01 Beginning Notes

This is a set of songs which might properly be described as the first album. It’s when I first picked up a guitar and seriously attempted to express myself. Naïve yes, earnest definitely, but with a little charm, I think .

1. Thamesong

Thamesong is first because it’s the first time I can remember trying to express something in words and music. I had been to London for what turned out to be a pointless interview with the Civil Service. Being the Civil Service it was a two day marathon and we were cast free at lunchtimes. I wandered down to the river, looked down at the browney-greyness and saw some plastic bottles amongst the rubbish washed up at the side.

That resonated with me. I didn’t know what I was doing with the Civil Service. Life had just swept me along and would sweep me along for a while yet. There was also the ghost of the evangelical – the guilt of dragging others along to some unspecified doom.

2. My secret garden

This is obviously a rather clumsy metaphor for the person inside. It’s all here: the self deprecation, the prickly guardedness, the yearning for the loved one. There’s the occasional pleasant turn of phrase but it’s all a little earnest, not helped by the relentless verse after verse structure.

3. You’re always there

This is my first conscious effort at a love song. Also the first time I was sufficiently confident to sing a song in public. As was noted at the time the words are ambiguous: is it the human or divine lover? Assuming anybody cares I’d say it was 70:30 but what do I know? At the time there was next to no chance of a human lover!

Looking back this was quite an ambitious song about intimacy and, in my ignorance, I didn’t make too bad a job of it. Though I remember someone experienced in this things remarking that it was a little idealistic…

‘Greatest hit’ was a tongue in cheek nickname that Chris and I gave it – ‘hit’ in the sense that a few people liked it, ‘greatest’ in the ‘greatest and only’ sense. We were foolish enough to play this at Garrison Lane’s first gig. It was immediately dropped.

4. You remind me

Continuing the theme of simple structures this is a two chord effort but I still like its simplicity. This time it’s unrequited love, not so much that the person didn’t want me more that we shadow boxed round each other for a while and then slunk back to our corners before anyone could get hurt. Once again note the self-flagellation in the last verse – an insurance policy against disappointment.

5. Lady Mary

Our family house backed onto a convent and in the winter you could clearly see a statue of Mary, which prompted this epic. On the surface it’s a simplistic rant on the elevation of Mary by the (catholic) church. I think it’s more about my wanting to recast the Mary/Jesus relationship in human (and sometimes sentimental) terms. And let's not forget the oedipal undertones.

6. Your life

So what does a closeted college kid know about the pressures of working life? He thought he knew something and to be fair he wasn’t entirely wrong.

7. You’re always there II

The sequel; or a variation on a theme. Much more like 50:50 on this one. Better than the first, I think, it reminds me of tiredness and quiet triumph. No love interest on the scene yet.

8. Fire of your friendship

For reasons I can’t remember I went home from college for a brief visit towards the end of my last term there. On the way back I saw a railside fire from the train. This resonated with feelings of leaving and not seeing friends again, but still carrying their friendship somehow. Chris Salter and I performed this at a party not long after. The recording I have contains my pretentious introduction: on the upside it has Chris’s very musical contribution.

9. I Corinthians 13

Imagine my surprise when I turned my attention to Paul’s most famous piece of writing (the RSV version) and discovered that it lends itself to regular versification. Nothing has been added or discarded, just a few judicious repeats made. I don’t know why I attempted it, possibly as a gift for a friend’s wedding. It may trivialise great poetry, but I like it.

10. Bright new morning

More unrequited longing bringing back memories of seeing the sky through my student window. One morning, possibly a Saturday, it was richly blue, the birds were singing but I didn’t have you.

11. The singer

The singer was Harvey Andrews, the venue was somewhere in Cambridge, the time roughly late autumn 1976. And he really did move me. It came at a good point in my nascent writing career. I rarely went to concerts but I knew some of his songs so I went along. It wasn’t the songs themselves that made a great impression (though I would recommend them to anybody) but the idea that personal feelings could be turned into a universal language. That they could be articulated not by clever phrasing but by melody and rhythm.

The rest is not history.

12. Tears come easily

This was written for our youth club’s pantomime Cinderella (January 1978) and it speaks for itself. I like the woman in love/girl in rags combination but it’s all rather humdrum. Don’t you think?