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 last year and started putting it together in Reaper but it wasn’t until last week it occurred to me to do more editing and remove the bits that annoyed me. I did that, added a new drum track, mixed it, and added a strings sound to the last chorus.
I had imagined it would sit on a ‘rock’ album or just the next Norman Lamont album with all its typical mix of genres, but I know what the next album will be like and this doesn’t fit there at all. And in a way I don’t want to do angsty rock songs any more. The next album will be simple, light, acoustic, humorous and not at all obscure. So this is the opposite. A little nudge, and off it goes out into the world.
I was afraid of the burning tyre, the swirling fire, the twisted wire, the hating
I was afraid of thugs in the street, of feeling the heat, of feeling the beat and not moving
I was afraid of the evil eye, the darkened sky, the far-off cry, the crossroads in the trees
Now all my fears are lifted
Now all my hopes are gone
I was afraid at the end of the day I had nothing to day it had all been said and over
I was afraid of the empty page, the devil’s rage, I was afraid of dying
I was afraid of where I stood that I was no good , they all understood, they saw through me from the start
Now all my fears are lifted
Now all my hopes are gone
Sadness spreading in my heart
All the models fall apart
This could be the greatest love in the loving world
Now all my fears are lifted
Now all my hopes are gone
Now all my fears are lifted
Now all my hopes are gone
I was afraid of the grasping hand that grasps for everything and touches nothing
I was afraid of walking away, of losing the day, of falling away to no-one
I was afraid of being someone, of staying someone, of needing more voices every day to tell me the someone I was
Now all my fears are lifted
Now all my hopes are gone