. There's a little more background in Songstories #7: Song For A Walk If you like this, you might also like
- [Christmas Revolution](https://normanlamont.com/christmas-revolution-2/) - Well, I had to ...
- [So that's 2018, then ...](https://normanlamont.com/so-thats-2018-then/) - Time to look back on a year, but I don't want to do it as a blast of my own trumpet. More like a wave of gratitude for all the help I've had and the things that have gone well. to the Heaven Sent for being at my side on the stage and sticking with
- [Whiskery Dick and other comic-related stories](https://normanlamont.com/whiskery-dick/) - In a recent email I wrote a little about my love of comics as a child and as an adult. A few friends wrote back with their own stories. From Trish My childhood memory was of my mother being horrified that I, at the age of 9 or 10, was reading “The Whiskery Dick” in
- [Two dialogues in song](https://normanlamont.com/dialogues-in-song/) - Here are two more songs from January's Hungry Ghosts gig. Too Many Nights From The Sea Too Many Nights From The Sea is a song from my next album, untitled as yet. It takes the form of a dialogue between two lovers, one restless, the other favouring settling down. Tricia sings it with me on
- [A newbie in South India](https://normanlamont.com/a-newbie-in-south-india/) - Madame and I have just returned from a two-week adventure in South India, mostly in Kerala. When I say 'adventure' it's not like we were backpacking or in any way roughing it. And South India is a lot easier for first timers like us than the north. But still it felt like an adventure to
- [Ask me, don't ask me](https://normanlamont.com/ask-me-dont-ask-me/) - Ask me (as in Jim asks me some questions) Last week Jim Welsh, a presenter on Summerhall Radio, invited me to talk about the new album and play some tracks on his show. I couldn't come the day of his show so he had me in another day for a special - I felt privileged!
- [More on Momus](https://normanlamont.com/more-on-momus/) - After I mentioned Momus a few times here, I was contacted by John Robinson, who told me he'd created a site reviewing all Momus's albums. So far he's covered more than ten early albums, singles and EPs. If you're interested in this extraordinary singer-songwriter-novelist-artist, this would be a great place to start. Fifteen People by
- [Lotus Feet (John McLaughlin cover)](https://normanlamont.com/lotus-feet/) - One of my first quarantine tasks was to disentangle the muddle of cables which, over the years, had rendered my guitar synth and loopers all but unplayable. This is one of my favourite pieces to play with the guitar synth. Although it first appeared on a Mahavishnu Orchestra album, the most beautiful versions out there
- [Death Songs of a Four Year Old](https://normanlamont.com/death-songs-of-a-four-year-old/) - One of the things about making a lockdown project of clearing and cataloguing a lifetime of photos - four lifetimes if you count my wife and our children - is that memories get triggered. Daily. Nightly even, when you’re trying to sleep. One thing that’s come to mind recently is the fascination with death that
- [You Wouldn't Want To Be Me](https://normanlamont.com/you-wouldnt-want-to-be-me/) - Here's a song I'd forgotten about, perhaps rightly so. This dates from the first Glasgow Songwriting Festival I attended in 2017, in Govanhill Baths. Findlay Napier, who organised it, recently asked participants to offer any examples of songs they wrote at the Festival. I was at a session led by country singer Jim Hunter, whose
- [Evolution of the Crow](https://normanlamont.com/evolution-of-the-crow/) - Last week I launched my new single and video, Crow. Many thanks to those of you who bought it or commented. Crow has taken a long time to fly. For anyone interested in the process, here are a few snapshots from its childhood. Cale experiment 001 (2012) I had a few experiments on the go
- [More Cairo photos](https://normanlamont.com/more-cairo-phot/) - A few more photos from the maelstrom that is downtown Cairo. Or 'dwontwon' as one motorway sign had it. Mind you a French town was described in New Scientist the other week as having a road sign saying 'Toutes directions' (pointing straight ahead) and 'Autres directions' (pointing left).
- [26/9/10 Secaucus](https://normanlamont.com/29910-secaucus/) - First day of our trip to New York, me, Madame and Pest. Edinburgh to Paris flight, on time and comfortable. Landed in Charles de Gaulle and taxied for at least 15 minutes, then stood in a bus hanging onto a meathook for another 10 minutes as we did a tour of this strange aluminium city.
- [27/9/10 New York City](https://normanlamont.com/27910-new-york-city/) - ‘New York, just like I pictured it. Skyscrapers and ever’thang’ (Stevie Wonder, Living for the City) My wife has many virtues. She also has the unfortunate power to cause rain where there has previously been sunshine. Used for the good of humanity this could be a great gift, but on holidays it’s maddening (New Zealand,
- [28/9/10 NYC](https://normanlamont.com/28910-nyc/) - The forecast was for thunderstorms, so Madame and Pest elected to visit an outlet mall in New Jersey. Fortunately the mall had a bus service direct to NYC so, after a good coffee, I left them and headed to the city alone, which was quite exciting. I left the Port Authority (bus station) and strode
- [29/9/10 NYC](https://normanlamont.com/29910-nyc/) - Again the forecasts got it wrong and it was a hot, sunny day. We took the uptown loop of the Gray Line tour round Central Park and Harlem. Another superb guide, Raphaella. Harlem looked good - broad boulevards and the famous rows of brownstones with stoops (stairs between street and door). Raphaella also pointed out
- [30/9/10 New York City](https://normanlamont.com/30910-new-york-city/) - A long, late, hassle-filled journey to the Metropolitan Museum (no change, ticket machine not working, slow bus etc). Well worth it. We had a coffee in the excellent cafe then split up for a couple of hours. I started in Japanese Art, then through Renaissance Italy and Holland, to Egyptian. Madame surprised herself by admiring
- [2/10/10 New York City](https://normanlamont.com/21010-new-york-city/) - Madame decided to stay in Secaucus to pick up presents for people at home and get some solo time. Pest and I got to the Rockefeller Centre before the queues built up. The sun blessed us and we got long clear views of the city at its most beautiful. After a bit of street wandering
- [3/10/10 New York City](https://normanlamont.com/31010-new-york-city/) - Our last day. After packing and checking out, Madame and Pest returned to Macy’s, while I took up Stan’s invitation to his flat, just off Central Park. We had coffee and enjoyed a good chat about many topics, including the odd rock star anecdote which I won’t blog in public, but which could probably
- [New Zealand road trip (1)](https://normanlamont.com/new-zealand-road-trip-1/) - I'm going to take a slight detour from the usual topics of this site to talk about my recent New Zealand and California trip. After all it was pretty much all I was thinking about for three weeks! If you just came here to read about obscure 1970s artists you're welcome and there's lots of
- [New Zealand Road Trip (2)](https://normanlamont.com/new-zealand-road-trip-2/) - Before I continue with some stories and pictures from the South Island, here's something I forgot about flying on New Zealand Air. On the video menu were a few short videos about driving in New Zealand - typically, stuff like driving on the left, giving way on one-lane bridges, allowing longer for your journey because
- [A lonely Christmas and a not-so-lonely one!](https://normanlamont.com/a-lonely-christmas-and-a-not-so-lonely-one/) - Here are my two Christmas songs, in case you haven't come across them before. The first a cover of a beautiful song by Momus. The second - a bit cheerier - is one I wrote as a tribute to Wizzard and my other favourite Christmas songs of the 70s. I recorded it with my friend
- [Music from a few friends](https://normanlamont.com/music-from-a-few-friends/) - I haven't had any new stuff to share with you. I'm still working on the November song in my series of new songs for email subscribers, but in the meantime here's some good music that friends of mine have sent me. Let me just say here and now that I'm not looking for people to
- [The Twilight Show - Come With Me](https://normanlamont.com/the-twilight-show-come-with-me/) - The final song from the last series of Twilight Show is Come With Me. It's one of my favourites of the songs I've written and this version has something very personal and intimate about it. I felt I was rediscovering the song as I was singing it. I've said a little more about the song
- [A twilight show and a daylight one](https://normanlamont.com/a-twilight-show-and-a-daylight-one/) - Last week I did another short set - four songs - for David Fee's Homesongs Facebook page. They were: Makes Sense to MeThe Ballad of Bob DylanThe Ever Open DoorYou Just Want The Thrill I also put up a new Twilight Show song, or rather a very short classical piece by a guitarist called Giuliani.
- [Introducing The Twilight Show](https://normanlamont.com/introducing-the-twilight-show/) - This is something I toyed with last year but plan to produce more of now: a series of intimate performances, one song at a time, from my desk, recorded at night very quietly. It seems to match the mood in which most of my songs come to exist, quite shy and private. They're a middle
- [Strings attached](https://normanlamont.com/strings-attached/) - I've been working on a new approach to one of my songs, scoring it for a string quartet. If I can get it right I'd like to do it for a few more. I've been supported and mentored in this by Ged Brockie, my guitar teacher; we spend as much time talking about composition as
- [Everybody Has A Story - new album preview](https://normanlamont.com/everybody-story/) - I've posted occasionally about the new solo album I've been recording with Gerry Callaghan since we finished In Another Life. Gerry's aim was to make it a pure singer/songwriter album with the bare minimum of instrumentation. We've stretched that a little but it's been the guiding principle. The album's not titled yet and we haven't
- [Two covers by Darren Thornberry](https://normanlamont.com/two-covers-by-darren-thornberry/) - Darren Thornberry is an American singer songwriter living in Lafayette, Colorado. He spent a few years in Edinburgh, as part of the music scene I came into when I joined the Out of the Bedroom open mic night. He had a great band, Thorn's Musical Journey, who shared my launch gig for the Roadblock album,
- [Fear Is A Man's Best Friend (horses, not so much)](https://normanlamont.com/fear-is-a-mans-best-friend-horses-not-so-much/) - Recently I've been going through a lifetime of photos. I came across this one from my first stint as an English teacher in Cairo in the 1970s, and looked up the diary I kept then to find the story. This is pretty much word for word what it says: From ‘Here be Dragons’ a Readers
- [Six songs for Ruby](https://normanlamont.com/six-songs-for-ruby/) - My session for Ruby Tuesday Sessions this week, featuring three unrecorded songs, Only The Sea (solo version), Beggar of Love and You Just Want the Thrill. Plus the most gormless-looking video thumbnail I've ever been part of. How I've been doing this, in case you're interested. The last couple of times I've balanced an iPad
- [Six more lockdown songs](https://normanlamont.com/six-more-lockdown-songs/) - Hi - here are some more songs from live lockdown sessions. This was from the Ruby Tuesday sessions on 23rd June End of TearsA Careless BlowPolecatsRossignolet du Bois (French folk song)The Ballad of Bob DylanGreen Lights All The Way
- [Four songs from a socially distanced lockdown Tuesday evening](https://normanlamont.com/four-songs-from-a-socially-distanced-lockdown-tuesday-evening/) - Here's my set from the Ruby Tuesday sessions this week. I'll be playing on Facebook a couple more times over the next two weeks. HomeSongs4Lunch on Friday 19th at 1pmRuby Tuesday Live Sessions on Tuesday 23rd at 9pm
- [I Remember It All From Before ...](https://normanlamont.com/i-remember-it-all-from-before/) - Long term readers of this site will be familiar with my fascination with the Incredible String Band. The first band I truly loved as a teenager, I keep coming back to them, thinking I've left them behind then having something trigger another wave of affection. This year it was when my friend Rossco played a
- [Covering up for May](https://normanlamont.com/covering-up/) - Here are a couple of cover versions from James Whyte and me, performing as Dexter & Sinister in the much-missed Village in Leith last July. First up, Kindling, a beautiful Elbow song from the album Little Fictions. They revisited it with a counter-melody by James Grant and that's what we used for our cover. Now
- [Looking back: 'Only The Sea'](https://normanlamont.com/looking-back-only-the-sea/) - Today's video goes way back. I'm not exactly sure of the year but I think it's probably 2001 or 2002 and is from a Sunday night session of The Listening Room at the Blue Blazer pub. My friend Graeme ('The G') gave me a collection of footage from three gigs he'd joined me for during
- [She Wants Out (quarantine version)](https://normanlamont.com/she-wants-out-quarantine-version/) - Here's a new Heaven Sent video, produced from our various homes as we self-isolate. I hope this provides a bit of cheer in these uncertain times. As you probably know She Wants Out is our Beatles tribute, and takes place six weeks or months after She Loves You. If you're interested in the technicalities, read
- [Songworks #4: Passenger Pigeons by the Handsome Family](https://normanlamont.com/songworks-4-passenger-pigeons-handsome-family/) - This a beautifully observed, concise jewel of a song with a disturbing twist. This description would be true of many, if not most, of the Handsome Family’s songs, but I find this one especially moving. I’ve considered singing it during a solo set, but was afraid I would choke up - it still gets to
- [The Ever Open Door at Leith Folk Club](https://normanlamont.com/the-ever-open-door-at-leith-folk-club/) - I played a support slot at Leith Folk Club this week, and opened with one of my oldest songs, which I haven't played for many years. The Ever Open Door started from a title. When I was a child we had a papier mache collection box in the house for Dr Barnardo's Homes, the children's
- [My productivity routines](https://normanlamont.com/my-productivity-routines/) - A lot of people seem to be interested in productivity systems and routines. I’ve been through a shedload of them in my working and music careers. What I do now is a gentler version of the system I worked out for myself when I was working from home as a freelance elearning designer. I'm not
- [Cover Ups has Bowie covered for charity](https://normanlamont.com/cover-ups/) - Happy New Year, and I'm glad to be able to start blogging this year with comments on someone else's music for a change. Cover Ups was put together by John Morrison, a Glasgow singer-songwriter who performs as The Hybrid Vine. I first came across him when he put out an album of Marc Bolan covers
- [Ten Objects launch party](https://normanlamont.com/ten-objects-launch-party/) - Last Thursday, 21st November, saw the launch party for Ten Objects in the Voodoo Rooms Speakeasy in Edinburgh. Before the gig To say I was nervous in the runup to it would be an understatement. A recurring vision was of playing to my wife and the band members and no-one else. The Facebook event I
- [The Ballad of Bob Dylan - Illustrated!](https://normanlamont.com/the-ballad-of-bob-dylan-illustrated/) - This is an idea that's always been at the back of my mind for The Ballad of Bob Dylan, finally realised! The inspiration goes back to my friendship with Adrian Whittaker who co-edited the Incredible String Band fanzine Be Glad. One of the contributors drew a lovely comic strip version of the song Ithkos from
- [Story of a Love in Ten Objects (video)](https://normanlamont.com/story-of-a-love-in-ten-objects-video/) - Here's a new video for the new album. About the song This started life as a songwriting exercise on a weekend in Bridge of Orchy. The first version took about twenty minutes to write and when I played it back to the others I felt myself tearing up. That's how I knew it was a
- [Ten Objects - three more previews](https://normanlamont.com/ten-objects-three-more-previews/) - Here are three more previews from the new album: Story of a Love in Ten Objects - featuring Suzy Cargill on percussion. The title gives you all the explanation you needDon't Ask Me - featuring James Bryce on piano. Musing on the feelings inside an open relationship.Anniversary - with Tricia Thom on harmony. Thoughts on
- [Ten Objects - a preview of the new album](https://normanlamont.com/ten-objects-a-preview-of-the-new-album/) - Here are the first previews of the new album and artwork. More to follow. This new collection of songs sprang from a suggestion by Gerry that I do a simple ‘singer-songwriter with guitar’ album as a contrast to the last album which was a band effort. At first I thought “That’s not me.” But on
- [Shakin' it at the Cowshed](https://normanlamont.com/cowshed/) - If you follow us on Facebook you might have seen this, but here's a quick look at the end of our set at the Cowshed in Edinburgh last week where we were blessed by some pretty snappy dancers. I think it may be the first time we've had dancers! We're back at the Cowshed tomorrow
- [Coll Back, Fall Back](https://normanlamont.com/coll-back-fall-back/) - Last week I had a gig on the Isle of Coll. Or rather I didn’t. But it was OK. Here’s the story … Aspiration A bit of background. For the last year or two I’ve been trying to build towards a tour of small venues in the Scottish Highlands. The appeal was pretty romantic -
- [Introducing ... Dexter & Sinister](https://normanlamont.com/introducing-dexter-sinister/) - It must have been well over two years ago when James Whyte and I first discussed doing an acoustics & harmonies cover act. We haven't exactly rushed into action, but here's our first video, of Simon & Garfunkel's Cecilia from The Village this month. Paul Simon is a great comedy writer - as well as
- [They said what? The joy of reviews](https://normanlamont.com/the-joy-of-reviews/) - For every artist on the bottom rungs of the ladder, like me, it's a treat to get a review online or in a magazine. Sometimes the joy at getting it temporarily blinds us to what they're actually saying. And when I read them, sometimes I honestly haven't a clue what they're saying. Here's a selection
- [The Artist's Way, the Old Guy and how not to sell a CD](https://normanlamont.com/artists-way/) - This week I’ve decided to revisit Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I worked through at least half of it well over twelve years ago, writing in a cafe on the way to work in Edinburgh. I found the self-examination quite useful and the morning pages (write three pages of anything as long as it’s three
- [Report from today](https://normanlamont.com/report-from-today/) - A brief post about where I’m up to in what I laughingly refer to as my ‘music career’! The solo album - Ten Objects There are only a couple of instrumental additions outstanding on the solo album, and Gerry and I have finalised the list of songs that will be on it. We recorded more
- [Updates on Kevin Ayers and Dr Strangely Strange](https://normanlamont.com/updates-ayers-strange/) - Here are some updates on a couple of the ‘Inspirations’ I’ve written about - Kevin Ayers and Dr Strangely Strange. Kevin Ayers I was contacted by a Rich Weinstein who is a massive Kevin Ayers fan. He’s put together a feature-length YouTube piece on Kevin Ayers called The Kevin Ayers Story: It Begins With a
- [A new song - The Right Thing](https://normanlamont.com/the-right-thing/) - It's been a while since I put out anything new, but the Heaven Sent have been playing new songs over the last six months. There's Turn, She Wants Out and this one, The Right Thing. Musically this goes back a fair way. The arrangement idea - one repeated note on the guitar plus a bassline
- [Songworks #1: Golden Hours by Brian Eno](https://normanlamont.com/golden-hours/) - Welcome to a new series of posts in which I’ll talk about individual songs I’ve gone back to time and time again over the years and try to tease out what's at work in them and why they move me. My aims are: to draw your attention to the song and hope that you end
- [Drinking with Jackie Leven](https://normanlamont.com/drinking-with-jackie-leven/) - Probably the best aspect of doing this blog and writing about the musicians I love is that occasionally I get contact from other fans of the same people, with new insights. Here’s a story I got from Tom in Glasgow presented with his permission and my thanks: Although I was vaguely aware of Doll By
- [Songworks #2: 18th Avenue by Cat Stevens](https://normanlamont.com/18th-avenue/) - Cat Stevens seems to be ‘Marmite’ among my musical friends. A few can’t stand him, and quite a few like him a lot. I was a huge fan from his rebirth as a singer-songwriter in 1970 with Mona Bone Jakon through to his ‘throw everything out the window and start again’ album Foreigner in 1973.
- [Comics (3)](https://normanlamont.com/comics_3/) - In the 60s, American comics found their way to the UK as ballast on planes, nothing more. Often they were random packages of old and new ones. Some titles would be available new (actually about four months after their American publication), but there would be intermittent gaps in the supply. So collecting comics was like
- [Comics (2)](https://normanlamont.com/comics_2/) - I got my first Marvel comics by swapping various comics with the boy next door. I would have preferred Batman, but I took what he had. There were a few of the non-superhero fantasy shorts by Kirby or Ditko, then a Strange Tales featuring the Human Torch meeting the Sub-Mariner and an early story of
- [Comics (1)](https://normanlamont.com/comics_1_as_muc/) - As much as parents, school and TV, the mental scenery for my childhood was created by comics. The years could be measured out in the comics I read regularly, and the thread connecting them was my slate, the scritchy-scratchy companion of my childhood years. About the size of an A4 page, a rectangle of slate
- [Crying In The Street by Hungry Ghosts (and others)](https://normanlamont.com/crying-in-the-street-by-hungry-ghosts-and-others/) - Here's another from the Hungry Ghosts reunion at the Village in January. This is one of my more popular songs over a long period. Hungry Ghosts used to perform it but it was never recorded. I did my own version on Romantic Fiction but this live rendition beats that hollow. Crying in the Street I
- [Touring Network interview](https://normanlamont.com/touring-network-interview/) - I've been working with the Touring Network to try to get dates in the Highlands and Islands. Of course I keep coming up against the fact that I'm unknown and therefore a risk to any promoter putting on a gig, but I keep persevering and I'm sure some opportunity will present itself. The Touring Network
- [Hungry Ghosts by Hungry Ghosts](https://normanlamont.com/hungry-ghosts-by-hungry-ghosts/) - ... in which I revive my band name from the 1990s with singer Tricia Thom, and perform a song with the same name as the band! Where it happened Each month, on the first Thursday, John Farrell runs his Shakey Egg night at the Village in Fort Street, Leith. It's a friendly, intimate music night
- [Christmas on Earth (Momus cover)](https://normanlamont.com/christmas-on-earth-momus-cover/) - Here's a new video, based on cover of a Momus song I've been working on for some time. This is from Momus's 1993 album Timelord, and I've loved it all these years. I'd wanted to sing it but the chords were a mystery to me until I found a piece of software called Riffstation, which
- [Ye Banks And Braes - Robert Burns in John Martyn style (live)](https://normanlamont.com/burns-john-martyn-style/) - UPDATED 09/11/2018 Following my post about John Martyn I was thinking about where I'd used his guitar style most, and it was probably this Robert Burns song. Here's a live video, recorded at home where you can follow the guitar style if you're that way inclined. Also updated: the Now page Here's the studio version
- [Famous Blue Raincoat - a Cohen cover](https://normanlamont.com/famous-blue-raincoat-a-cohen-cover/) - I just came across this recording of Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat from a music night at the Roxy Art House way back in 2005. I remember it being a spontaneous decision on stage to finish my set with this and not one of my own songs. The Roxy Art House was a huge former
- [How I demo a new song](https://normanlamont.com/reaper/) - This post contains two videos showing how I build up a demo of a new song in the recording software Reaper. A lot of songwriters work the traditional way - work out a song on paper or with an instrument, practise it, maybe perform it live and then record it. I sometimes do that still.
- [Two new songs - one simple and one elaborate](https://normanlamont.com/two-new-songs-one-simple-and-one-elaborate/) - Two new songs taken from different 'streams' of music I make - highly arranged stuff and simple acoustic stuff. If I Could Be With You (live) At the Village last week I tried out some of the songs from the acoustic album which Gerry and I are working on. Here's If I Could Be With
- [Multifarious multitracking - your stories](https://normanlamont.com/multitracking-your-stories/) - I recently put out an email to my music friends referencing my post about multitrack recording. In it I talked about how I dreamed of copying my musical heroes and multitracking. I’d never set foot in a recording studio, so I tried to approximate it by using two ghettoblaster cassette machines, one recording the output
- [Songstories #24: Sullen City (cover)](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-24-sullen-city-cover/) - A couple of years ago I learned of the death of a singer-songwriter who'd been a friend of mine when I lived in Manchester. Although I hadn't heard anything of her for twenty years her songs had remained in my mind and her cassette album Take Route was probably the only cassette I ever played
- [After the news fast](https://normanlamont.com/after-the-news-fast/) - A few weeks ago I decided to go on a news fast, avoiding news on the media for four weeks. My reasons for doing it are here, but it boiled down to noticing that it was an addictive behaviour with no real effect on anything within my control, therefore better eliminated. I thought four weeks
- [Richard Thompson - Doom and Gloom from the Tomb](https://normanlamont.com/inspirations-richard-thompson-doom-gloom-tomb/) - Doom and Gloom from the Tomb was the title of a Richard Thompson compilation of unreleased material issued on cassette in 1985 It’s a phrase that’s stayed with him over the years. Few songwriters have plumbed the depths of sadness, anger, resentment and hatred with such a direct and unsentimental vision as Richard Thompson. Folk
- [Slapp Happy - Powerful Stuff](https://normanlamont.com/inspirations-slapp-happy/) - Slapp Happy, and their songwriters Peter Blegvad and Anthony Moore, have produced some of the strangest pop music of the recent decades, with high philosophical overtones yet all instantly accessible. Playful? In 1974 I was reading a music paper, probably the NME, and came across a review of an album by someone called Slapp Happy.
- [Dr Strangely Strange - psychedelic lounge band](https://normanlamont.com/dr-strangely-strange-psychedelic-lounge-band/) - Dr Strangely Strange were an Irish psychedelic folk band between 1968 and 1971. They were friends of, and appealed to fans of, the Incredible String Band. But they approached their songs with more of a laugh. Let me introduce the Doctor ... “The psychedelic lounge band with whom I made four albums” Tim Goulding Nice
- [Brian Eno - the beauty of the moment](https://normanlamont.com/brian-eno-beauty-moment/) - This article suggests that there's a running theme in Brian Eno's work that is akin to mysticism. I'm not claiming Eno is a mystic or a religious person in any way, in fact I'm sure he isn't. But in the lyrics of several songs are strong suggestions of what we might call mysticism in its
- [Mike Heron for beginners: 3 albums and 5 tracks](https://normanlamont.com/mike-heron-for-beginners-3-albums-and-5-tracks/) - I've written a lot here about the Incredible String Band, including fairly detailed posts about Robin Williamson and about Mike Heron's Smiling Men album. Here I'll take a look at a few Mike Heron destinations to which you might choose to trust me to guide you. Like his bandmate Robin Williamson, his unpolished voice can
- [Momus in the 90s: the Tender Pervert](https://normanlamont.com/momus-90s/) - Last May I decamped with a bunch of musician friends to a ski lodge in the Highlands for a weekend of recording and jamming. The last song of the weekend was at about 2 o’clock on the Monday morning. To the few still up, I quietly sang Momus’s Bishonen. I’d known the song for years
- [King Crimson: love letters and hot dates](https://normanlamont.com/king-crimson-love-letters-and-hot-dates/) - I sat four rows from the front. The front line of the band was three full drumkits. The set list was largely drawn from a period of the band’s history that hadn’t greatly interested me before. I had earplugs in, but I took them out after three pieces. After two hours I thought this was
- [Rogue's Gallery - three centuries of musical glory](https://normanlamont.com/rogues-gallery-review/) - One of those Facebook memes came to me - your favourite albums. I had to bypass the Incredible String Band, the Beatles and King Crimson and pick these two double albums, the ones I consistently most enjoy listening to - Rogue's Gallery and Son of Rogue's Gallery. What's Rogue's Gallery? A double album, released in
- [Jethro Tull - flute dervish](https://normanlamont.com/jethro-tull/) - Like a drooling maniac in a dirty old man coat, Ian Anderson's Jethro Tull managed for a brief time to unite the prog heads and Top of the Pops boppers with some exquisite singles that still sound fresh today. Tear Gas does Tull I first heard a Jethro Tull song some time before I’d heard
- [How to play Frippertronics (1)](https://normanlamont.com/how-i-play-frippertronics/) - What's Frippertronics? Robert Fripp’s typically mock-academic definition of Frippertronics is the musical experience resulting at the interstice of Robert Fripp and a small, mobile and appropriate level of technology.... The origin of Frippertronics The origin of Frippertronics is well documented. Brian Eno introduced Fripp to the recycling delay effect of playing into a set of
- [How to play Frippertronics (2): into action](https://normanlamont.com/how-to-play-frippertronics-2/) - In my last post I described how I approach Frippertronics and ambient looping in general. I also talked about the equipment I use. But how do you approach it in a performance? Even if the performance is just for your own enjoyment? Over and over I've seen friends try the equipment and very quickly create
- [Waveforms ambient looping (or Frippertronics 3)](https://normanlamont.com/waveforms-ambient-looping-frippertronics-3/) - In my last couple of posts on Frippertronics I've shown how Robert Fripp started playing this form of wave-like looping soundscape, and I've demonstrated how I tried to copy it for my own enjoyment using various bits of equipment I'd accumulated over the years. That was very much derivative of Fripp's music. In my own
- [Songstories #23: Box of Tricks (cover)](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-23-box-of-tricks-cover/) - This is my cover version of a song by my friends Fiona Thom and John Farrell, of Ms Fi and the Lost Head Band. (It starts very quietly!) I've loved the song Box of Tricks since the first time I heard it. The soaring chorus of I fooled them all is one thing, the elusive
- [What the Beatles never told you: She Wants Out](https://normanlamont.com/she-wants-out/) - She Wants Out Here's a new pop song. This is a followup to the Beatles' She Loves You. As you well know, its narrator is telling his friend don't worry, go for it, apologise and she'll be yours again. Some weeks or months on, he has a different story for her. As with most of
- [Why I'm avoiding the news for a month](https://normanlamont.com/avoiding-the-news/) - Good evening. Here is the news When I was younger (Oh, no it’s one of those …) news was a fixed point in the day. You would tune in to the news on BBC or ITV at 6 o’clock and hear a 15m bulletin. If you wanted more depth you might get it on the
- [Being in a band - attention seeking behaviour](https://normanlamont.com/being-in-a-band-attention-seeking-behaviour/) - Continuing my musical life story with one of the stranger episodes- how attention-seeking ended the first band I led. By the middle of the 1980s, in Manchester, I’d got over the novelty of multitrack recording and begun to take songwriting seriously. Solitary songwriting I’d been writing songs since I was 16 but I’d always tended
- [Island Samplers - more than your money's worth in old pence](https://normanlamont.com/island-samplers/) - In the early 1970s, inspired by the success of CBS’s The Rock Machine and The Rock Machine Turns You On, many record companies started putting out budget-price samplers. Island Records made some of the most popular samplers, and the Island samplers are still regarded with affection and listened to today. Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, Traffic,
- [The Ballad of Bob Dylan - live video](https://normanlamont.com/ballad-bob-dylan-live-video/) - Norman Lamont and the Heaven Sent played a Christmas charity gig in The Village, Leith in December. Here's The Ballad of Bob Dylan from that gig. Want to follow the lyrics or find out more about the song? The Ballad of Bob Dylan (songstories) Want to try our album? The CD is only £9.00 but
- [Green Lights All The Way (live) or It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Jammy](https://normanlamont.com/green-lights/) - Here's another, lighter, video of Green Lights All The Way, this time from the Orchy Sessions. Some blues songs begin with 'My wife done left me, my dog done died and I believe I'm gonna dust my broom (or take my Dyson around those difficult-to-reach-little corners). But for this guy, everything is going right. If
- [In Another Life airplay](https://normanlamont.com/in-another-life-on-air/) - It's nice to see the new album's been getting some advance airplay. My thanks go to: Roots & Fusion on Blues and Roots Radio Jane Clayton on West Norfolk Radio Strummers and Dreamers on Cambridge 105 Roots and Shoots on Felixstowe Radio Acoustic Routes on Dapper FM Robin Campbell on Folkal Point World of Difference
- [Norman Lamont & the Heaven Sent: End of Tears - live](https://normanlamont.com/end-of-tears-live/) - As a reminder that the launch gig is ... tomorrow! Here's the band with End of Tears, recorded in December at The Village. You can buy the CD here, or get the download free in our special audiovisual journey See You In Another Life.
- [In Another Life reviewed in RnR magazine](https://normanlamont.com/in-another-life-reviewed-in-rnr-magazine/) - There's a great review of the new album in RnR Magazine #68 (Mar/Apr 2018). Lamont is a storyteller whose entertaining, tongue-in-cheek lyrics are delivered with self-assured laconic panache. Read it here What's the album really like? Here's a no-cost way to check it out: Our new album FREE! A unique, in-depth album experience
- [Two videos from the album launch](https://normanlamont.com/two-videos-from-the-album-launch/) - The whole album launch in March was filmed but lots of 'real life' has got in the way of getting it public quickly. Here are the first two - hope you like them! Until I Found You This was the end of the 'official' set, although we came back to do Come Together. You can
- [Lovely melodies and gruesome murders - don't you love folk music?](https://normanlamont.com/murder-melody/) - The other week I wrote about Gabriel Yacoub and his band Malicorne. I forgot to mention one of my favourite Malicorne songs - the story of a gruesome murder carried out by a student - at his mother's request, no less. It's called L'Écolier Assassin and comes from their album Almanach. I loved this song
- [Living it up in the country - Orchy Sessions 2018](https://normanlamont.com/bridge-of-orchy-2018/) - Put a small bunch of songwriters in a ski lodge in May with food, drink and recording equipment and what do you get? A lot of fun, some songs we’d never have written, some some recordings we’d never have had and an album to follow up last year’s. Meet on the Lodge I’ve never doing
- [Orchy Sessions 2 - the album is on sale for Cancer Relief](https://normanlamont.com/orchy-sessions-2-the-album/) - Bridge Of Orchy Sessions 2018 by Bridge Of Orchy Sessions A couple of weeks ago I wrote about an excellent weekend in Bridge of Orchy with some other songwriters. Andrew Ferguson has also written about it here. The digital album is now on sale for only £7.00 and 100% of the money earned will go
- [Guitar Craft day 2](https://normanlamont.com/guitar-craft-1/) - More circulation in 5, 7 and 11. Now restricted to the scale of C. About a third of the group has difficulty knowing the notes of the scale on the Guitar Craft tuning. Some are inexperienced guitarists. We're having to go at the speed of the slowest at times, so we are sent off to
- [The Now page](https://normanlamont.com/the-now-page/) - This was an idea from Derek Sivers - a page that I should keep updated with what's currently on my mind: projects, listening, viewing and ideas. I've started it here: The Now Page Just as a preview of what's on it, there's the mention that In Another Life is on the longlist for Scottish Album
- [Andrew C Ferguson - Final Days](https://normanlamont.com/andrew-c-ferguson-final-days/) - A review of Andrew C Ferguson's new album Final Days Andrew C Ferguson has been a friend for a few years since he invited us to play at tribute nights to Dylan, Nick Cave and Springsteen. Already well established on the spoken-word scene, in recent years he's branched out into crime novels and a series
- [The Twilight Show continues with a Jacques Brel cover](https://normanlamont.com/jacques-brel-cover/) - Here's another song from short sequence of videos I recorded one winter's night a few months ago. This is a Jacques Brel cover, of his song Ne Me Quitte Pas, translated by Momus. There are some incredible cover versions of this magnificent song available - my favourite is Nina Simone's - but English versions have
- [How I met Bob Dylan - with turmeric](https://normanlamont.com/how-i-met-bob-dylan-another-time/) - If you know my songs this probably sounds a familiar story - I get talking to someone who turns out to be Bob Dylan. That's the song The Ballad of Bob Dylan. Now in a new twist, crime author Andrew C Ferguson (he'll love me calling him that) has penned a new story. Me and
- [Goodbye to Ben](https://normanlamont.com/goodbye-to-ben/) - I don't usually post personal stuff here, but let me take a moment to tell you about Ben. Ben is the ginger tom cat who's lived with us for almost 18 years. We got him and his sister Cassie as kittens from Cats Protection in 2000. We'd only intended to take her, but Ben installed
- [The Twilight Show - first two videos from my (tiny) desk concert](https://normanlamont.com/twilight-show-first-two/) - Tiny Desk Concerts are a Thing - on NPR in the states. Celebs perform acoustic shows at the company manager's desk. One night last week, without much forethought, I recorded a few songs sitting at my desk in half-light from a desk lamp. The idea was sparked just by seeing the dark image in the
- [In Another Life - the album is out!](https://normanlamont.com/in-another-life-out/) - The band's album In Another Life is out today. You can buy it on Bandcamp here. Please share with anyone you think deserves it because they've been such good humans. In Another Life by Norman Lamont and the Heaven Sent Some days over the last two years I've wondered if we'd ever get to this
- [What kind of listener are you?](https://normanlamont.com/listener/) - After a couple of conversations with friends over the last few weeks, I discovered I'm not the only one for who does most of their listening to music in their car. Listening in days of yore Ross: Hmm, a lot of this stuff is from Colonial times. Hey, what are some other time periods Rachel?
- [Green Lights All The Way - live video](https://normanlamont.com/green-lights-way-live-video/) - Judging by gigs, Green Lights All The Way is going to be the most popular song on the new album. Here's the band playing it at a charity gig last week. All the best to you and yours for Christmas and New Year and I hope you have a great 2018! Green Lights All
- [5 October 2005 Wellington](https://normanlamont.com/5_october_2005/) - Long flight to NZ, stopping for a few hours in Sydney Airport. Watched 'Bewitched' with Nicole Kidman on the plane, which was good, quite a nice twist. Flying into Wellington you immediately see that twisted, convoluted, almost corrugated New Zealand landscape. Our hosts met us at the airport and drove us in two cars through
- [Off the beaten track with Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Incredible String Band](https://normanlamont.com/incredible-string-band-off-the-beaten-track/) - My tastes in music as a teenager were pretty conventional ... Until ... Continuing my life in music ... Before I got my first guitar, I'd drifted away from rock towards listening to classical and film music. As a young teenager rediscovering pop music via my guitar, at first I followed fairly conventional bands: I
- [Songwriting on the hoof - take a song for a walk!](https://normanlamont.com/songwriting-walk/) - I remember a quote attributed to Bob Dylan about songwriting although I've never been able to verify it: Q: How do you write a song? A: Take a song you know, change the words then change the tune The weather's been glorious and I heard it's going to break tomorrow so I decided to put
- [Leonard Cohen at Edinburgh Castle](https://normanlamont.com/leonard-cohen-a/) - I'd been steeling myself for a disappointment; the setlists I'd seen posted on his site forum didn't reflect my favourite stuff, I thought it understandable if a man of his age, on a very long tour of long sets, might want to preserve his voice and coast a little, maybe even go through the motions.
- [Inspirations: 15 albums that changed things for me](https://normanlamont.com/15-albums-that-bolted-the-structure-in-place/) - I got tagged in Facebook with this, so never being one to waste some effort I’ll post it here too. Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months,
- [A tip of the hat tonight](https://normanlamont.com/a-tip-of-the-hat-tonight/) - I've been unable to post to Wordpress for a while, so I'm glad to have got it fixed today. Tonight's the night for the third Tip of the Hat to Leonard Cohen. We're at the Village, Fort Street, Leith. We've got so many singers we need to start prompt! Besides, Leonard would like it that
- [The Monk From The Mountain of Sorrow lyric video](https://normanlamont.com/monk-mountain-sorrow-lyric-video/) - Lyric videos seem to be a thing nowadays, presumably so that something shows when you're looking at them on Facebook during a meeting with the sound off, pretending it's an important email. This song was on All The Time In Heaven. I'd written it years earlier of course, and at first I was a little
- [A Tip of the Hat to Leonard Cohen (2)](https://normanlamont.com/a-tip-of-the-hat-to-leonard-cohen-2/) - Edinburgh singer-songwriters line up to sing the songs of the Grocer of Despair. Captain's Bar, Saturday night 8:30
- [Leonard Cohen - my life in (his) art](https://normanlamont.com/leonard-cohen-my-life-in-his-art/) - I was sixteen and in fifth year at school. My girlfriend at the time was in sixth year, her eye on the end of school and the beginning of 'real life'. One evening at her house she brought out a white album with an obscure, burned out photo on the front. Songs from a Room.
- [Nicole - the comic strip and two other stories](https://normanlamont.com/nicole-the-comic-strip/) - Here's a new video of Nicole, from the Bridge of Orchy sessions. Just for contrast here's the first Nicole video, made by Mab McMoragh to a prototype recording of the song. And here's a live version, me, my guitar synth and my looper ; Related Nicole - there's no bible in here? (the story)
- [Songwriting: the juice and its flowing](https://normanlamont.com/songwriting_the/) - Some thoughts on songwriting, from the first blog I kept, written in 1997, but I'm still behind most of this. Magic It's just magic! It feels that way anyway. Writers may disagree about the proportions of inspiration and perspiration that go into making a song, but everyone recognises that leap of the heart when you
- [It's just a song, after all ...](https://normanlamont.com/its-just-a-song-after-all/) - This is one for all the performers among my friends. Tonight I wrote a song. The first time in a year, during which I thought I either couldn't, or didn't need to, write another. So I've written one, and I think it's good. Big deal. Why is that such a bitter sweet feeling? The myth
- [Restrictions make you work better](https://normanlamont.com/restrictions/) - Sometimes when something's difficult you can manage it by making it a different kind of difficult. I've been confounded for most of the year by a big 'ol baddie that sits on my shoulder saying ' You can't write anything, certainly nothing as good as you used to, nothing as good as , and
- [Songstories #15 - The Spell](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-15-the-spell/) - I've written some sad songs in my time, but this must be the saddest. It's a sprawling 7.5 minutes. The theme song, the bit about the spell that opens and closes the song, reflects on how youth feels invulnerable, invincible, even if you know it's not forever - 'safe for the moment'. It bookends some half-told
- [Video: Come With Me - live at Bridge of Orchy](https://normanlamont.com/come-live-bridge-orchy/) - Here's the first video from the Bridge of Orchy sessions. The band are playing Come With Me, the best song on the Roadblock album and one of my favourites of all the things I've written. The video was done by Euan Brockie and the audio recorded and mixed by Gerry Callaghan and Ross Arthur. More
- [Will The Circle be broken?](https://normanlamont.com/will-the-circle-be-broken/) - SECRETS ARE LIES SHARING IS CARING PRIVACY IS THEFT These are the slogans of the the eponymous organisation in Dave Eggers' The Circle, a Google/Apple/Twitter search and social media outfit run by young Silicon Valley enthusiasts. Despite the (deliberate) echo of Orwell's 1984, this organisation doesn't set out deliberately to be brutal or fascistic. It's a dystopia created by
- [Give It a Wide Birth!](https://normanlamont.com/give_it_a_wide_/) - A few tips for infanticipating women by Dr Sandra Segget of Gargunnock Royal Infirmary Trust Plc. Dedicated to all children and the fathers that bore them [to tears]. Babies and the Law Babies are considered by the law to be in utero until born, when they are in loco parentis, the parents' home. Babies, position
- [Inspirations: Desert Island Discs](https://normanlamont.com/desert_island_d/) - Some months ago, a discussion on the Out of the Bedroom board invited readers to choose their Desert Island Discs - the albums they would take with them if they were to be marooned on a desert island with the best sound system available (so that's plausible, eh?). It's a fun exercise, so I picked
- [The Edinburgh Songwriters Showcase](https://normanlamont.com/the_edinburgh_s/) - I wrote this in 1997 when it was still fresh in my mind! I was there at the start. Well, not quite the first session, but back in 1993 in the Gallery Bar (now the Car Wash) at the top of the Mound - near enough to count as an elder of the ESS.
- [My footpath through music (1) - Hungry Ghosts](https://normanlamont.com/my_footpath_thr/) - Edinburgh - Hungry Ghosts The final Hungry Ghosts lineup: l-r Lamont, Stephen Malloch (violin), Tricia Thom (voice), Sean Doyle (bass), Dave Haswell (percussion) When I moved to Edinburgh in 1990 I discovered a lively music scene where the open-mic scenario was starting to take off. One prime mover was Peter Butterworth, who ran an excellent
- [My footpath through music (3) - the Innocents](https://normanlamont.com/my_footpath_thr_1/) - Towards the end of 2001 I entered a competition called Musician of the Year run by Allie Fox's String Jam Club in Galashiels. To my surprise I found myself in the finals, and although I did not win, I received a substantial prize for best song (Ballad of Bob Dylan). The G and started talking
- [My footpath through music (2) - post-Ghosts](https://normanlamont.com/my_footpath_thr_2/) - On the breakup of Hungry Ghosts, my two main collaborators were singer Polly Phillips and guitarist Gil Murray. Polly is a superb singer, who had just released her first album I Wish I Had Your Life. We had a weekly residency in a cafe called Common Grounds at the top of the Mound, and also
- [The Listening Room March 13th](https://normanlamont.com/the-listening-room-march-13th/) - The Listening Room is an event held on Sundays in The Blue Blazer, behind the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. I've been going on an occasional basis for many years. It's in an L-shaped room and the performer is usually sitting or standing somewhere around the corner. In that corner it's a very closeup and intimate
- [Inspirations: Spiritual rock stars](https://normanlamont.com/spiritual_rock_/) - My top 8 spiritual rock stars Crass, eh? This is just a personal choice, by no means comprehensive, entirely serious or even fair. But it's a thread that's run through my music fandom since I was a teenager. I was somehow attracted to those who had been through the sex/drugs/hedonism of the rock world and
- [King James is good enough for me](https://normanlamont.com/king-james-is-good-enough-for-me/) - With this being the 400th anniversary of the King James version of the bible, I’m hearing it a lot on Radio 4 and coming across it in the papers, and am constantly reminded how much I love it, and how much it’s the foundation of our everyday language and literature. You can barely get through
- [How to write songs (as told by Paul Simon)](https://normanlamont.com/how-to-write-songs-as-told-by-paul-simon/) - This little statement is in the sleevenotes of So Beautiful or So What and, as I get engaged with writing again, it rings as true as any description I've ever heard of the creative process: How do the fingers of this thing entwine? Which foot falls first upon the trail? Is it the word? Is
- [In memory of John Crook](https://normanlamont.com/yesterday-i-was-in-weston-super-mare-for-the-buddhist-funeral-of-john-crook-john-was-a-chan-zen-master-and-teacher-of-th/) - Yesterday I was in Weston-Super-Mare for the Buddhist funeral of John Crook. John was a Chan (Zen) master and teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship. His style of retreat and teaching was a unique mix of the orthodox Chan from his own Chinese teacher, Japanese Zen from his first teachers, a wild and shamanistic Tibetan
- [Brad Warner and Cat Stevens in Glasgow](https://normanlamont.com/brad-warner-and-cat-stevens-in-glasgow/) - Had an enjoyable Friday night in Glasgow at a talk by Brad Warner. Brad's the only Zen Buddhist teacher I know who's also a punk bassist, worked on monster movies and writes occasional articles on Buddhism for a porn site. He's funny and self-deprecating but has a straight down the line serious attitude to Zen
- [My life in music: Elizabethan Serenade](https://normanlamont.com/every-song-has-a-memory-elizabethan-serenade/) - Andy Warhol said: “Every song has a memory; every song has the ability to make or break your heart, shut down the heart, and open the eyes. But I’m afraid if you look at a thing long enough; it loses all of its meaning” . This will be true of some of the songs I
- [My life in music: my first guitar](https://normanlamont.com/my-first-guitar/) - My first guitar was probably my first love too. The guitar had always been part of my fantasy life. I’d first seen it on the One O’Clock Gang, as a suave gentleman with a pencil moustache and a knowing half-smile stroked jazz standards from a large semi-acoustic with f-holes and gleaming dials and pickups, still glamorous
- [My life in music: je suis un singer-songwriter](https://normanlamont.com/je-suis-un-singer-songwriter/) - At the age of 16 I’d been playing for less than two years but was able to pick up tunes quickly and guesstimate chords from a few hearings of a song. That year, 1970, our school took part in the Rencontre Franco-Ecossaise. About fifty 16-year olds from Ayrshire schools got to spend two weeks of
- [Overcoming stage fright and page fright](https://normanlamont.com/stagefright/) - You wouldn't have wanted to be backstage before a Beatles show. John Lennon and Ringo Starr both had such bad stage fright they'd throw up every time. I don't throw up before I go onstage. Venues please have no fear. I'm not normally nervous before performing. If I have any fears about it, they may
- [My favourite songwriters: the Handsome Family](https://normanlamont.com/my-favourite-songwriters-the-handsome-family/) - Nobody actually needs a favourite songwriter of course, any more than you need a favourite food or a favourite place. It's just a convention. But in the car on the way home last night, listening to a CD of theirs I hadn't played in years I realised that if I do have a favourite songwriter
- [Comics to films](https://normanlamont.com/comics-to-films/) - Following from my last post, some moments that have directly electrified the teenage comic fan in my wizened old heart. Delights Christopher Reeve's Superman, square-jawed and no smug irony Spidey swinging through the valleys of New York - sheer exhilaration McKellen's purring Magneto - 'Don't stand in my way, Chaawllz' Jackman as Wolverine - a
- [A pointed stick](https://normanlamont.com/a-pointed-stick/) - A recognised tool in the 'spiritual growth' parlance, and in commonsense too, is the 'pointed stick' - where you willingly take on something that makes you uncomfortable. Mine this morning was to buy a book called 'The Cult of the Amateur: how today's internet is killing our culture ...etc'. I picked it up, leafed through
- [Time I was recognised as a leading influential](https://normanlamont.com/time-i-was-recognised-as-a-leading-influential/) - Last year I took a subscription to Time magazine, mainly because I liked the free watch you got. I still use it and like it, and I think it's a good magazine too. Last week I got a nice letter from their publishe, a gentleman called Andy Bush. He begins with a sense of urgency:
- [Pete Townshend: Who I Am](https://normanlamont.com/pete-townshend-who-i-am/) - I've been reading this a little at a time over the last week or two. It's a strange one. Unlike, say Dylan or Keith Richard's autobiographies, there's no flamboyant writerly style in this book. The prose is almost mundane in places, which is surprising given the skill and dedication of its author. That's not to
- [Making our album - a glimpse](https://normanlamont.com/making-our-album-a-glimpse/) - Here's the magic being made before your very eyes. First three in a series of short videos in Gerry Callaghan's studio. 2017 is the year of the album! Sure it's taken a while but the best things do. In #1 we see James and Gerry working on In Another Life, wherein reggae is a vehicle for
- [End of 2016, start of 2017](https://normanlamont.com/a-new-coat-of-paint-for-the-site/) - I've updated the site. I hope you like it. The appearance is a little more modern and I've stripped out some of the content to make it a bit leaner. I will be adding more at leisure as the year goes on (2017 that is). This last year, my music site's been a bit neglected
- [The Incredible String Band connection](https://normanlamont.com/incredible-string-band-connection/) - One of the oddities I've discovered about this site is that the biggest reason people come here is nothing to do with me! This post about an obscure Mike Heron album from 1970 just happens to be linked from Mike Heron's Wikipedia page, and a huge amount of my traffic (no that's not a lot!)
- [So where's this album, then?](https://normanlamont.com/so-wheres-this-album-then/) - It may look like nothing's happening but it is! First of all we have a title: In Another Life. This album will be lighter and friendlier in tone than my previous two, and more acoustic. The track list (not in order): Green Lights All The Way End of Tears Had Damn Grey Goodbye Song Bamboo
- [Songstories #23: Empty](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-23-empty/) - ALL THE TIME IN HEAVEN by Norman Lamont Not much of a story here, but this photo by Ninian Reid on Flickr says it all. I recorded the song first with Hungry Ghosts back in the 90s when we won a weekend in a studio, then remade it for the album All The Time In
- [What we got up to in the studio](https://normanlamont.com/what-we-got-up-to-in-the-studio/) - Some new videos in the run up to the new album. How adding unlikely percussion brought a track to life. How we re-recorded The Ballad of Bob Dylan. Here's the whole series in reverse order, starting with the new ones: #5: He Said His Name Was Bob Dylan ... #4: Love Triangle #3: Four Notes
- [Songstories #21 - If I Could Be With You](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-21-if-i-could-be-with-you/) - If I Could Be With You by Norman Lamont It's not often I publish a completely new song. Usually I put something out when it's been through five to ten years of attempted recordings, live trials, years of being ignored etc. This has gone from an idea to a completed recording in just a couple
- [Songstories #20 - Failure](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-20-failure/) - Last month I wrote about Bruce Springsteen and noted how honestly he talks about his depression in his book. I don't suffer from depression. I have friends who do and I can see the difference between what they go through and what I experience as 'feeling down'. What I do have is a recurrent and regular
- ['Waveforms' is now on Bandcamp](https://normanlamont.com/waveforms-is-now-on-bandcamp/) - Having been unavailable for a while the Waveforms album of ambient instrumentals is now up on Bandcamp, with a couple of extra bonus tracks. It's priced at £4.00 rather than free. Why? Because I think music is worth something. It's not much and you're welcome to pay more if you want. The first track is
- [Di Williams site is up](https://normanlamont.com/di-williams-site-is-up/) - Some time ago I posted about my quest to create an online presence for the late Di Williams, a songwriter whose work I love and who seemed to be resigned to obscurity. Well that site is now up. Through various friends I've managed to track down some people who knew her, and even a photo.
- [The singer's going to sing a song (and he wants you all to sing along)](https://normanlamont.com/the-singers-going-to-sing-a-song-and-he-wants-you-all-to-sing-along/) - Having decided not to do my annual Acoustic Music Centre show this year, and focus efforts on the recording of the Heaven Sent album, I thought I wouldn't be part of the Festival at all. But I've been kindly invited to a few stages during the Festival, both solo and with the band. So here
- [In Search of Di Williams](https://normanlamont.com/in-search-of-di-williams/) - This is the start of a quest. In the mid-1980s I was living in Manchester. During this time I got to know a singer called Di Williams. She first came along to a folk club I ran with Lynne Percival at the Lamplight Club in Chorlton. She seemed a slightly eccentric figure, in charity shop clothes
- [Songstories #13 - Only The Sea](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-13-only-the-sea/) - I'm going right back today, to the early days of Out of the Bedroom at the Waverley, captured on the 2003 album Waverley Nights. The original lineup of the Innocents - me, Alison Tunnicliffe (then Hennessy) on violin and singer-songwriter The G on percussion with the song that usually closed our set, Only The Sea.
- [Songstories #12  - The Water Is Wide](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-12-the-water-is-wide/) - Romantic Fiction Collected by Norman Lamont This was a track on Romantic Fiction 2. A traditional Irish song, I first heard it on Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review live album, sung as a duet with Joan Baez. I noticed it had a lot of shared lyrics and melody with Carrickfergus, one of my favourite Irish songs
- [Live at the Village](https://normanlamont.com/live-at-the-village/) - We're excited to be playing at the Nitty Gritty Club at The Village, 16 South Fort St, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 4ET on Friday night, 1st April, starting at 8. It's free! This will be the full band, and electric. Not just us but Scott Renton's country crew the Heartbreak Diet and James Igoe, late of
- [Songstories #10 - The Ballad of Bob Dylan](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-10-the-ballad-of-bob-dylan/) - The Ballad of Bob Dylan has always been the most popular of my songs. In the much-missed Full Moon Club it won me an award for 'Most Shouted-For Song' from Fritz van Helsing (it was probably Fritz who did the shouting!). It's had more radio play than anything else I've done, which isn't saying much
- [Songstories #1: A Forest Trail In Autumn](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-1-a-forest-trail-in-autumn/) - I've neglected this site for a while as all my attention's been focused on getting my business site Light Touch Learning up. I've moved all the work stuff from this site to that, to focus here on my music. I'm going to pick a random song from the back catalogue every so often and write
- [Songstories #2  All You Need To Know About Me](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-2-all-you-need-to-know-about-me/) - Here's a brand new recording for a change. During most of 2013 I was doing a writing exercise that involved writing for five minutes before breakfast every morning - any subject, any form. Most of it, of course, was cack, but looking back at my notebooks this year I found quite a few useful bits
- [Songstories #3  I Was Afraid (the last angsty rock song)](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-3-i-was-afraid-the-last-angsty-rock-song/) - This is part of my campaign to share songs that have been kicking around for a long time. I've been working on this song, off and on, since 2004. I tried various arrangements, and tried it out with different bands, but it never quite lifted off. I rescued some of the previous arrangement from Cubase
- [Songstories#4 Green Lights All The Way](https://normanlamont.com/songstories4-green-lights-all-the-way-2/) - This song came to me in the most predictable, prosaic way you could imagine - I was driving home from Edinburgh at night and, guess what, I got a green light at just about every junction. As I was driving I started stringing together ideas about a guy whose life just works. Kind of an
- [Songstories #6  Christmas Revolution](https://normanlamont.com/songstories-6-christmas-revolution/) - The first recording of this goes back to 2007 but the seeds were sown in the 1970s. I guess everyone associates their favourite Christmas songs with a certain period in their life, so for me the early 70s ones, just as Glam Rock was in the ascendancy, are the classics. In particular Wizzard's I Wish
- [What's it all about, then?](https://normanlamont.com/whats-it-all-about-then/) - Over the last few weeks I've been musing a lot about what my various websites are for. One piece of advice I was given was to run a user survey, which I've done on two sites including this one. I didn't expect many answers - I don't get a lot of visitors and I don't
- [Ricky (enfin!)](https://normanlamont.com/ricky-enfin/) - You wait years for a decent recording of a song and suddenly, like buses, two come along. Jacques Brel wrote his famous song Jackie in the 1960s, spinning a yarn from his fantasy of ending up as a cabaret crooner in cheap clubs. Scott Walker, Marc Almond and others sang translated versions. In the 1980s
- [Facing our public in August!](https://normanlamont.com/facing-our-public-in-august/) - Here's the poster for this year's Acoustic Music Centre gig. A lot of people have told me they're coming so might be as well to book at ticket to avoid disappointment! Here are all the gigs we have lined up: Thurs 13th 7pm St Andrews Square, Edinburgh Gin and Prosecco bar Fri 14th 7pm St
- [Romantic Fiction Collected](https://normanlamont.com/romantic-fiction-collected/) - In 2005 and 2006 I put out two EPs (a hangover term from the days of vinyl, meaning a single with four tracks instead of two) called Romantic Fiction 1 and 2. The idea was that my previous album The Wolf Who ... didn't really include any you-and-me type love or love/hate songs, and I
- [July and August gigs](https://normanlamont.com/july-and-august-gigs/) - The Heaven Sent has a new member: Suzy Cargill on percussion, joining James Whyte on bass, Fiona Thom on guitar/ukelele, John Lawrence on keyboards and your humble servant on guitar. We'll be out and about as usual the Festival period. Here's what's planned so far: Tues 28 July 8pm: Bannerman's (front bar) An acoustic spot
- [Until I Found You ](https://normanlamont.com/until-i-found-you/) - There's a running joke among my musician friends about how long it takes me to get from writing something to recording it, but this probably stretches it. This song dates from the days of the band Hungry Ghosts so it's probably mid 90s. I don't remember any story around writing it other than a vague
- [Fringe shows](https://normanlamont.com/fringe-shows/) - Here's a brief reminder that my little band of brothers and sisters and I are treading the boards again at the Fringe. We're playing the Acoustic Music Centre @ St Brides in Orwell St on 9, 10, 11 August at 7pm Expect the usual mix of quirky whimsy and crushing depression, with the superb Fiona
- [Samantha Cameron: my mindfulness cue is 'handbag'](https://normanlamont.com/samantha-cameron-my-mindfulness-cue-is-handbag/) - Not often you get a laugh out of mindfulness: "So I go into the kitchen, Dave is slumped over his iPad, so far so normal then I notice it is not on & he is just like gazing at it in this weird way, I'm like do not worry, why not borrow Nancy's, he's like,
- [Lamont's Taxonomy of Direness](https://normanlamont.com/lamonts-taxonomy-of-direness/) - Maslow has his hierarchy, Bloom has his taxonomy. I thought it was time I contributed something to the sum of human understanding. (About time, I hear you say?) I hope that this diagram will be helpful in team meetings, project huddles and boardrooms throughout the business and public sector worlds. Its aim is to help
- [Catechism of Cliché (5) - Human Resources](https://normanlamont.com/catechism-of-cliche-5-human-resources/) - What are people? - human resources What do we do with resources? - manage them Into what subdivisions do these resources fall? - leaders and headcount What is the name for a member of headcount who is destined to become a leader? - talent Through what tubular thoroughfare will he or she make the journey?
- [Catechism of cliché (3) - the L&D pep talk](https://normanlamont.com/catechism-of-cliche-3-the-ld-pep-talk/) - What is your job this morning? To share ideas around our vision I appreciate your generosity. What act of manual dexterity will you also be performing? Positioning the change programme With what aim, of considerable aeronautical value? So that it lands well Whence are we beginning? A good foundation In what provocatory surroundings will we
- [Catechism of Cliche 4 - the project](https://normanlamont.com/catechism-of-cliche-4-the-project/) - What aeronautical journey stage has this project just completed? - it has landed How has it done this? - not as well as we would have liked What shall we have to hold? - our hands Where shall we have to hold them? -up I hear that pointing will be also required. What will we
- [My new album](https://normanlamont.com/my-new-album/) - Well it's taken me nearly five years, but I've finally got this album ready. I won't say too much about it here except that IT'S GOOD! You can hear it, watch the video, download the album or individual tracks at http://www.allthetimeinheaven.com To hear it live and get a copy to turn over and over in
- [Not About To Fly](https://normanlamont.com/not-about-to-fly/) - A few weeks ago, Mary, Jim, John and I piled into the Captain's Bar in Edinburgh, set up some cameras on tripods and mimed along to this song from my new album. The other day Pol Arida edited the best of it into this video. Not About To Fly is the jauntiest song in the
- [Album preview: The Song Of Wandering Aengus](https://normanlamont.com/album-preview-the-song-of-wandering-aengus/) - Here's another preview of my album. This is a poem by William Butler Yeats. I'm adding to a long series of musical interpretations of it including The Waterboys and Donovan. http://www.allthetimeinheaven.com I now have the master CD and will be sending it off for duplication. The online version will be released on March 1st in
- [Six flavours of 'anxious to please'](https://normanlamont.com/six-flavours-of-anxious-to-please/) - We're social animals. But sometimes our urge to be part of the herd gets out of hand. One of the insights of meditation - or maybe just of getting older - is that you spot yourself acting out little scripts and preoccupations normally hidden from your busy, get-on-with-it mind. I was thinking about this the
- [Latest album preview: Not About to Fly](https://normanlamont.com/latest-album-preview-not-about-to-fly/) - Here's the latest preview from my album All The Time in Heaven
- [Information overload - break the spell with a bell](https://normanlamont.com/information-overload-break-the-spell-with-a-bell/) - I'm doing a course at the moment at curatr.com about content curation on the internet. The main problem people on the course report with internet content is overload - there's just too much of it! We're all familiar with this and the course aims to help you find strategies first of all to manage your own information
- [All The Time in Heaven preview: I Started a Fire](https://normanlamont.com/all-the-time-in-heaven-preview-i-started-a-fire/) - I Started a Fire The latest preview from my next album: http://www.allthetimeinheaven.com/
- [All The Time in Heaven - previews](https://normanlamont.com/all-the-time-in-heaven-previews/) - The title of the album sometimes feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy about how long it's taken to make it. But never mind, with the sterling help of Daniel Davis it's well on its way. There's a whole site set up now with previews - hope you like it!
- [Management secrets of Darth Vader](https://normanlamont.com/management-secrets-of-darth-vader/) - Actually some of these tips are old hat to some managers I've seen. I remember when I worked for a building society in England, I sent my manager an email criticising some of the convoluted language in a memo that had gone out a couple of days after we'd been exhorted to use plain English.
- [Worry](https://normanlamont.com/22/) - My life has been full of terrible misfortunes - most of which never happened. (Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592) Worry is something we do; it often feels involuntary, something we can't help, but we can make a decision to focus elsewhere, by looking around, by touching something, by counting our breaths in and out.
- [Final art for Stories My Killer Told Me: When I Went to Your House](https://normanlamont.com/final-art-for-stories-my-killer-told-me-when-i-went-to-your-house/) - This is When I Went to Your House by Mab McMoragh, an American artist who created a quirky video for Nicole in Second Life. The song - from Romantic Fiction 2 - is sung here by Tricia Thom, former singer in Hungry Ghosts and Bespoke and also the artist for the New Eyes image. I
- [Construction work going on](https://normanlamont.com/construction-work-going-on/) - If you happen to visit this site between 30 Dec and 7 Jan you may find a bit of chaos as I am working on a radical overhaul. Apologies for any inconvenience.
- [More art for Stories](https://normanlamont.com/more-art-for-stories/) - Here's the second piece of art for Stories My Killer Told Me at the Fringe. It's for the song New Eyes and is called 'Some Kind of Unfinished Landscape'. It was painted by Tricia Thom; anyone who's followed my music will know her as the singer of the band Bespoke and of the song When
- [Next piece of art for Stories My Killer Told Me ...](https://normanlamont.com/next-piece-of-art-for-stories-my-killer-told-me/) - ... is for A Forest Trail in Autumn. I was always quite fond of this recording, but I've never played it live until this show. The painting is by Jac Rundell, sister of The Mighty James Whyte of the Invisible Helpers. It's one of a few she offered me. I'd never thought of the
- [4th piece of artwork for 'Stories...' The Ballad of Bob Dylan](https://normanlamont.com/4th-piece-of-artwork-for-stories-the-ballad-of-bob-dylan/) - Here's the fourth of five images created by artist friends to accompany the show Stories My Killer Told Me. This one's by the multi-talented Lynsey Hutchinson, who gave me the original for my 50th birthday. You can find more of her excellent work at www.thehoudinibox.com All five will be available on postcards at the
- [Some work in progress](https://normanlamont.com/some-work-in-progress/) - I've been doing a lot of recording lately. Working with Daniel, there's a collection of songs for a new album All The Time in Heaven. It's changed a bit during the year or so we've been working on it and some songs that I thought of as highlights just don't seem to fit with the
- [WaveForms rediscovered](https://normanlamont.com/waveforms-redis/) - Browsing my folders in order to put together a demo, I found a lot of WaveForm instrumentals I'd ignored for a year or more. I also discovered the secret of how I can enjoy them - wait until so many months have passed that I can't remember (a) how they were done or (b) what
- [My 2008](https://normanlamont.com/my-2008/) - But first, to anyone reading who bought a CD, downloaded a song or came to a gig and particularly those who said 'hello' - thanks! And to those who gave performance space to me, the Roadworks band, the Wright Brothers, Ms Fi and WaveForms - thanks! And to the musicians I've played with this year
- [Ummm, where was I?](https://normanlamont.com/ummm-where-was-i/) - Upcoming gigs for the Invisible Helpers - Out of the Bedroom headline spot Feb 25th and The Listening Room Mar 25th! Travelling with work is all very fine and well but I'm now realising that two weeks have gone by and I've got nothing done in music. Part of the frustration is with myself -
- [Voyage of the Dimmed](https://normanlamont.com/voyage-of-the-dimmed/) - The captain is on the bridge. The captain peers into the distance and gently corrects the wheel. The captain smiles and begins to fade. The ship ploughs into the mist. The mate appears with a different chart and we go 24 degrees to starboard. He fades and disappears. The ship ploughs through the mist, the
- [Rainstick](https://normanlamont.com/rainstick-2/) - RAINSTICK A rainstick Takes its time To shower seeds Along its spine I wish I’d given Ample cause To justify Its warm applause All I did: Rotate its axis Pity I can’t Apply the practice To all those people Who don’t know How cool I am How great my show How wise my words How
- [Like a blind date](https://normanlamont.com/like-a-blind-date/) - This is from David Hepworth’s blog, and will ring a bell with many who read these pages! I was talking to a young musician friend recently. He plays in his own band but also goes out regularly doing covers in pubs. "You've no idea," he said, "how difficult it is to get people to listen."
- [How to write songs](https://normanlamont.com/how-to-write-songs/) - A friend, actually a very good singer songwriter, asked me for suggestions on turning an idea into a song. I said: Take a song you like, sing new words to the same tune, then change the tune, then change the chords. Keep the structure. There you go. Or my technique, walk around town with it,
- [Diary of software rage ep 4](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-software-rage-ep-4/) - To do list of music tasks complete, I had an evening free to work on it. My expert son had shown me how to use FL Studio with Rewire so I could easily (!) channel individual FL instruments to individual tracks in Cubase. I had one song complete but for a very naff automated drum
- [My top five of 2011](https://normanlamont.com/my-top-five-of-2011/) - This may be my last post on the current version of my blog and site, as the new one's not far off completion. Some of my friends have been making up, even giving away, albums of the music they've liked best from 2011. I don't actually listen much to music and when I do, most
- [Torpedo Buoy  "tomorrow when I awake as god ..."](https://normanlamont.com/torpedo-buoy-tomorrow-when-i-awake-as-god/) - "... and other tales of transfiguration" Simon Jackson, playwright and novelist, is known around the Edinburgh music scene as Torpedo Buoy. This is his 'greatest un-hits' - a collection of thoroughly wacky but intriguing songs and poems-with-music. Ideas are flying all over the place here - even the first track has gone through about five
- [On the path with Richard](https://normanlamont.com/on-the-path-with-richard/) - I have some acoustic gigs coming up in November and December and realised, painfully, that my fingers have grown soft from months of playing only electric, or even air, guitar. So I decided to try On The Path, an iPad app for instrument lessons. I chose Richard Thompson. For around a tenner you get video
- [Birds of Chicago: Old Calcutta](https://normanlamont.com/birds-of-chicago-old-calcutta/) - A good friend introduced me to this band, whose CD has been gradually growing on me, but this is the song that first made me want to hear more. I loved the non-sequitur, intriguing lyrics. The audience here seems to find them funny. Well, fair enough. I've recorded a song I wrote last year which
- [Mega-No-Mic](https://normanlamont.com/mega-no-mic/) - I see word's getting round about the Listening Room's 10th Anniversary Mega-No-Mic. To celebrate 10 years of intimate strumplucking at the Blue Blazer on Sunday nights, founder Peter Michael Rowan's running a night where "This will be a 2-3 hourextravaganza of Edinburgh past and present acoustic talent, with special guests, both in the flesh
- [R.I.P Fritz](https://normanlamont.com/r-i-p-fritz/) - I heard on Wednesday evening of the death of Fritz VanHelsing. I never knew his real name, but then he wasn't a guy you would ask. He lived punk, all torn shirts, black leather and spikes, with a Keith Richards sway, and he tried to convince you he was a badassed mean sonofabitch. 'How are
- [Oswestry gig](https://normanlamont.com/oswestry-gig/) - Big thanks all round to the people whose work and generosity made the weekend's gig in Oswestry possible, especially Chas Nicolson and his friends at the venue on the night looking after the bar and the furniture. And of course the 40 or so who turned out to fil the venue on a freezing night
- [Ye Banks and Braes](https://normanlamont.com/ye-banks-and-braes/) - I have my parents to thank for my love of Burns, as well as being brought up in the heart of the Burns legend. This song finds the poet, let's face it, feeling sorry for himself and complaining about why the birds and trees can be happy when he's been dumped by his girlfriend. I
- [Songs of the Incredible String Band](https://normanlamont.com/songs-of-the-incredible-string-band/) - I know that not many of my readers are in London, but you never know who's going to drop by. On Saturday 18th I'll be playing an afternoon matinee at Camden's Green Note Cafe in support of my friend Adrian Whittaker who's launching the second edition of Be Glad, the book he co-edited about the
- [My Fringe Show](https://normanlamont.com/my-fringe-show/) - A page is built for my Edinburgh Festival Fringe show at the Acoustic Music Centre on Aug 18 and 19.
- [Fraser Drummond](https://normanlamont.com/fraser-drummond/) - It's just coming up to a year since I heard Fritz van Helsing had died. The response to his death filled Facebook, various people's websites and many many conversations. Although many of us hadn't spent much time with him, he'd had a powerful and enabling impact on everyone. Now I hear echoes of last year
- [It Makes Sense to Me](https://normanlamont.com/it-makes-sense-to-me/) - I wrote ( or rather made up and memorised ) this little song on the way to and from a Fraktured Fingers rehearsal on Sunday. Monday's job was finding the key to sing it and working out the chords. I've been tinkering with the words since then, but it feels like a delicate little song
- [Personal Archaeology](https://normanlamont.com/personal-archaeology/) - It's been a strange four days. We've been clearing the loft. It's a big loft, but over the 22 years we've lived here, the available walking space had diminished to less than a square foot. Something had to be done, and we had to take time off work to do it. I've learned ruthlessness and
- [The Captain's Bar Saturday 3rd November](https://normanlamont.com/the-captains-bar-saturday-3rd-november/) - I'm playing this lovely venue on Saturday with James Whyte and Sam Barber, and my guests Fiona Thom and John Farrell. So not quite the Invisible Helpers but the Invisible Outcast Helpers of the Lost Head Band. In other news, while I've been keeping a low profile due to work and other 'stuff', I've been
- ['Anywhere But Here' review and cringe story](https://normanlamont.com/anywhere-but-here-review-and-cringe-story/) - I've received a warm review in FATEA, an online magazine from Poole in Dorset. I lived in nearby Bournemouth for six months during a period in the 1970s when Robert Fripp had retired from the music scene. One day I realised he came from this area and decided that, since he'd retired and all, he
- [CD launch 12th September](https://normanlamont.com/cd-launch-12th-september/) - We'll be playing free at the Voodoo Lounge on Wednesday Sep 12th to promote the album. We'll be joined by Ms Fi and her amazing new band.
- [Parlour, hot air and waves](https://normanlamont.com/parlour-hot-air-and-waves/) - Our gig at the Parlour was great fun on many counts. First of all the band seemed relaxed and confident and have never sounded better. Second, we had a full hour to play so we could enjoy playing almost all the songs we know including our new cover of Dan Hicks I Scare Myself and
- [Howling at the moon](https://normanlamont.com/howling-at-the-moon/) - For insomniacs I'm playing an acoustic set at Acoustic Underground on Thurs 16 Aug at 0:20 - that's in the morning folks - at Kilderkin, 65/67 Canongate, EH8 8BT Edinburgh. This is way past my bedtime so expect either Anywhere But Here at half its normal dirge-like speed or perhaps a twitchy, highly caffeinated I'll
- [Norman Lamont and Sebastien Ayreault: Mathilde](https://normanlamont.com/norman-lamont-and-sebastien-ayreault-mathilde/) - Last year I started corresponding with Sebastien Ayreault, a French author and songwriter living in the US, and we collaborated on a song. Here's the finished product, a preview of my next album. The lyrics are Sebastien's, and he sings the first verse and middle section. The track is mine. Daniel Davis mixed and produced
- [The CD is here](https://normanlamont.com/the-cd-is-here/) - The packaged CD of Anywhere But Here has arrived and very nice it is. Thanks to Disk Factory and more fundamentally to all who played on it - Dave Watson, the G, Mary Robbs, Lynsey Hutchinson, Nelson Wright and many more. Twelve tracks from my previous albums, remastered by Daniel at Windmill Sound - the
- [Song Diagrams (1)](https://normanlamont.com/song-diagrammes-1/) - I've always liked the internet phenomenon of maths/science diagrams illustrating song titles, for example these quirky pictures. Here's my first attempt. There may be more.
- [Anywhere But Here - the video](https://normanlamont.com/anywhere-but-here-the-video/) - Created by Pol Arida using a 1947 US Army training film I'd found. It was called Shades of Gray and dealt with the psychological disorders found in the army at the end of the war and the treatments - from counselling to electro-convulsive therapy. Thanks so much for doing this, Pol.
- [Anywhere But Here - something old, something new!](https://normanlamont.com/anywhere-but-here-something-old-something-new/) - My new album is available for downloads now and in CD form very soon. It's a compilation put together in assocation with Erik McCall of EDA Music who will do the promotion for it. All the tracks have been remastered by Daniel of Windmill Sounds, but the title track is a re-recording - faithful to
- [April is nearly gone](https://normanlamont.com/april-is-nearly-gone/) - It's been a busy old time and I haven't said much here about what has been transpiring in what I laughingly call my music career. An offer to contribute some squalling guitar to a song at the Fritz VanHelsing tribute night led to my joining a band called Fraktured Fingers for a spell. Some regular
- [The Invisible Helpers - Under Your Wing](https://normanlamont.com/the-invisible-helpers-under-your-wing/) - At last! At long last!
- [From your own correspondent](https://normanlamont.com/from-your-own-correspondent/) - We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend of gigs at the Captain's and the Listening Room, and thanks to everyone who came along. Nicole at TLR was a hoot as - unknown to me - Mary had kitted herself, John and Sam out as the doctor, the priest and the analyst from the song, and also waved
- [Fingernails](https://normanlamont.com/fingernails/) - Jim and I played one of my oldest songs at Out of the Bedroom. It's a confabulation of two things - a romance of my youth, and one line from Robin Williamson's song Maya: 'Opinions are his fingernails' Fingernails She was young and she was plain I was proud and I was vain When I
- [Until I Found You (acoustic )](https://normanlamont.com/until-i-found-you-acoustic/) - James and me at OOTB, kindly filmed by John and Fi. Shame you can't hear the bass, but look at those fingers go - Jim told me to tell you it's really good!
- [Not The One for You ( with added banjos! )](https://normanlamont.com/not-the-one-for-you-with-added-banjos/) - On Saturday James Whyte and I made our banjo debut with this song at Out of the Bedroom: If you're interested in the story, here are the lyrics: I Am Not the One for You Let me tell you a story Let me mess with your heads I know it’s tough since the captain deserted
- [OOTB on Saturday](https://normanlamont.com/ootb-on-saturday/) - James Whyte and I are playing the main spot at Out of the Bedroom, 8 on Saturday night. (The Montague, EH8 9QY 81-85 St Leonards St Edinburgh) What are we going to play? We don't know yet. Hopefully we'll surprise ourselves too.
- [Sex, Death and Religion](https://normanlamont.com/sex-death-and-religion/) - I thought it was time you had some wisdom from me.
- [Modest Country Waltz](https://normanlamont.com/modest-country-waltz/) - This little tune popped into my head on the short drive back from my ju jutsu class tonight. I 'heard' it as a wistful opening credits to some gentle Western. Thanks to having software I can rely on and a bit of privacy I was able to record and mix everything in two hours. I
- [Surprise soft-porn discovery](https://normanlamont.com/surprise-soft-porn-discovery/) - Clearing out some old files from an old version of my site, I found my one and only (very tame) excursion into erotica. I wrote it on, or shortly after, a holiday on the Greek island of Zakynthos. Very odd discovering it, exactly the same reaction I felt when writing it. Like an old professor puzzling
- [The Tourist Shop](https://normanlamont.com/the-tourist-shop/) - The tourist shop I walked into a tourist shop Where many tourists are Funny hats and beachtowels Beside a tourist bar The temperature was rising And the shop was dark and cool A silence and a refuge From the radio and pool. I lifted this and fingered that The shop girl said hello And went
- [It's for you (actually it's for me)](https://normanlamont.com/its-for-you-actually-its-for-me/) - My apologies if you live in the Edinburgh area and you get a number of phone calls suggesting that you immediately act on the excellent quote you've just had online at comparetheconfusedmoneymeerkat.com. What with car renewal and my son getting a flat, I've spent far longer than is good for me on these damnable comparison
- [Diary of an album 9/1/2012](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-an-album-912012/) - One of the tracks I'm working on for the new album All the Time in Heaven is a ballad called Mathilde. This is a co-write with Sebastien Ayreault, a French novelist and songwriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. (More about Sebastien) I sent him a backing track and also a copy of the song I'd written
- [For 2012, for you](https://normanlamont.com/for-2012-for-you/) - Remember, the time of year when the future appears like a blank sheet of paper a clean calendar, a new chance. On thick white snow you vow fresh footprints then watch them go with the wind's hearty gust. So fill your glass. Here's tae us. Promises made to be broken, made to last. -- Jackie
- [The view from March](https://normanlamont.com/the-view-from-march/) - A quick update on what seems to be transpiring in the musical world of this musical recluse: The band, The Invisible Helpers, made its live debut last month at Bob Dylan tribute show. We've recorded three songs for an EP, more as a demo to get live spots than as a contribution to the tapestry
- [Waveforms in August](https://normanlamont.com/waveforms-in-august/) - I'll be playing a short set of Waveforms at Sacred Space in St John's Church (corner of Princes St and Lothian Road) on three dates in August. Unlike previous years this'll be in daytime, which will lend a different dynamic. I'll be playing on Wed 10th, Wed 17th and Wed 24th at 12:15. There's no
- [Arthur's Seat](https://normanlamont.com/arthurs_seat/) - Time makes solid The bubbling earth Its hurlings frozen In black gestures Years of sleep bring The soft grass To calm the memory And bring little Ishbel, with her red cheeks To play in the shadows Of a catastrophe. © Norman Lamont 2005
- [Word fun](https://normanlamont.com/washington-post-readers-are-asked-to-submit-alternative-meanings-for-common-words-thanks-to-mark-gorman-for-this-you-can-h/) - Washington Post readers are asked to submit alternative meanings for common words: (Thanks to Mark Gorman for this. You can hear new ones most weeks on Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.) 1. Coffee (n): the person upon whom one coughs. 2. Flabbergasted (adj): appalled over how much weight you have gained. 3.
- [A message from July in August: the NME Within](https://normanlamont.com/a-message-from-july-in-august-the-nme-within/) - How many blogs begin these days with ‘ I haven’t blogged much recently …’ ? For the blogging population in general, Facebook and Twitter have a big hand in this. A wave across the crowded web, a quick ‘look at this’ is so much easier. And, many who start a blog find they no longer
- [My jazz challenge](https://normanlamont.com/my-jazz-challenge/) - A few weeks ago Madame showed me the brochure for the Howden Centre in Livingston and what caught my eye was a jazz jam session, with bass, drums and piano, beginners welcome, free. Since my Monday martial arts class has hit a temporary hiatus due the venue closing, I thought I’d try the jazz session.
- [Selective quotations WORK!](https://normanlamont.com/selective-quotations-work/) - You’re probably familiar with selective quotation e.g. when a show is reviewed as ‘An extraordinary waste of time where the cast failed to extract anything meaningful from the script. A must-avoid performance’ and the posters the next day say ‘Extraordinary’, ‘Meaningful’ and ‘A Must’. I’ve just been invited to play at the Royal Oak on
- [With These Rings (Janet Paisley)](https://normanlamont.com/with-these-rings-janet-paisley/) - At Tommy and Carolyn's wedding last week, this poem was read aloud during the ceremony: With These Rings You are fresh wordson the old stone of time Here, silence honours you,here now, the earth turns,the sun beats, the rain sings. You are not adriftamong the wheeling constellationsbut held by the hoop of love Ancient as
- [Diary of an ambivalent album-maker ep 3](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-an-ambivalent-album-maker-ep-3/) - Small steps, it all proceeds by taking small steps so as not to be overwhelmed by 'the bloody big thing'. So tonight's step, fitted in between dinner and looking for a holiday, is to review the notes I made the first night I listened to the songs and thought they might form an album. Turned
- [Diary of an album ep 10](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-an-album-ep-10/) - I've been very quiet on this subject, mainly due to working hours that drained my energy for music. I have done some work on the songs, but without much joy in the listening, and still being exasperated by my software. But help was at hand, help of the Windmill variety. Mr Davis of Windmill Sound
- [The Ballad of Bob Dylan retold](https://normanlamont.com/the-ballad-of-bob-dylan-retold/) - I've told this story before but with the Wee Man's 70th birthday coming up and a tribute needed, I'll tell it again - how, and why, I wrote The Ballad of Bob Dylan. I was living in Leek in Staffordshire in the late 80s. Like many Dylan fans, I'd resigned myself to the idea that
- [Diary of software rage ep 5](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-software-rage-ep-5/) - This journal, intended to document the making of an album, is turning into a depressing affair. Having given up last night getting Cubase and FL to work together, I thought a bank holiday, with the house to myself, would be an ideal time to approach it in a calm reasonable frame of mind. I did
- [Diary of a software dumbo ep 6](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-a-software-dumbo-ep-6/) - Following my last post, son Plague, an FL expert, sat down and saw for himself how FL as a VSTi wasn't working in Cubase but insisted it would be better to do it in Rewire. But, he says, instead of trying to record in Cubase with FL's instrument/voices, I should record them in FL. With
- [Diary of a mollified muso ep 7](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-a-mollified-muso-ep-7/) - At last something good to report. Over the last couple of nights the Cubase/Rewire/FL situation became stable enough for me to record a fingerpad drum track for 'Started a Fire' and then edit the guitars. The basic idea is voice floating atop a fairly swampy/soupy mix of lots of guitar tracks, none individually reaching for
- [Diary of an album ep 8](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-an-album-ep-8/) - (Having to think of a new title each time put me off blogging so the title is now simple.) I had a few opportunities this week to play with the track - the same song. I edited the drum track again and again, trying to find the right spot between a programmed loop and ineptly
- [Diary of an album ep 11](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-an-album-ep-11/) - Things are looking up. With some advice from Daniel of Windmill, I've decluttered the sound of a couple of tracks. An understanding of compression is gradually dawning, and the ability to hear the difference also, but more gradually. Daniel's remixed two tracks, one of which isn't there yet, but one - I Started A Fire
- [Bullshit bingo](https://normanlamont.com/bullshit-bingo/) - The other day I sat through several consecutive presentations by learning service providers. A grim experience made bearable only by a lot of doodling, deep breathing exercises to keep the brain oxygenated, and an imagined game of bullshit bingo, from the relatively innocuous "One of the major challenges we had was around change management." (Courtesy
- [Diary of an album ep 9](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-an-album-ep-9/) - Following the unpleasant comeuppance I got at the playback of 'I Started a Fire' at Mr Watson's, I couldn't face revisiting it straight away, although I am fairly clear about what I'm going to do when I do get back to it. But as so often happens with my music, the past tapped me on
- [Diary of a procrastinating strummer - ep 2](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-a-procrastinating-strummer-ep-2/) - Didn't do any work on recordings tonight but it's OK because I was running through some songs with Fi for Friday night's gig. At the end of the session she and John joined me in the first airing of a new song, which started writing itself into existence as we jammed. So a good night.
- [Diary of a deviant musician ep 1](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-a-deviant-musician-ep-1/) - ... in which I attempt to account publicly for professing on occasion to be a 'musician' or 'songwriter' or 'performer'. How can this be when I go for weeks without performing, months without writing songs and years between albums? Is it just wishful thinking, an affectation or a bid for false popularity? Well, no. I'm
- [Bands then and now](https://normanlamont.com/bands-then-and-now/) - This morning my thoughts were filled with memories of my first steps into music. My first performance was at an old people’s home (who knows, possibly playng to people younger than I am now), with a friend who played accordion. We played, of all things, Bookends, wearing the appropriate matching black polo-necks. A few months
- [Devotion](https://normanlamont.com/devotion/) - When I moved to Edinburgh in 1990, I shared a flat with a girl in her early 20s, a diabetic. One day she had an accident and missed a necessary insulin injection. She went into a coma and was hospitalised. She moved, her eyes were open, but there was no communication. Over the following months
- [Bespoke at Voodoo Rooms](https://normanlamont.com/bespoke-at-voodoo-rooms/) - After a day’s anxiety about whether EasyJet would deliver me back to Edinburgh in time for the Bespoke gig, we took to the stage at 10 exactly as planned, following a series of varied but accomplished bands. It’s hard to be sure exactly how long this band’s been working towards this, our second gig, and
- [Festival retrospective](https://normanlamont.com/festival-retrospective/) - Looking back on the Festival gigs:I didn't expect to be doing any. I heard from Fi that Siglo were looking for acoustic bands to play so went along and signed up for a couple of sessions for me and the Wright Brothers. Then the Festival of Spirituality and Peace invited me to do a couple
- [Dispatch from behind the guitar](https://normanlamont.com/dispatch-from-behind-the-guitar/) - I've enjoyed two very different types of gig this week.At St John's Church, I arrived early with friend John, anxious about setting up. The stage manager couldn't have been more helpful and, instead of the two guitar amps I'd used previously, put me through a PA, with monitors. She offered to record me - I
- [Music Tour of Berlin: Hansa](https://normanlamont.com/music-tour-of-berlin-hansa/) - Just before we went to Berlin I signed up for a Berlin Music Tour. On Wednesday morning I met the guide, Thilo, outside the Adlon Kemplinski hotel in Unter Den Linden, just by the Brandenburg Gate. The area was being prepared for the World Athletic games and several concert stages were being set up. While
- [Buddha and Jesus sing God, and other stories](https://normanlamont.com/buddha-and-jesus-sing-god-and-other-stories/) - The songs I loved most, that set me off to singing and playing, tended to be found on Island Records in the early 70s. Central to that were the Witchseason productions of Joe Boyd. This week at the Barbican in London, Joe Boyd set up celebrations of three of his proteges: Nick Drake, Fairport Convention
- [The Boss (postscript)](https://normanlamont.com/the-boss-postscript/) - This is from a fascinating account of a gig by Bruce himself. This wasn’t a normal gig – he had a twelve-minute spot on TV live at a Superbowl game (in torrential rain). Not having three hours to manage the experience, he was nervous: I'm on the move tossing my guitar in a high arc
- [The Boss – reliably](https://normanlamont.com/the-boss-reliably/) - It’s not often you’ll get Robert Fripp and Bruce Springsteen in one blog entry but here we go… Went to see Springsteen at Hampden last night. Sound wasn’t great, but the sense of occasion and party feeling was. It’s the fantasy of most performers to have a huge crowd, desperate to see you, knowing all
- [Porto Cristo](https://normanlamont.com/porto-cristo/) - Back last night from Porto Cristo. The holiday went well apart from the travel, which I’ll come to later. Well, ok, now. We got to Palma airport on time, and found our transfer bus for the ‘45 minute’ trip to Porto Cristo. That turned out to be nearer two hours as we went round the
- [Private beauty](https://normanlamont.com/private-beauty/) - Sweet, sad and impossible to fully convey: Getting off a plane tonight, a musical idea arose. As I walked through the terminal, it grew stronger and I altered and embellished it in my mind. Just before I got to the exit I just had to sit down and give myself over to it, listening as
- [A bunch of fives](https://normanlamont.com/a-bunch-of-fives/) - Friday gave me a good WaveForms performance at the Salisbury Centre. A small audience about about right for the size of room, and all very much into supporting the performance and being attentive and relaxed. The Centre library is a downstairs room with large French windows looking out onto the luxurious garden. I was sitting
- [Two gigs in a week!](https://normanlamont.com/two-gigs-in-a-week/) - Wow, rock and roll!Tonight I played bass for Ms Fi at the Ark, which was very enjoyable. We had one rehearsal beforehand, just enough to refamiliarise myself with the songs so that I could relax and, I hope, provide a solid foundation for Fi to relax and enjoy her own songs. I think it worked,
- [David Byrne at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall](https://normanlamont.com/david-byrne-at-glasgow-royal-concert-hall/) - It’s taken me a week to have any idea what to say about this show. As soon as the three dancers cavorted onto the stage at the start of the second song I knew this was going to be one of the best gigs I’d ever seen. What made it so great? I think it
- [Haiku](https://normanlamont.com/haiku/) - This was sent me by a new acquaintance at work: bad-tempered I got back then in the garden the willow-tree She didn’t know where it came from. I was going to write about David Byrne’s show at the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall on Tuesday but I can’t find the superlatives.
- [Reunion](https://normanlamont.com/reunion/) - Just back from a reunion from a workplace I left many years ago. A very good group of people, together at what seemed like the right time, in a team that worked for a certain period. Our manager at that special time has just died, which made us appreciate the time even more. ‘And how
- [The Chase](https://normanlamont.com/the-chase/) - I've put the song The Chase up on Reverbnation. This was always planned to be on Roadblock but in the end I pulled it, partly because I didn't think the performance was strong enough, but partly because it didn't sit well with the rest of the songs. It's a story narrative in a mythical setting
- [John Martyn](https://normanlamont.com/john-martyn/) - Glasgow, 1973. A cold ill-furnished flat near Charing Cross. My friend and flatmate Guy played me an album he'd just bought, Solid Air by John Martyn. As with so many musics I came to love, I found it ugly at first hearing. 'Why does he have to slur like that, he sounds like a drunk.'
- [Retro Necro](https://normanlamont.com/retro-necro/) - Momus writes an interesting article about what he calls Retro Necro - the tendency of music nowadays to constantly reference the last forty years as if nothing new is possible. There's a very simple, very big problem for today's pop musician: if you fail to attack the father and rip up his rules, the father
- [Late 08 haiku (1)](https://normanlamont.com/late-08-haiku-november/) - Sometime in November I set myself the task of writing a haiku, or at least a short poem, each morning after meditation, and before breakfast. I managed it most mornings, and it was quite interesting to look through them again. They seemed to chart a declining mood towards the trough of December. (From my window
- [Tom Waits, Edinburgh Playhouse](https://normanlamont.com/tom-waits-edinb/) - After a stressful weekend of family difficulties (my apologies for pulling out of the Dalriada gig on Saturday, but it was necessary), it was a relief to get out to the Playhouse for the first of Tom Waits' two shows in town, his only UK dates. From the 'tour brochure' - a small booklet on
- [Handsome Family Stirling Tolbooth](https://normanlamont.com/handsome-family/) - Went to see my favourite band last night at Stirling. Lots of favourites - The Bottomless Hole, The Forgotten Lake, No-one Fell Asleep Alone - performed by Brett and Rennie and two accomplices on drums, violin, lap steel and stratocaster. The usual married bickering between songs and, as always, Brett plays guitar as if the
- [London, Lenny and Tom](https://normanlamont.com/london-lenny-an/) - Just back from a weekend in London where I went to see venerable Incredible String Band founder Clive Palmer - a cross between Clive Dunn and Catweazle - perform at the Twelve Bar club with a rather nifty five-piece band. The show was to tie in with the release of a biography of Palmer by
- [Portastudio memories](https://normanlamont.com/portastudio-mem/) - Tonight I fulfilled an overdue promise to send a friend a song culled from my vinyl collection. To do this I had to find a way to get records and tapes into mp3 conveniently, and I did so. This led me to an old tape of the first home recordings I made waaaay back in
- [Inspirations #1: Rennie Sparks](https://normanlamont.com/inspirations-1/) - Rennie Sparks writes the lyrics for the Handsome Family, while her husband Brett writes the music and sings. I'm going to quote one of her songs from the album Twilight, just for the sheer joy of typing out the words: Passenger Pigeons Ever since you moved out, I've been living in the park. I'd rather
- [Rudolph's Diner](https://normanlamont.com/rudolphs-diner/) - My friend Dave Watson invited me to join him for a charity gig at the Edinburgh Rudolph Steiner school last night. With Dave Christopher we had one rehearsal at which we practised four songs, one each of the two Daves', my Green Lights All the Way and Burns' Ye Banks and Braes. The gig went
- [The uklear option](https://normanlamont.com/return-to-recor/) - It seems like such a long time. I think this is the first recording of the year, other than the Wright Brothers tracks. A flash of intuition told me what was needed for a song on which I've spent hours during 2007 to no serious benefit. I followed it, went into the file and removed
- [Brum Brum](https://normanlamont.com/brum-brum/) - (Hmm, I've reminded myself of the programme my kids used to watch about a little car, narrated by Toyah. That wasn't wise.) A day in Birmingham at a long but productive meeting, followed by a night in a hotel that, well, wasn't the best I've stayed at. I decided to go for a walk while
- [Dark Side of Dunoon](https://normanlamont.com/dark-side-of-du/) - We had a good time in Dunoon, all family nostalgia for Madame and a chance for me to catch up with Pest. We were just across the bay from a hotel burning down in Gourock. Plague drove over and joined us for an Indian meal at night. The two of us went to a pub
- [Caught up](https://normanlamont.com/caught-up/) - .. in many senses. I've caught up with my time in Barcelona for the blog, and I seem to be caught up in a lot of things, at work and at home. In no particular order, new projects at work, doing a bit of studying about web design, Madame's 50th (today), fitting in guitar practice
- ['This Moment' is gone](https://normanlamont.com/this-moment-is/) - On going through my inbox last night, I learned of the death of Alan Edwards, the photographer whose images I used for the two Romantic Fiction CDs, and whose blog (This Moment) was a regular source of surprise and pleasure. It seems strange to say of someone that they were a friend when we only
- [Barcelona day 5 and home](https://normanlamont.com/barcelona-day-5/) - Left the pension early, had breakfast in a commuters' bar, and set out for my last wanderings in this wonderful city. I decided to go to La Pedrera, the famous Gaudi apartment block, but as I approached it, found myself attracted into Casa Batllo, just across the street. Although I hadn't really prioritised visiting either,
- [Barcelona Day 4](https://normanlamont.com/barcelona-day-4/) - I left the Monastery after breakfast, saying goodbye to those who were still around, feeling privileged to have spent a week with these people. I felt reluctant to give it up, but it was over, and I walked, trundling my wheelie case, to the railway station. On the train, I wrote: 'We begin from where
- [Barcelona day 3](https://normanlamont.com/barcelona-day-3/) - I had half the day before I had to head up to San Cugat for Guitar Craft. I went up Montjuic partly for the views and partly because one of my tourist maps said there was a Museum of Comic and Illustrative Art. What there was, it turned out, was one room in the fort
- [Barcelona day 2](https://normanlamont.com/barcelona-day-2/) - After a leisurely breakfast, took the metro to Catalunya Square to pick up the tourist bus for its northern route. First stop I got off at was Sagrada Familia. If you've heard of Barcelona for anything but football, you've probably seen photos of this unlikely-looking cathedral with its organic spires. I wasn't expecting to be
- [Barcelona day 1](https://normanlamont.com/barcelona-day-1/) - Slept till 7:30. Bath, sit and leisurely breakfast and reading. Near the hotel is an open air escalator which crosses several streets to take you to Parc Guell. I can't show you any photos as my camera kept disgorging its batteries. But there are lots in Flickr Followed the haunting sounds of a solo trumpet
- [To Barcelona](https://normanlamont.com/to-barcelona-1/) - Trains to Prestwick, a childhood haunt, Ryanair to Girona and bus to Barcelona. My neighbour on the plane was a Scottish girl who lives in a caravan in Barcelona. She's been a trapeze artist for seven years. Booked into my hotel, which is modern and business-like, and set off walking to explore. I was soon
- [To Barcelona](https://normanlamont.com/to-barcelona/) - After a day skipping between packing and getting car insurance quotes, I'm off to Barcelona tomorrow for the better part of two weeks - four days as a tourist and a week on a Guitar Craft course in a monastery outside the city. As many threads as I can tie up before I go have
- [Favourites of 2007](https://normanlamont.com/favourites-of-2/) - A friend sent me his list of best albums of 2007. I thought I'd reciprocate, but I can't remember which of the albums or whatever I've been listening to actually came out, or came into my posession, during 2007. So at the risk of inaccuracy, which will bother no-one: The Beatles LoveBeirut Gulag OrkesterRobert Fripp
- [Haiku](https://normanlamont.com/haiku-2/) - My room is silentKnocking round the house downstairsYour October cough Norman Lamont 7/11/07
- [Rainstick](https://normanlamont.com/rainstick/) - A rainstick Takes its time To shower seedsAlong its spine I wish I'd givenAmple causeTo justifyIts warm applause All I did:Rotate its axisPity I can't Apply the practice To all those peopleWho don't knowHow cool I amHow great my show How wise my wordsHow slick my movesHow bright my stringsHow funk my grooves So I
- [Short poems](https://normanlamont.com/short-poems/) - A few short ones: HAIKUMy room is silentKnocking round the house downstairsYour October cough (by me!) THINK THAT YOU'RE GLIDING Think that you're gliding out from the face of a clifflike an eagle. Think you're walkinglike a tiger walks by himself in the forest.You're most handsome when you're after food.-- RumiTranslated by Coleman Barks (thanks
- [Lenny in London](https://normanlamont.com/lenny-in-london/) - Just back from a trip to London to see Phillip Glass's setting of Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing poems at the Barbican. I went to the Barbican at 5 to meet my friends and noticed as I approached about a dozen people gathered round in a huddle outside. I thought it was a group perhaps
- [Marc Bolan](https://normanlamont.com/marc-bolan/) - Marc Bolan came to meWrapped in a magazineAnd I took up being 16. Mystics and wizardsMist and the spellsI couldn't get the hang Just the cloaked figureWith his doll's face Saved by his ringletsI was the acceptable face of curly hairPreviously a curse I caught him just liftingInto rock and rollWith an AOUW! and an
- [7 October 2005 - Wellington](https://normanlamont.com/7_october_2005/) - Shopping trip in downtown Wellington. N and I went to look at a couple of art galleries including the world-famous Te Papa .
- [6 October 2005 Wellington](https://normanlamont.com/6_october_2005/) - Went to N's daughter's house. Huge house with a games room and a hot spa bath in the garden. Her husband took me for a motorbike ride to a deep forest trail while the girls went sightseeing in Wellington. Went through lots of typical NZ houses - wooden bungalows, including one that his father, a
- [4 October 2005 Singapore](https://normanlamont.com/4_october_2005/) - At the end of a couple of days in Singapore. Some Singapore photos Weather very hot and muggy, but you dive from air-conditoned shop to air-conditioned taxi or bus to air-conditioned hotel. Most people have heard of Singapore's severe laws on litter etc, but that doesn't prepare you for the beauty and cleanliness of everything
- [1 October 2005](https://normanlamont.com/1_october_2005/) - I'm off this afternoon on the first leg of my trip with Madame and Pestilence, to London then Singapore. As a parting shot, there's a new song on the 'Songs' page - Dorothy's Book. It's a draft, still being worked on, but any comments or suggestions welcome. It's one I'd class as a 'minor song'

## Pages

- [Home 2022](https://normanlamont.com/) - A timeless singer-songwriter with a twist of surrealism. Thanks for visiting Lamontations! I’m Norman Lamont, a singer-songwriter living in Scotland, just outside Edinburgh. What’s on this site? My songs, obviously. Lots of ’em, solo stuff and records with my esteemed colleagues, The Heaven Sent. Articles I’ve written about people that inspired me, from Leonard Cohen
- [Live!](https://normanlamont.com/live/) - Norman Lamont & the Heaven Sent with Sapphire NotionThurs 8th October, Voodoo Rooms Speakeasy Get tickets!
- [Norman Lamont and the Heaven Sent](https://normanlamont.com/heaven-sent/) - Norman Lamont and the Heaven Sent comprise: Norman Lamont – voice and guitar Fiona Thom – voice and guitar Suzy Cargill – drums, percussion and voice James Whyte – voice and bass “Grown-up and witty, countryish with lots of pop twists. Well worth catching.””Norman Lamont is a timeless singer-songwriter, as much at home in echoey
- [Albums](https://normanlamont.com/albums-2/) - On CD: Turn In Another Life All The Time In Heaven Roadblock Anywhere But Here Ten Objects The Wolf Who Snared The Moon
- [Latest](https://normanlamont.com/blog-2-2/) - Here are my latest songs, videos and articles. As well as my own music I’ve written a lot of articles about artists who inspired me, particularly from the early 1970s. My songs and songwriting My inspirations My songs and songwriting Gather Me the Summer Time (Di Williams) Experimental songwriting part 2 After All (The
- [See You In Another Life - Extras](https://normanlamont.com/see-another-life-extras/) - Here are the free songs: The Portobello Slam - a surreal tale of mayhem and violence recorded by John Lawrence and me after my Edinburgh Festival show Stories My Killer Told Me , remastered WAV MP3 The Bed - channelling my inner Leonard Cohen in this live recording of the story of a one-night stand WAV
- [Ten Plus Three - part 3: dark](https://normanlamont.com/ten-plus-three-part-3/) - The last three songs on Ten Objects delve down into areas even I’m not sure about. Don’t Ask Me This is an old song that’s long waited its turn to get on an album. Conceived on a lonely weekend visit to Luxembourg, it catches a couple who’ve experimented with an open relationship descending into
- [Ten Plus Three - part 3: dark](https://normanlamont.com/ten-plus-three-part-3-old/) - The last three songs on Ten Objects delve down into areas even I’m not sure about. Don’t Ask Me This is an old song that’s long waited its turn to get on an album. Conceived on a lonely weekend visit to Luxembourg, it catches a couple who’ve experimented with an open relationship descending into bitterness
- [‘Turn’ - the album!](https://normanlamont.com/turn-the-album/) - Turn is here at last! Turn is a BAND album! My previous albums have all had a singer- songwriter basis – starting from an acoustic song and overdubbing a few instruments to enhance it. In Turn the band – James, Fi and Suzy – have been integral to the arrangements. I’d come with a song
- [Video](https://normanlamont.com/videos/) - Norman Lamont & the Heaven Sent Norman Lamont
- [Albums (old)](https://normanlamont.com/albums/) - I’ve released many songs in various forms and locations, but these are the best and most popular albums, starting from The Wolf Who Snared The Moon in 2004 through the instrumental album Waveforms in 2010 to the acoustic Ten Objects in 2019.Select an album to hear it and find out more. [tcb_woo_shop limit=’8′ columns=’4′ orderby=’date’
- [Terms and conditions](https://normanlamont.com/terms-and-conditions/) - TERMS AND CONDITIONS Please read all these Terms and Conditions. As we can accept your order and make a legally enforceable agreement without further reference to you, you must read these Terms and Conditions to make sure that they contain all that you want and nothing that you are not happy with. Application These Terms
- [Privacy on normanlamont.com](https://normanlamont.com/privacy-policy/) - Let's keep it simple: I use Google Analytics to find out how many people visit different parts of my site. That uses cookies (tiny text files left on your computer) to make it work. Most websites in the world use the Google Analytics cookie. My site is built in Wordpress and it's possible that some
- [See You In Another Life](https://normanlamont.com/syial-2/) - See You In Another Life:our most popular album FREE with extras! In Another Life by Norman Lamont & the Heaven Sent 11 songs on the album – plus 4 exclusive tracks WAV, MP3 or stream every two days you get a link to a page with lyrics, guitar chords, stories, making-of videos ​ at the
- [Breath form test 2](https://normanlamont.com/breath-form-test-2/) - This is breath form
- [Form test slidein](https://normanlamont.com/form-test-3/) - SYIAL slide in
- [Form test](https://normanlamont.com/form-test-2/) - SYIAL home page
- [About](https://normanlamont.com/about/) - Just so you know who’s behind this site ... I'm a native of Ayr, the birthplace of the poet Robert Burns. That's about all we have in common. Like so many others, writing songs and posing with a guitar were my chosen (and only) routes to social acceptance as a teenager. Songwriting I've been writing
- [Mindfulness](https://normanlamont.com/mindfulness/) - Mindfulness and meditation have been a central part of my life for over thirty years. Most of what I’ve learned has been in a Zen Buddhist context, but I’m not particularly religious and get just as much inspiration from modern secular writers and, lately, Stoicism. I trained as a mindfulness teacher a few years ago,
- [Instrumental music](https://normanlamont.com/instrumental-music/) - I enjoy creating instrumentals as much as writing songs. Sometimes more, in fact, as it removes the stress of having to think of lyrics. There are two main strands to my instrumental music: Film and TV music I make short, composed pieces with the aim of getting them licenced for film, video or TV. I'm
- [Film scoring](https://normanlamont.com/film-scoring/) - These films are not my property, just here as an example of my scoring work. Please don't share. Virus Short 'horror' set in a corporate office at night. I did the sound effects and music. Caminandes A llama finds a novel way to get across a busy road. I did the sound effects and music.
- [Confirm Subscription](https://normanlamont.com/confirm-subscription/) - Thank you for staying with my email list of friends! Anything you'd like me to write about, let me know Norman
- [Heaven Sent album 2](https://normanlamont.com/heaven-sent-album-2/) - Latest mixes after backing vox done, with comments so far. Please add any other comments and I'll have a session with Jen to make adjustments. Include any suggestions for other instrumentation or improvement, don't restrict yourself to 'fixes' - all ideas welcome. California Joyride N: I want to add some noises - swooshes and some
- [ATTIH upsell](https://normanlamont.com/attih-upsell/) - Wait - I've something else for you! Why not add All The Time In Heaven half price - only £4.00! Yes, I'll have that! No thanks! A haunting and melancholy album, running through a range of genres from ambient (Fingerpuppet) through country (I Started A Fire) to electronica (The Monk From the Mountain of Sorrow). Described
- [Special Offer](https://normanlamont.com/special-offer-61efcaec1119b/) - [mwb_upsell_image] [mwb_upsell_title] Get this awesome set of casual clothing on a special offer. Use this area here for something similar. Expiring soon [mwb_upsell_price] Get this deal ↓ Amazing Features I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis,
- [From me to you](https://normanlamont.com/from-me-to-you/) - From Me To You Hello - I'm Norman! I've been making albums for some years now and the most recent, Ten Objects, has got a lot of great comments from people who've picked up on the songs online. One called If I Could Be With You really seemed to touch a nerve with people on
- [Thanks!](https://normanlamont.com/thanks/) - I'll get your package in the post tomorrow! I really appreciate this and every other way you support my music! Norman
- [Norman Lamont EPK](https://normanlamont.com/norman-lamont-epk/) - This is the electronic press kit introducing: Norman Lamont and the Heaven SentNorman Lamont solo Norman Lamont and the Heaven Sent The band comprises: Norman Lamont (guitar)Fiona Thom (guitar)James Whyte (bass)Suzy Cargill (drums / percussion) They play a full set of songs from Norman's albums, from rockers to slow ballads, and a couple of select
- [Ten Plus Three - part 1: light](https://normanlamont.com/ten-plus-three-part-1/) - Welcome and thanks for taking part in this walkthrough of Ten Objects. I hope it provides a personal touch rather than just ‘here it is’. We’ll do it over three days, with the songs grouped under themes. The first is ‘Light’, the second ‘Twilight’ and the third ‘Dark’. Today we’ll go with the ‘Light’ songs.
- [Ten Plus Three - part 2: twilight](https://normanlamont.com/ten-plus-three-part-2/) - These four songs are perhaps sadder or more sombre than the last three. Anniversary One of two songs that date back to the months when I’d just moved to Edinburgh in 1990 (the other being Other Things).It’s a song of bereavement and loss, marking the anniversary of a friend’s death; but rather than being sentimental
- [Ten Plus Three – thanks!](https://normanlamont.com/ten-plus-three-thanks/) - Ten Plus Three = Ten Objects, my most intimate, personal album FREE with extras! Thanks for accepting my invitation to Ten Plus Three! Shortly you’ll receive an email from music@normanlamont.com. It might land in a Spam or Promotions folder so check those. Each day I’ll send you a link to a page with some of
- [Get Ten Plus Three](https://normanlamont.com/ten-plus-three/) - Ten Plus Three = Ten Objects, my most intimate, personal album FREE with extras! 10 songs on the album – plus 3 exclusive bonus tracks WAV, MP3 or stream lyrics, guitar chords, stories, making-of videos after three days you have the whole album! [thrive_leads id=’13874′] Norman by Philippe Monthoux (http://philippemonthoux.com/musicPhotography.html) Why give it away? As
- [See You In Another Life offer](https://normanlamont.com/see-you-in-another-life-3/) - See You In Another Life:our most popular album FREE with extras! In Another Life by Norman Lamont & the Heaven Sent 11 songs on the album – plus 4 exclusive tracks WAV, MP3 or stream every two days you get a link to a page with lyrics, guitar chords, stories, making-of videos at the end
- [Heaven Sent demos](https://normanlamont.com/heaven-sent-demos/) - Right Thing (76bpm) Right-Thing Crib SheetDownload A Careless Blow (106bpm) 2020_08_17_careless-blow-crib-sheetDownload Turn TurnDownload She Wants Out She-Wants-Out-chordsDownload Living Water WATERDownload California Joyride California_JoyrideDownload You Just Want The Thrill Slight variation in the video but should be enough to follow you-just-want-the-thrill-1Download Call Back Fall Back CALLBACKDownload
- [It's Bobby's Birthday!](https://normanlamont.com/its-bobbys-birthday/) - It's Bob Dylan's 80th birthday on 24th May. One of the few giants of music still with us, and still challenging us with new moves and new sounds. I've a long association with Dylan, given that my Ballad of Bob Dylan, written as he was beginning one of his returns to prominence back in 1988.
- [Thanks for ordering album & poster!](https://normanlamont.com/thanks-for-ordering-album-poster/) - Thanks for ordering the album and poster. If you ordered the CD, it'll be on its way to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, feel free to download the tracks below. In Another Life (zip) mp3Download Dylan Comic Poster Art FINALDownload
- [Home 2021](https://normanlamont.com/home-2021-2/) - A timeless, classic singer-songwriter with a twist of surrealism Spotify Sonstream Sonstream is a new ethical streaming service where artists get paid instantly for streams. Apple Music Norman Lamont
- [A new 45m solo set](https://normanlamont.com/a-new-45m-solo-set/) - On Tuesday March 30th, the Ruby Tuesday Sessions page on Facebook selected a few veterans of Edinburgh's Out of the Bedroom open mic to play some longer sets. I was one. Despite extensive testing of my setup - audio and streaming - the day before, it didn't seem to work when I tested it on
- [Streaming](https://normanlamont.com/streaming/) - Here's everywhere you can get my music, apart from this site. Bandcamp and Sonstream I'm starting with these. As we all know income to artists from streaming is laughable. These two site at least aim to provide artists with decent recompense so no apologies for putting them first. Norman Lamont on Bandcamp All my albums
- [Here Goes Nothing - songs](https://normanlamont.com/here-goes-nothing-songs/) - Here Goes Nothing I started this around the time, in my 40s, when I decided to begin the search. I've added to it and tweaked it a lot since then, including things I wouldn't have known at the time.
- [Contact](https://normanlamont.com/contact/) - I'm delighted to hear from anyone who's interested in my music or any of the other topics discussed here.
- [Music](https://normanlamont.com/music/) - First and foremost, I write songs. The most popular are on my albums, and I've also written quite a few articles about individual songs - how they were written, what inspired them etc. Albums About songs and songwriting Instrumental music I enjoy creating instrumentals as much as writing songs. Sometimes more, in fact, as it
- [My Waveforms Setup](https://normanlamont.com/waveforms-3-2/my-waveforms-setup/) - Fernandes Sustainer guitar The guitar is a Fernandes Sustainer, which, as the name suggests, has a special pickup that can give you a pure sustained note that doesn't decay. There's a knack to playing it, but it's a great pleasure to do so. Using a classical vibrato (along the fretboard rather than across it)
- [Make Your Own Waveform Soundscapes](https://normanlamont.com/waveforms-3-2/roll-your-own-waveforms/) - If you like my Waveforms, or the music of Fripp and Eno, this page allows you to make your own relaxing ambient loops. Click the boxes on the grid to discover different sounds. Click the round button to start a loop. I showed this page to Robert Fripp, who described it as 'lotsa fun'. (Thanks
- [Waveforms: ambient music](https://normanlamont.com/waveforms-3-2/) - WaveForms is the name I give to my instrumental music, inspired by the work of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno - wave because it uses a sustaining guitar, a guitar synth and looping techniques to set up gently rising and falling waves of sound. For the listener For the listener, WaveForms is intended to set
- [The Undiscovered Self: A Profile of Norman Lamont, Singer-Songwriter](https://normanlamont.com/the-undiscovered-self-a-profile-of-norman-lamont-singer-songwriter/) - by Andrew Ferguson, writer and musician How Bob Dylan Introduced Us I first got to know Norman Lamont in early 2011, when putting together a tribute night to His Bobness called Dylan Uncovered. The format was for each artist to do two covers of the great man, plus something else inspired by his work. In
- [Thanks for staying with lamontations!](https://normanlamont.com/staying/) - via GIPHY Just gone for tissues! Norman
- [Thanks for staying on my mailing list!](https://normanlamont.com/mail-list-thanks/)
- [Thanks for your purchase!](https://normanlamont.com/thanks-for-your-purchase/) - Your Paypal transaction has been completed. PayPal will send you an email with all the transaction details, or you can see them by logging into your PayPal account. Thanks so much for supporting my music! Norman
- [Tell Tale Songs: I Am Not The One For You](https://normanlamont.com/tell-tale-songs-1/) - When there's fire in your belly, boys You need iron in your backbone, yes you do ... The image here is an interpretation of the song by a lifelong friend of mine, William Cameron. For a free set of the five pieces of art created for these songs, on 15cm x 10cm card, put your
- [Tell Tale Songs: A Forest Trail in Autumn](https://normanlamont.com/tell-tale-songs-4/) - We held each other's gaze As daylight began to haze Maybe an hour had passed As the light turned to grey The wind became restless then I came to myself again 'God protect you' she said And turned away The image here is an interpretation of the song by Jac Rundell. For a free set
- [Tell Tale Songs: When I Went To Your House](https://normanlamont.com/tell-tale-songs-3/) - And if he believed me, well I left that behind When I went to your house I'd made up my mind The image here is an interpretation of the song by Mab McMoragh, an American digital artist who creates 3D art in Second Life. She also created a wonderful video for my song Nicole. I've
- [Tell Tale Songs: The Ballad Of Bob Dylan](https://normanlamont.com/tell-tale-songs-5/) - He said 'That guy there used to be a country western star Who put down his roots and never wandered far With his Jewish mama and five kids on the farm It had been too damn long since he'd done any harm. His wife cut his throat, he had to get born again I got
- [Tell Tale Songs: New Eyes](https://normanlamont.com/tell-tale-songs-2/) - A pair of eyes, blue-grey like hers Glistening and clearly still alive The image for this song is an abstract by ceramic artist Tricia Thom (whom we'll meet again in the next song). It's very similar in style to her pottery which you can see at triciathomceramics.com. For a free set of the five pieces
- [Tell Tale Songs clone](https://normanlamont.com/tell-tale-stories-landing-page-3/) - Let me tell you a story - and a few more! Join the trip! I want to give you five songs, five stories in video, art and poetry FREE! What's this all about? Hi from Edinburgh! I'm Norman Lamont If you're reading this it's because you've come across my music online. Maybe you've seen my
- [Tell Tale Songs - thanks!](https://normanlamont.com/tell-tale-thanks/) - Thanks for joining me! You should get the first email for the first song, I Am Not The One For You today. If you don't receive it please check your spam filter. I may be waving to you from the bin! You need to whitelist biz [at] normanlamont.com to get these emails. How to whitelist in
- [Thank you for ordering!](https://normanlamont.com/checkedout/) - Thanks for your order. I really appreciate it. If you don't receive it soon or there's a problem with it, contact me biz *at* normanlamont.com!
- [Thank you!](https://normanlamont.com/syial-thanks/) - Thanks for joining See You In Another Life! Or as the singer puts it ... Before you go! This might not be for you, but have a look. I've been producing albums since 2004. Anywhere But Here is a compilation of the most popular songs with fans for my first ten years. Use the code
- [Ten Objects reviews](https://normanlamont.com/ten-objects-reviews/) - FATEA Not the former bushy eye-browed Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, but a singer-songwriter from Edinburgh, this is his seventh studio album (one of which was all instrumental) and one that nods to advancing years when bereavements, navigating relationships and life ringing its alarm clock start to occupy your thoughts. The album inspired by The
- [Special Offer](https://normanlamont.com/special-offer/) - Exclusive Special One time Offer for you [mwb_upsell_image] [mwb_upsell_title] [mwb_upsell_desc] Special Offer Price : [mwb_upsell_price] [mwb_upsell_variations] Add this to my Order No thanks [mwb_upsell_default_offer_identification]
- [Songwriters on songwriting: Norman Lamont](https://normanlamont.com/songwriters-on-songwriting-norman-lamont/) - Reproduced from https://andrewcferguson.com/2015/04/16/songwriters-on-songwriting-norman-lamont/ Despite being described by friends on the Edinburgh scene as ‘a legend’ or ‘the king of Edinburgh songwriters’, Norman Lamont is growing comfortable with obscurity. He continues to gig with his band The Heaven Sent, and produce albums, the most recent being last year’s All The Time in Heaven. And now for the
- [See You In Another Life Special Offers](https://normanlamont.com/syial-offers/) - [product id="5857"] Add the code IALAUTO when you're checking out to get it for £5.00 plus postage!
- [See You In Another Life day 1: fantasy lives](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-1/) - Downloads Green Lights All The Way (MP3 8548K) Green Lights All The Way (WAV 47169K) In Another Life (MP3 6502K) In Another Life (WAV 35877K) Stream In Another Life was recorded by the band during 2016 and 2017. Most of it was recorded in Gerry Callaghan's home studio. The band was: Norman Lamont on guitars
- [See You In Another Life day 2: in the land of love songs](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-2/) - Downloads The Goodbye Song (WAV, 37MB) The Goodbye Song (mp3, 6.6MB) Had (WAV, 56MB) Had (mp3, 10MB) Stream In the first episode we looked at fantasy lives. A favourite fantasy world most of us have visited from time to time is the love song. That country where you rhymes with be true and love you rhymes
- [See You In Another Life day 4: things go wrong](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-4/) - Downloads You Made Me Do It (MP3 7MB) You Made Me Do It (WAV 39MB) Damn Grey (MP3 10MB) Damn Grey (WAV 54MB) Stream Buddhism is often quoted as beginning with the axiom 'Life is suffering'. It's actually more prosaic and less melodramatic than that. It just says 'things in life tend to go wrong'.
- [See You In Another Life day 3: a new life](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-3/) - Downloads Until I Found You (MP3, 7.3MB) Until I Found You (WAV, 40MB) End of Tears (MP3, 5.8MB) End of Tears (WAV, 32MB) Stream Making End of Tears: Tweaking the Guitar Last time we were in the land of love songs. La la land, perhaps. In today's episode we're still there but all is not
- [See You In Another Life day 5: dream logic](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-5/) - Downloads Bamboo (WAV, 67MB) Bamboo (mp3, 12MB) The Ballad of Bob Dylan (WAV, 63MB) The Ballad of Bob Dylan (mp3, 11MB) Stream I have an ambivalent relationship to dream imagery in art. In novels, I find I'm very intolerant of it. I'll skip whole pages if I know they're dream sequences. Same in films. I
- [See You In Another Life day 6: Love](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-6/) - Downloads Love (As When) (WAV, 44MB) Love (As When) (mp3, 8MB) Stream Thanks for staying with me on this trip through In Another Life. We've arrived on the last day, at the heart of the album - Love (As When). It pulls together some of the themes we've seen in the other songs - the
- [See You In Another Life # 2:  the Goodbye Song](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-2-2/) - Downloads The Goodbye Song (WAV, 37MB) The Goodbye Song (mp3, 6.6MB) Stream In the first episode we looked at fantasy lives. A favourite fantasy world most of us have visited from time to time is the love song. That country where you rhymes with be true and love you rhymes with no-one above you. The album
- [See You In Another Life #3: Dylan](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-3-2/) - Downloads The Ballad of Bob Dylan (WAV, 63MB) The Ballad of Bob Dylan (mp3, 11MB) Stream I have an ambivalent relationship to dream imagery in art. In novels, I find I'm very intolerant of it. I'll skip whole pages if I know they're dream sequences. Same in films. I just want to get back to
- [See You In Another Life #4: Love](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-4-2/) - Downloads Love (As When) (WAV, 44MB) Love (As When) (mp3, 8MB) Stream Thanks for staying with me on this trip through In Another Life. We've arrived on the last day, at the heart of the album - Love (As When). It pulls together some of the themes we've seen in the other songs - the
- [Reviews](https://normanlamont.com/reviews/) - Live reviews Oswestry Station 1 December 2012 About 40 souls braved a frosty night to gather in a very cosy Oswestry Station Building and enjoy an evening of contemporary folk music from Norman Lamont (accent on the first syllable) and Nathan Ball. Norman has been singing and playing around the Edinburgh area for many years. I first
- [Playlists](https://normanlamont.com/playlists/) - None of my albums fit a 'genre'. I can't help it. I imagine a song and with it comes a style - country, electro, rock, folk. Thanks to Playmoss, I can now repackage songs in any way I like to make them more ... useful to you. I write a lot of sad songs, for
- [Now](https://normanlamont.com/now/) - I’ll keep this page updated with what I’m doing and what’s on my mind. Highlands Tour Not much happening on this front, it’s very difficult to interest promoters. There is, however, a possibility of a gig on the Isle of Coll. Even if just for a handful of people, I hope it happens! The Heaven
- [See You In Another Life # 1: Green Lights](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-day-1-2/) - Downloads Green Lights All The Way (MP3 8548K) Green Lights All The Way (WAV 47169K) Stream In Another Life was recorded by the band during 2016 and 2017. Most of it was recorded in Gerry Callaghan's home studio. The band was: Norman Lamont on guitars Fiona Thom on guitars James Whyte on bass Suzy
- [Norman Lamont: Breath](https://normanlamont.com/norman-lamont-breath/) - Breath is an subscriber-only album of my covers of songs by artists who’ve inspired me (‘breath of inspiration’ and all that!) Ye Banks And Braes (Robert Burns in John Martyn style) Ricky (my adaptation of Momus’s Nicky, itself an adaptation of Jacques Brel’s Jackie) Christmas On Earth (by Momus) Queen Bitch (by David Bowie, in
- [Norman Lamont: Breath - thank you!](https://normanlamont.com/breath-thanks/) - Breath is an subscriber-only album of my covers of songs by artists who’ve inspired me (‘breath of inspiration’ and all that!) Ye Banks And Braes (Robert Burns in John Martyn style) Ricky (my adaptation of Momus’s Nicky, itself an adaptation of Jacques Brel’s Jackie) Christmas On Earth (by Momus) Queen Bitch (by David Bowie, in
- [New music 2020](https://normanlamont.com/new-music-2020/) - Here's a page for new music, just for my email subscribers. These songs will eventually go public, maybe with updates, but for now they're just here for you to say thanks for subscribing! There will be one a month for the whole of 2020. UPDATE Well it's now December and I've managed to complete the
- [My best mysterious psych-folk tracks](https://normanlamont.com/best-mysterious-psych-folk-tracks/)
- [lamontations confirmed](https://normanlamont.com/lamontations-confirmed/) - Thanks for being a long-term Lamontations subscriber! If you'd like to continue to hear despatches from us, just confirm below. Thanks! Yes, I'll stay with lamontations! PLEASE TICK to say it's OK to email you. I promise I'm not going to plague you with sales emails. Asking for your email just lets me tell you if
- [My music](https://normanlamont.com/my-music/) - My journal, My musicMoving the last RoadblockThe other day I had an order from a Bandcamp customer for ​Read More
- [In Another Life: diary of an album](https://normanlamont.com/diary-of-an-album/) - 2015 Sometimes it feels like it was another life. It started at the end of 2015. The Heaven Sent had been together for a few years and I wanted to capture the new songs we’d arranged, plus some others that I wanted the band to play. Unlike everything I've done before this would be a
- [In Another Life: review by Andrew C Ferguson](https://normanlamont.com/in-another-life-review-by-andrew-c-ferguson/) - Some of the greatest, most effortless-sounding albums were a weary long trauchle (to use a Scots word) to make. To take one example, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours took over a year, and yet sounds to this day as if the whole thing happened spontaneously over a sunny LA weekend. Apparently they took three days just to
- [In Another Life: RNR magazine (RocknReel)](https://normanlamont.com/in-another-life-rnr-magazine/) - Here's a four star review by Nick Toczek in RNR magazine. Lamont is a storyteller whose entertaining, tongue-in-cheek lyrics are delivered with self-assured laconic panache. If you were this Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter, you'd surely be sick of saying "No, not that Norman Lamont." In Another Life's overall tone is set by pleasantly catchy opener End of
- [In Another Life reviews](https://normanlamont.com/in-another-life-reviews/) - RNR magazine review 'A minor gem' Here’s a four star review by Nick Toczek in RNR magazine. Lamont is a storyteller whose entertaining, tongue-in-cheek lyrics are delivered with self-assured laconic panache. If you were this Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter, you’d surely be sick of saying “No, not that Norman Lamont.” In Another Life‘s overall tone is set by
- [In Another Life preview](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-preview/)
- [In Another Life - lyrics and notes](https://normanlamont.com/in-another-life-notes/) - End of Tears From the very first look On the very first day For the very first time I was blown away To the end of tears To the end of time I know I'm yours And the world is mine I was lost in time I was lost in space Till I crossed a
- [In Another Life review by Chas Nicholson](https://normanlamont.com/another-life-nicholson/) - Some artists do their best work in early life. Others, as this new album from Norman Lamont and The Heaven Sent shows, just get better and better as time goes on, raising their game to a higher level. The album is 'bookended' by two optimistic, upbeat, poppy love songs. The opener, End of Tears gets the
- [Image test 2](https://normanlamont.com/image-test-2/)
- [Electronic Press Kit](https://normanlamont.com/epk/) - Norman Lamont Norman Lamont is a timeless, classic singer-songwriter, as much at home in echoey electronics as in intimate acoustic settings. His songs are always melodic and memorable, but his subject matter ranges from the surreal and spiritual to quirky humour. In 2018 he released In Another Life with his band The Heaven Sent, an upbeat,
- [Get Tell Tale Songs](https://normanlamont.com/get-tell-tale/) - Let Me Tell You a Story … Do you like songs that tell a story? Here are five that will take you on strange trips, some emotional, some surreal, as an introduction to my music! All free with artwork, videos and more! “Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they
- [Breath day 3: the folk connection](https://normanlamont.com/breath-day-3/) - Thanks very much for following my Breath series. Today we have the last four songs, all with a connection to the British folk scene. Ye Banks And Braes This is a cover of a Robert Burns song in the guitar style of John Martyn. I come from the same town as Burns so he's been
- [Breath - day 2: superstars](https://normanlamont.com/breath-day-2/) - Famous Blue Raincoat An appreciation of Cohen - my life in his art Tomorrow, the last few tracks of Breath.
- [Breath - day 1: the Brel/Momus connection](https://normanlamont.com/breath-day-1/) - Hello and welcome to Breath day 1. Two songs today. One is a straight cover, the other has a bit of cover, a bit of new writing. Christmas on Earth This is a cover from the relatively obscure but incredibly accomplished singer/songwriter Momus. I've loved its melody since I first heard it on his 1993
- [Bob Dylan poster offer](https://normanlamont.com/bob-dylan-poster-offer/) - Your chance to win a Ballad of Bob Dylan poster by comic artist Lynsey Hutchinson! I’ll pick a name at random on Monday 1st June and send the poster to the winner, wherever you are in the world! Just join the Lamontations mailing list. I write roughly once a week, usually with some new music
- [The Wolf Who Snared the Moon](https://normanlamont.com/albums/wolf/) - This is the starting point for anyone interested in my music. The title song and was inspired by what become the cover art - the lithograph Les Lupins by Maurice Sand (1858) which depicts Breton werewolves who violated graves and ate corpses. Allegedly. The Wolf Who Snared The Moon (2015 package) by Norman Lamont The
- [Roadblock](https://normanlamont.com/albums/roadblock/) - Roadblock by Norman LamontAs the cover suggests, this is a darker set of songs, with themes of mortality and loss. The title track and The Spell speak directly about these, while Anywhere But Here shows a closed-down, depressed world and Come With Me a way out of it. It's not all gloom and doom, with typical wry humour showing through in Best
- [Waveforms](https://normanlamont.com/albums/waveforms-2010/) - Waveforms by Norman Lamont WaveForms is the name I give to my instrumental music, inspired by the work of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno - wave because it uses a sustaining guitar, a guitar synth and looping techniques to set up gently rising and falling waves of sound. For the listener, WaveForms is intended to
- [Romantic Fiction 1 & 2](https://normanlamont.com/albums/romantic-fiction-2/) - I was quite pleased with the fact that the Wolf album had little in the way of conventional 'you and I' songs, but realised I had a lot of those in my 'unrecorded' collection. I decided to put them out in small collections (the idea was to do them quickly but that never works with
- [I Remember It All from Before](https://normanlamont.com/albums/i-remember-it-all-from-before/) - I've probably never been as fanatical a fan of any musicians as I was of the Incredible String Band. They were that kind of band, polarising concertgoers and audients between adulation and complete incomprehension. In 2003 my friend Adrian put out a book about the band, and invited me to play at the London launch.
- [Anywhere But Here](https://normanlamont.com/albums/anywhere-but-here/) - Or 'Now That's What I Call Golden Megasmashes Volume 1'. Anywhere But Here by Norman Lamont In conversation with some people more knowledgeable about music promotion, who had heard some of my songs, it emerged that a new album of the most popular songs would be something they could get behind. The track list was
- [All The Time In Heaven](https://normanlamont.com/albums/all-the-time-in-heaven/) - .ALL THE TIME IN HEAVEN by Norman Lamont I started putting this together after my last album Roadblock in 2008. I wasn't so much thinking of making a new album as recording a backlog of songs I'd had since the 90s but never managed to capture. So I went about it at a fairly leisurely
- [In Another Life](https://normanlamont.com/albums/in-another-life/) - In Another Life is the first album by Norman Lamont and the Heaven Sent. It's an instantly accessible collection of acoustic-based songs, full of catchy melody and wry humour. Diary of an album: the making of In Another Life Lyrics and notes If you like a beautifully presented CD, you can get it here.
- [Special Offer](https://normanlamont.com/special-offer-5f563f1814853/) - ALMOST COMPLETE 90% One moment! Add my 'greatest hits' half price [mwb_upsell_image] [mwb_upsell_title] Special Offer Price[mwb_upsell_price] [mwb_upsell_variations] Add this to my Order No thanks, I would like to skip this one time offer 'Now That's What I Call Golden Megasmashes vol 1' The most loved tracks from my first three albums including the ORIGINAL Ballad

## Categories

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## Tags

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## Picture tag

- [New Zealand](https://normanlamont.com/ngg_tag/new-zealand/)
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