Once upon a time I wrote some songs. I was lucky enough around that time to be in rooms regularly with five very talented people who turned those songs from the strained ramblings of a wannabe pop idol* into actual pieces of music that sounded good and made sense.
One of those songs was everyone’s clear favourite but we never played it live because (if you didn’t know us) it was boring and everyone went to the bar or for a fag.
I don’t write songs anymore, but I’ve been asked many times over the years what the lyrics mean and it interested me to write some kind of guide for them. So I’m doing it now. But first, a bit of context, it’s probably safe to tell this story now….
It goes that I’d had my heart broken properly for the first time. I was in my mid 20s and madly in love with this wonderful slightly-older girl after feeling very single and very rejected by the opposite sex for quite a few years. I thought we were going to get married and be together forever. It was a simpler time with simpler emotions and simpler relationships and it was great, in the unrealistic way that simple things often are.
Then out of the blue one day, she dumped me. Citing the reason that ‘I don’t see us ending up together’ which I now take to mean ‘you’re not marrying / breeding / forever material’ which I don’t blame her for. I remember me then, and if you want marriage / breeding / forever I was definitely not it.** So I wrote a song, recorded it at my band-mate’s house and trundled off to her flat with my guitar and a CD of it like the good little naive, idealist romantic that I was.
She wasn’t home. So I went to a nearby pub and knocked on her door every hour for basically the whole day. I didn’t tell her I was going and I never have. Texting a warning would have removed all the delicious shakespere, right?
That song was shit and I don’t even remember it. But in the pub I wrote a song which you can listen to here. Lyrics that aren’t obvious with cliffs notes below. Look Mum, I’m learning to be concise!
Sat in the place, where the conscious gather, James is speaking in tones
To me, a pub was a place where conscious people gathered. I did NOT feel like I was one at that point in time. “Tones” was originally “tongues”. Band-mate input made it make more sense. James Blunt was playing in the pub, his song “Goodbye my Lover” was a companion then and now. Don’t hate me.
There’s one more drop, from a half-empty glass, shivering as an ice cube to my bones
Pub. Drinking. Glass. Not much to write home about. I thought it was clever though.
Ornamental and preferential but wasting time, stylised fauna on Hornsey Rise
They had a manicured bush in the garden of the pub in that North London suburb, Hornsey Rise. Fun fact, plants are FLORA. Again, valid band-mate correction.
Do I say goodbye? Do I fight so hard? Will I hurt you even more than I can bear? So stay with me, we’ve come so far. If love is a battlefield take me there
Reference to a Pat Benatar song released, funnily enough in the year of my birth. 1983. Only one person has ever spotted this.
There’s ambiguous carvings, on Stroud Green. Phillip is talking in metaphors now
I was reading Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” at the time. Seemed a good counterpoint to the James Blunt line
Public tears awake the fears of the inquisitive child.
Cards on the table, I was crying in the pub. And there was a kid who wandered around the corner, saw me, and scurried off a bit sharpish. Not my favourite experience and I hope, 20 years on, that child is a well-adjusted Gen-somthing-er.****
Languid groove and a distinctive synthetic line somehow.
Languid groove was how I saw the song being and “line” is another music reference for a synth line. Here it’s juxtaposed with a drug reference. Those were heady days…
Feels like a pew when I’m up here on this leather sofa
I’m not a fan of churches. This is not a compliment to the sofa.
The textbooks tell of pipe dreams and other things I’m thinking of
I was training as a plumber at the time. What else I was thinking about is anyone's guess.
Don’t wanna be in Shaftesbury
That was the name of the pub. In (funnily enough) Stroud Green.
So there it is. For years it was just a cool thing I did years ago, like the rest of that band’s music.***** I hadn’t sung it in a VERY long time then, in 2023 I was on an awesome yoga retreat which included psychology workshops, a cacao ceremony and really deep personal work. It was fucking hard and I cried in my van most nights but an incredible experience.
Lots of people shared poems, stories, etc. I had nothing so I sung this song to 16 people with nothing but my own finger clicks as accompaniment.
That was a little glimmer of what music is / was to me and it reminded me that there was a bit of an unfinished task where this song is concerned.
Cards on the table, I’m just getting used to writing again and putting stuff out into the world with no agenda. So those of you with context on this very specific and niche thing, I hope you like it. Those of you who got this far and are now feeling a bit short-changed, I do not apologise. The main thing is that it’s here now.
In parting, I’ll just say that my main lesson from this has always been that nothing is EVER as good or as bad as it seems.
With love,
Ax
* I did actually get into the last 1200 of that TV show when I was 20-ish. Heh.
** That, incidentally was far from the last time I’d be given that basic umbrella reason for a breakup - entirely fairly, I might add!
***Even if you do know me, you’re allowed to not care. It’s fine.
****Does anyone else REALLY not give a fuck about any of this generational categorisation stuff? However hard I try I cannot bring myself to think it's any use whatsoever.
*****Still the coolest thing I’ve ever done. Not sure how I feel about that at 41. But it’s the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment