Category: News

Week 7 – Misunderstandings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpainPH65U This is another new song. It happened on Wednesday. The first and last sections in reality and the thought trail back to being 16 in my head. I was reminded of Ted Hughes’ poem The Thought Fox. I did sit down with a blank page and ended up with this.…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ_o56b–_I A challenge and an upbeat one at that.  I saw the quite strange documentary about Marilyn Monroe called Love, Marilyn which uses extracts from her personal writings. Love,Marilyn This sentence jumped out at me.  It’s not referred to in the film – just scanned over at the start.  I thought it was a great…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJs4gIWYHSc I was commissioned by the Radio 3 programme The Verb – a cabaret of the word – to write a song for their residency at the Southbank. They asked me to celebrate 52 Fridays by going to the Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre and write a song. I went and was struck by…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y44NeV7EZg The nice people at The Verb chose Ordinary Day to represent the 52 Fridays project.  Here is me singing it at the recording.  I messed up the mini-instrumental but that will be chopped out of the broadcast.  You get to see it.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVquZ74jnpE I set myself the challenge to write a “love gone wrong” song. It’s about the feeling just before ending a relationship and the idea of splitting the future back into two. This is obviously a huge power ballad and should be orchestral, with soaring backing vocals and an enormous voice to do it justice,…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX-czesBUg4 This is about feeling younger than young people – or rather than I did when actually was young – because I feel happier and freer. It’s one of the happiest songs I’ve ever written Here in the city of the young, I feel younger than them, freer than them I pass a girl in…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciqgrVY4aDc A song about grief and trying to erase some of the tangible evidence. All true. Lyrics: Sweeping the Ashes The thing that leaves me nonplussed is not that it burns But after all that heat After all that change So much remains I burnt your picture Always loved that picture I still have it…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKTej3m_dSo I’ll be honest and say that I struggled with a new song this week. I started several and nothing came good. Then I sat quietly this morning in the garden and remembered this moment. I have often quoted it as the time when I first realised that I could decide to not be miserable.…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAntMAz1L5Y This is a lighthearted song about a fact I didn’t know until a week or so ago. That dolphins don’t breathe automatically. It lead to these musings on how we could all do with a reminder to have a good deep breath now and then. I would have thought that I’d have written some…