This one is a mix of snippets of people, imaginings, thought bubbles – and obviously some sort of stalker, given the title… I think it has a great feel to it though, a sort of mood you can just fall into and roll with.
And I’m loving the low, laidback verse; in fact the whole song generally has a more chilled out vocal than is normal for me, and I’m diggin’ it.
So sit back and enjoy – and try not to be weirded out by the chorus. Oh yes indeed.
I’m not going to say too much about this one, except: this is the first ever recording, anywhere and with anyone, on which I have not used a guitar. Or a single acoustic instrument (vocals excepted, of course).
Pretty cool. Or concerning; I don’t know which. I can say it was bloody fun though.
This song, no surprises, is for my sister and brothers. Love them and our memories.
I hope you dig it too.
We have hit double figures, people! Amazing. I think I can actually do this now.
This week’s tune I wrote a while ago, literally straight after finishing the last page of a beautiful and really quite haunting novel, by Richard Flanagan, from which the song’s title comes.
It’s mostly just acoustic guitar and voice, and I like the way it feels lilting and sad, but it’s also kinda conversational. Reflecting on some of the ways we try to make peace with being alive and supping on the challenge it can be. But it doesn’t always have to be hard.
Hope you dig it and feel the same way.
Much like the feel of rolling waves at sea, this song floats and sways with a little tale about a daughter who loses her father; the captain of a ship. She goes out to find him on the ocean, but I think we all know the forlorn hope that steers her.
I wonder if maybe she heads off to sea for many reasons, not just her lost dad. In all great searchlight journeys there are inevitably unseen ripples, like our very own watery caves below ground, that often hold more truth than the reasoning we begin with.
Such it is with this song. A sad trip perhaps, but one with the worthy meaning of searching for true things. Hope you enjoy.
I can safely say I had a bucketload of fun recording this week’s song – you’ll hear why.
So, for many years there has been a slide in live music venues around Sydney, especially rock music. I’ve been playing around for maybe a dozen years, I’ve seen them close – and seen them open, too. It’s much maligned and written about; recently the great glorious bastion of thundering kick drums, sticky floors, walls that talk, and a history beyond measure – The Annandale Hotel – has gone into receivorship. This, my friends, is very bad.
Thankfully, there is still live music playing there – for now, anyway. I was there on Friday night and it was as royally rock n roll as ever, but for some slightly fancy tiles installed in the second room.
The local Mayor is on board, as are other decision-makers, and there are campaigns happening to save the place – we don’t want another Hopetoun Hotel, still boarded up to this day. What a cracking little venue that was!
Anyway, it was also SLAM day on Saturday – Save Live Australia’s Music – and I guess I just felt the zeitgeist in the air. Music lovers are feeling it and so am I. So I wrote a big fat yelling, storytelling, saltwater-welling (hopefully compelling) singalong.
So I hope you enjoy it, take it in the vein it’s given, and sing along. For music is not dead, live or otherwise, AND IT NEVER WILL BE. So sing up!
P.S. Bagpipes. Yes I did.
P.P.S. I thought “Bugger it, this needs a rally. It needs a video!” So I made one:
It’s a big, pretty falsetto affair for this week’s song. Although at the same time as being really gentle, it also feels to me like there’s some strength in the atmosphere; like the stoic acceptance of imperfections and the love of them, regardless.
The song’s title gives this one away – it’s about being young, being free, being a maddening concotion of verve and energy and desire until the very end. And what a way to be!
I hope I’ll be singing this one with as much gusto many years from now.
And so, ’til the end comes, I’m young. Sing it with me.
It’s simplicity this week – you see, so many of my favourite artists have the occasional song that is just one voice and one guitar. That’s it. And often they’re just such cracking compositions (so let’s hope this one is too…).
Anyway, that’s what I’ve recorded this week, one voice and one guitar.
The chords have a kinda jazzy feel at the start. I was writing this late at night, just the chords to begin with, and I remember they seemed to flow in all sorts of directions. It’s not normally how my songs come out, so I really dig this one for that difference.
To me, it’s late night stuff for late night listening, or listening alone. Hope you find a quiet moment to let it out.
This week’s song is a big, slow, open call to wake up from being timid through complacency.
I really dig the openness and the hopefulness that I think runs throughout the song – though you may disagree. It may be a simple song, but hopefully it’s one that you can easily fall into and ride along with.
If you’ve been asleep at the proverbial wheel, maybe this will make you feel it’s a good time to wake up.
Here we are at Week 4, and this week’s song is a bit of a story song – well, perhaps a flight of fancy, more like it. It was written after heading home out of a bar in Darlinghurst, early hours of the morning, when suddenly a great rain plummeted down and sent hordes of drunks running.
Across the street was this surprisingly picturesque, romantic image – a young couple in an amorous embrace. To put it lightly. But with the rain and the haze, it seemed kind of poetic. Maybe it was the booze.
But as I got into a taxi the song and story of it just formed and it was easy to bring it all out when I got home.
It almost feels a bit country to me, but see what you think.
Welcome to week 3, with a new song titled simply, ‘Trying’.
This one was begun a few months ago, when all I had was the very simple verse/chorus guitar line with the plucked harmonics, and a sort-of melody. All very quiet and laid back. Which is somewhat unsual for me. I liked it though; it felt spacious.
I also hope you dig the electro drum beat on an otherwise mellow tune – a first for me! I enjoyed putting it on there, I have to say. There’s something good about having a quiet, chilled song but getting it rolling along with a decent punchy beat.
‘Trying’ is about that first moment of feeling the tingle of seductive connection fizzing through the air, and gently trying to nurture it to make beautiful things happen. Like love. Or sex. Or, if the mix is just right, both.
See you next week.