Tuesday 6th Oct 2020
Hi friends,
Thought I’d start posting a few songs I had written over coming weeks with a little blog just keeping people up to date on things at this crazy time.
Over the next few weeks hopefully it’ll build a picture of what I’m writing at the moment and what I have been doing and not doing.
So this is Episode 1 of “Songs from My Front Room”.
About the song – New one ( I consider anything I have written since my last album as being new). This is called “43 and Counting”.
I had a part time job (as well as my full time job) for many years. It was at a catalogue company called Littlewoods and I was on telephones most of the time dealing with queries. “Where’s my order?”, “Have you received my payment”? etc.
One of the women I worked with was terribly upset because her partner had left her for someone younger. She explained that it wasn’t so much him leaving that upset her but the fact he had persuaded her not to have children when they had been together and now she was at an age where she was on her own and unlikely to have a family.
So the song came from that memory of that conversation.
Away from the song I have been listening to a lot of diverse music at home. I’m on a discovery trail of Americana music or early country music. As I write this I’m listening to a guy called “Paul Siebel” and two albums from around 1970/1971 on the famous Elektra Record label.
I’m also discovering “Iris DeMent” who is a wonderful artist.
My album of the week however is “Mary Chapin Carpenter’s” – The Dirt and The Stars. Its really wonderful. Think I have played this more times than any other new album this year and I’m getting a reward on each play, things I hadn’t heard before . Produced by Ethan Johns who produced my dear friend “Robert Vincent’s wonderful album “In This Town You’re Owned”.
I have also been listening to some Krautrock as well believe it or not but that’s another story.
looking for a great read? I am enjoying the new Robert Galbraith Strike Novel “Troubled Blood”.
It’s over 900 pages long which I thought may be off putting however it feels just right and with different inter locking stories throughout I’d say it was the best of the STRIKE novels so far.
Telly wise – I kind of got a good collection of old stuff that I think when I watch it’ll probably be for the very last time so I’m rewatching UFO from 1970 – haven’t seen this since then so its 50 years!
More up to date wise I enjoyed the Gemma Arterton film “The Escape” from 2017.
Ok thanks for reading this and listening to my song – hopefully you’ll tune in to the next epsisode?
Till then take care and stay safe xx