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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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) … Read more