Recording finally done. You can listen and/or download for free here http://georgebreakfast.bandcamp.com/track/you-above-all-things
The text is also there should you want it. In the unlikely event that you or someone you know would like to perform it, please let me know how it turns out.
I am working on a recording of a 14 verse song, one for each station of the cross. I am at the cleaning tracks and mixing stage, and should have it done in a couple of days. I am handicapped at the moment because I have given up tea and coffee for Lent! This is Day 2, so I am suffering from very weird, intense headaches, and feel like sleeping all the time.
I wrote the song a year ago, and have since had time to tweak the lyrics and come up with an improved version. What I’m hoping is that it will be performed some time during this Lent.
As soon as its done, I shall make it available as a free download.
heres me and the Corn Flakes performing my song in the Flying Pig in Cambridge…
we hope you like!
I expect love in all its manifestations has a wide and varied diet. In my case music is the staple. When I am playing music, or have just finished, I feel well and satisfied. Conversely, the longer it is since I played music, the lousier I feel.
So I play music every day, and everything else falls around that.
Occasionally, less than once a week, I take a day off. By the end of the day I am often suffering withdrawal symptoms.
So I keep my love well fed. God is love, and I humbly thank God for such a simple life.
I am currently determined to keep my chops in shape on 3 different instruments, all stringed. Acoustic guitar, mandolin & bass. Rather than elaborate linear practice regimes, I elect to spend time regularly, just singing and playing one of the three. This is fun, natural exercise, and sometimes I even wind up writing a song. Two weeks ago while singing and playing the bass, I wrote a gospel song that I still like. It may be a keeper.
There is no chance of my ever becoming a master on any of them. So its as well there are three. That way I can happily blunder along as a George-of-all-trades.
Using the same method, I am now planning to improve my piano skills!
Today I am going to spend 2 hours on a river boat with my friend Cath Coombs, entertaining a party of elderly folk. We’ll be singing mostly old chestnuts that have stood the test of time, and at least for some of the time we hope they will be singing along with us.
What a treat! When else do I get the chance to sing, ‘Smile’, ‘From A Jack to a King’, ‘Molly Malone’, ‘Que Sera Sera’, ‘Lili Marlene’, ‘You Are My Sunshine’, ‘We’ll Meet Again’, and so on, one after another in the same set?
I remember reading an old interview with Bob Dylan in a Songwriting magazine, and at one point he was moved to say, “Arent there more than enough songs already?” Or words to that effect. If someone of his stature can say that, it should give us navel-gazing, tortured soul songwriters pause.
Of course we are not going to stop writing songs. Maybe one day we may inadvertently pen a classic. But in the meantime lets not forget to revisit those fabulous old songs that got us excited in the first place. It sure wont hurt.
I went to see friends from the US do a show the other day. It was in a great little village hall. All wood building which made for a great sound. There was a nice crowd of people who seemed to enjoy the show. The only people not enjoying it were the artists, who despite several attempts to fix it, could never hear themselves properly.
“Dont worry, you sound great in the room.” Why would anyone imagine that is any consolation to a musician? First and foremost a musical performer needs to hear themselves clearly in the way that suits them. How else are they to ply their trade? Their highly developed sense of hearing is the most important of their tools. If they cant hear themselves, they are shooting in the dark. You wouldnt expect a painter or sculptor to work blindfolded, would you?
A good sound engineer understands this and will concentrate to begin with on making the artists happy. They after all know better than anyone what they are going for. Which is what an audience has come to hear. Once the musicians are comfortable and happy with their sound on stage, then the engineer can concentrate on getting the best version possible of that sound to the audience.
By the same token, the most successful performers also understand this, and take the trouble to befriend and cooperate with the sound crew to facilitate getting the sound they want. The best sound engineers are humble and patient, and are rewarded with the trust and gratitude of the performers they work with.
Throughout my life, it is music that has been my number one preoccupation. However during some periods of my life, drink has run a close second. Since I was a teenager, I have had a long and turbulent relationship with the demon alcohol.
My family moved to Cambridge in 1967, the summer of love(!). At seventeen and fresh out of boarding school into a student town full of pubs, my drinking career took off without a hitch. For the next several years, despite passionate affairs with most of the available recreational drugs, drink remained the undisputed protagonist in my hedonistic heart.
I moved to London, then the streets of Paris, where hours of playing music every day began in earnest. Still a drink of some kind was never far away. Life’s essentials were reduced to a minimum as all surplus funds were offered up at the altar of Bacchus. Fortified with ‘Dutch courage’, I embarked on one adventure after another throughout my 20s. Having lived to tell the tale, I cannot honestly say I regret my alcoholic exuberance. Without the booze, I may never summoned up the nerve to do many of the things I did.
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Two days ago I opened my mandolin case and a clawed birds leg tumbled out. Surprise doesn’t begin to describe my reaction. Right away my fevered brain started throwing up possible explanations.
The first and most likely story seemed that someone put it there at my last gig while my attention was elsewhere. A little strange, but then what would you do with it if you found yourself holding such a thing? If this is the case, I’m wondering if it was someone I know, and whether their intentions were playful or malevolent?
Next the voodoo option occurred to me. A week or so after Easter I took a tumble on my bike and injured my knee. Could this severed limb be part of a fiendish spell that brought about my distress? Who could foster such urges toward me?
I then got to thinking about who or what might have been playing my mandolin while I wasn’t looking. I enjoyed the mental picture of a group of birds picking some bluegrass tunes, hanging out with a jug of liquor, raising hell. Still it would take one hell of a drunken brawl to explain why one of them might have left most of their leg behind.
A lot of questions and no answers. Now I have the bizarre thing and must decide what to do with it! I don’t want to dispose of it just yet as I might never then know how it came to be where I found it. But I don’t want to keep it indefinitely. I don’t like it. There is something creepy about it.
Well, I never asked for a boring life.
first published at My Little Cleaver
In 1994 I won a competition to write a theme song for National Music Day. This was its 3rd year in the UK. It had been launched in 1992, following a campaign initiated by Tim Renton MP and Mick Jagger, based on the great success of this national annual event in France. 16 years on, it is a much loved and enjoyed date in the calendar in many other parts of the world. Yet in the UK, by the late 90s, National Music Day had vanished without trace. (more…)