This page contains films of performances on youtube, films and links to music on Soundcloud (and the like) and pictures which have an influence on songs – with commentary and pictures, where appropriate.
First in the series is a group of films all recorded for Portslade Railway Roots club’s online/ quarantine/ lockdown meetings, 2020:
Amelia Earhart’s Blues is a feminist song which I wrote for my daughter about a woman who wanted to fly - and did! But it’s also a metaphor for never taking 'no' for an answer, especially if there is a suggestion the answer no is because of gender identification. The chorus begins, 'Everybody has an ocean to cross...' And that's a quote from the great woman herself.
Your Mama’s Music Box For centuries, people have crossed oceans in search of a better life and it’s still going on today. This song was written for an exhibition about the Tampa affair in Australia (a Norwegian ship picked up some ‘boat people’ as they were called in those days and the Australian government refused them leave to dock in Australia
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/tampa-affair)
The song addresses a forced migrant situation, with the idea, 'what would I take with me, if it were me...' That's where the title comes from - if I was a forced migrant what would I take that reminds me of home?
Crying Moon I didn’t want to write a lock down in lockdown Covid kind of song about how miserable life was. Partly because I wasn’t miserable. However, I did want to write about something that was concerning me. Which is things that were ‘still happening’ in the world while the ‘pandemic’ was going on. The song is inspired by a photograph of a 'half-moon' taken by Phil McCutchion and christened an 'austerity moon' by Robb Johnson. It occurred to me that when we return to normality (from lockdown 2020) other people have a different normality to our own, or at least to mine. There will still be people crossing oceans for a better life, still homeless people and still women as victims of domestic violence. So the song addresses that issue. It’s a song about not forgetting.
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Fisherrow is about a great time of my life, when I first left home and moved to the coast (from the coal mining village I grew up in) but I couldn’t nudge that joy in that idea forward. The song sound fairly downbeat and it was hard to pull it up into optimism; that is until I came to the chorus. Actually not even a chorus, a line, which came completely by accident (as is often the case). ‘All the broken hearts gather here to mend.’ I liked that idea, a place where people gathered to mend that which they think will never mend again and so it stuck. It is also the title of my Chapbook and Album, released 2020.
Portobello Beach was the first song I wrote for the new (2020) record. The song isn’t really about that Scottish town but about a collection of images from coastal towns from there to Brighton (where I now live) to Byron Bay in Australia, Santa Monica in the USA, Robben Island in South Africa, Corfu Town and places around the world which I have been welcomed into. The song itself juxtaposes the dangerous industry centred around the sea and the coast and the joy to be had in a beach town.
Port Seton this song began life as No Room at the Inn for its references to having nowhere to live. The song is about homelessness and it’s a true story of something I saw in London Rd, Brighton, but see repeatedly. Homelessness is this country’s biggest failing and a disgrace which we should all be ashamed of. Surely having somewhere to go home to is a basic human right? The reason behind it being re-named as Port Seton is in the chapbook, Fisherrow.
St Abb's Head In this song I wanted to write about the very basic, fundamental human right of having somewhere safe to sleep. It’s an extraordinarily simple thing but surely a 'human right'. People just want to live. They don’t want to come and eat our babies, steal our stuff or mess up our jobs. A view from a lighthouse (St Abb's Head) seemed like a good place to listen to reflect on this idea; plus a lighthouse is there to guide people in, not send them away.
Soul for Sale This song comes from a true story. A young homeless boy was asking for change outside London Road Market in Brighton and he said, 'Sorry for asking but I have nothing left to sell.' It knocked me back. Not the idea that he was asking for change but that it was his last choice. The song is about the shameful way we let people fall through the poverty cracks simply because of government policies and a huge reluctance to properly pay to look after them. Being able to eat and having somewhere to stay is surely the most basic of human rights.