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, but nobody’s listening’.
When I woke up I could remember the guitar part as well as the melody. I went to my office and worked out what he had been playing. Later, I sat down with it and wondered where the song would go from here. I found myself playing a slightly bossa nova rhythm, although I didn’t consciously ‘know’ bossa nova. I improvised some words and there it was. I recorded a very rough demo and made it one of the songs I shared with my mailing list; this was part of a commitment to produce one song a month for them.
A few months ago in 2024 I came back to it and decided to redo it. By then I’d been following some bossa nova tutorials and was enjoying playing my nylon-string guitar (£20 from a charity shop in Dunoon). Jennifer Clark, my producer friend, mixed it and recorded my new vocal. I find it strangely compelling. I couldn’t tell you it’s ‘about’ anything, but it feels whole and complete. I found some sympathetic video footage and made the video in an hour or two.
Credits:
All instruments and voice: Norman Lamont
Production and mastering: Jennifer Ellen Clark
Footage: Getty Images
If you want to buy me a coffee, Blue Guitar is available for download on Bandcamp.
It’ll be on streaming services from 1st October.