inspirations

A music journalist once asked me how I knew so much about what the songs I wrote were about as a lot of them didn't have words.  I think it was possibly the most stupid question I have ever heard.  In homage to that titan of intellect, here's what I think the songs are about.  If you have other ideas, cool.  If you want to let me know what you think they are about, I'd love to know.

c'mon, whassit all about then boy?

there was no real plan at the beginning to write another themed album in the vein of 'postcards from aunt cordelia' but as the writing dragged on (and on, and on), a few ideas kept returning to my thinking.  during some clearing out at my dad's house, i found a school project book from about the age of 8 or 9 in which i had written a summary (including crayon pictures) of some of the most famous paranormal cases ever - nessie, mary celeste, the meier UFO photos, SHC, and ghosts etc.  though i'd always been utterly terrified of the dark as a kid, there was something also quite alluring about it.  i've always been attracted to the unknown and the often unknowable.   without wanting to sound like a radio-rabbi, it struck me that the pattern of my life as a whole has always been a little like that, and why to this day, i still have a passionate interest in all things fortean and particularly the fringes of human knowledge where science becomes philosophy and vice versa.

the album finds me at a point in my life where i am faced by the unknowable again (long and private story) and so the bizarre synchronicity of the writing the album and life events once more nails me to Cordelian destiny (see last album)!  strange tale therefore is not so much about the unknowable as unavoidably inspired by it!  happy now?

musically the album is a little easier to explain - not that you might glean that from listening to it.  what i wanted to do here was explore a bit more of the direction that started on PfAC, particularly as regards where my guitar playing fits into what i write.  i quite often hear a whole piece in my head - complete and produced (even mastered sometimes!) and then spend ages trying to recreate what i imagine.  it rarely works out that way, but that doesn't frustrate me surprisingly.  that's part of the journey and the fun.  i've also no real desire to do what everyone else is doing (as mitch benn sings, "why does everyone sound like coldplay these days?") which i know makes my music very uncommercial and sometimes relatively unpalatable.  i should have been born in 60s Paris - just doing my surrealist thing.  

i've spent a long time in bands fitting in with other peoples' songwriting, and exciting as that may be, it means many agendas are already set.  this album, far more than Cordelia gave me the chance to just play in the fun sense as well as the guitar sense.  i was intrigued to see if i could lift the guitar from its preconceptions and roles as well.  sure there are a couple of 'shreddy' solos on the album, a bit of blues, a bit of jazz, and yes, even good ole bluegrass, but at the end of the day, most of the guitar work is aimed at merging the commercially unmergeable.  funk with dance.  ambient with rock, indie with bluegrass.  world with metal.  some of it has been done before, but i hadn't, and that meant being able to start with very blank canvases and just do what sounded right in my head, and not worry about who was going to listen to it.  it was great.  sometimes it was just about the discipline of playing one theme and not moving from it, sometimes never sticking to it.  did i say at the top this was the easier bit to explain?

i hope you enjoy it.  some of it will work ok, some of it won't - but i wanted to share my brain and playing with you.  but for those who want a little more detailed insight into the tracks... here you go!

The Buzzing Of Bees

(part iii - the drying rain & part iv - the dancing sun)

"The Buzzing of Bees" refers to first-hand accounts of witnesses to the events at Fatima in 1917 when 3 children gathered nearly 70,000 people into a field to see the message of Mary, who had been visiting them regularly for some time.  Amongst other astonishing things that happened that day were reports that most people did not hear words as such from the vision, but a sound described by a large number of people as "the sound of bees buzzing in an empty water jar".  The sun was also claimed to have shook and the sky turned every colour of the rainbow.  Much has been written about the prophesies supposedly received by Lucia that day, and the meanings are still bitterly argued over, but it is the day itself which interests me.  If the accounts of journalists, engineers, doctors, lawyers and town dignitaries are to be believed, whatever you feel about the religious significance of the events, the day itself would be one of the biggest and most well documented mass witnessed fortean events in history.

This piece is the beginning of what I hope will be a much longer suite of music based around the events of the day, which I'll be releasing as an e.p. later in the year. 

In My Dreams

I lost a very dear friend nearly 10 years ago, but her death still haunts my waking and dreaming hours.  It's always tempting to think that the grieving process is over in a short while, but many enlightened counselors will tell you that is far far from the truth.  In this case, much of what is discussed in the song are those aspects of loss from the griever's side and dealing with many of things that never had the opportunity to be raised in life.  Most early listeners to this song thought it was about sex, and if you did too, I'm happy for you, but you were waaaay wrong!

1000 Ways To Break A Glass

My last album featured a song called 'Fear of the Analyst' which was about the way we can tend to over analyse what makes the good things in life work, almost as if looking for reasons for them not to!  '1000 Ways..' is the logical extension to that and explores the fact that this sort of investigation can be pretty self destructive.  My best buddy always says that she's not a glass half empty/full person, but often just glad to have the glass - adding the corollary that "of course, there are 1000 ways to break a glass".

Down The Line

It's a strange thing, but when a track actually does have lyrics, I feel so much less compelled to write anything about it.  This one is fairly self-explanatory - life sometimes just doesn't work out the way you thought it would.  It's often much more interesting.

Teardrops In The Rain

The period around writing & recording Strange Tale has been a time for many tears and often at the most unexpected times.  I remember being completely overcome by the need to bawl my eyes out one evening walking home through Doncaster.  Crying in public can be distressing enough at the best of times, but in the world's most unsympathetic town, it's a disaster.  But just as I felt something would snap, the most astonishingly fierce rain shower started out of nowhere, drenching everything in a matter of seconds.  It was one of the most liberating things that could have happened and I felt the deep dichotomy of being so happy to be able to cry so freely without anyone being any the wiser.  It was wonderful and by the end of my journey it had become a time of great joy. Hence the stampy feet guys at the end!

Il Tempio dell'Uomo

Originally written for a local hypno-therapist to a very tight brief regarding amount of movement and variation etc.  The canvas is therefore intentionally sparse.  The tempo is designed to be just below average physiological resting pace and therefore designed to act on the body's bio-feedback mechanism - slowly lowering the listener's heartrate gently throughout the piece.

My favourite place in the world is about 40m under the Italian Alps in a place called Damanhur.  Sometimes, one of the beauties of expositional writing is that you can smilingly keep details to yourself.  Save to say that one of the most incredibly spiritual and mystical experiences I have ever had occurred in the Temple Of Humankind late in 2003 and just before coming back to Doncaster to start tollboothmusic full time.

1.98 x 10¹⁴ (theme from 'strange tale')

Is the speed of light in fathoms per fortnight.  Nuff said.  It appears in a book called 'The Know-It-All', whose hero is trying to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, in order, end-to-end.  In many respects it is done to get one over on his father who tried the same thing but never made it past 'G'.  However, on a regular dinner/update meeting, his father tests him on facts so far!  He asks the speed of light to which AJ replies "Yup - 186,000 miles per second!", to which his father counters "Ahhh, but do you know it in fathoms per fortnight?"  It all goes to prove that whatever you learn in this universe, there's always more to learn - and always someone who is prepared to tell you!

Con Te

Is the simple greeting between community members at Damanhur whenever they meet.  It means literally - 'with you'.  

Nephelokokkygia

Literally: 'cloud cuckoo land' from the Aristophanes' play The Birds.  The two 'heroes' become disillusioned with the corruption on earth and decide to build a city in the sky to catch the prayers of earth to the gods and thereby become terribly well fulfilled.  They co-opt the birds and eventually become birds themselves. With earth not getting the blessings of the gods and the gods not receiving the adulation of humans, mediators are sent to break the stalemate. Greek hilarity ensues!  I wanted to write a real stomper of a track just to put some fire back in my playing after recording some very tight and arranged tracks.  The little vocal sample is a reference back to "Just This Side of Happy" from P-f-A-C, and also that sometimes my lighter side really is expressed thru my more 'exuberant' and heavier playing.  I think it's the musical equivalent of getting antsy!

Something To Hold Dear

Sometimes, you just need a little place to hide, and sometimes, it's not always the obvious place.  I always thought i wasn't a 'baggage' person, but just recently I've begun to realise that some of it goes back a very, very long way.

Cover Me With Daffodils

As humans we are fascinated by both ritual and death.  Funerals are the ultimate combination and I think there are very few who have not at some time wondered about their own.  This track is an homage to the most beautiful plan I've ever been privileged to have shared with me.

Hall of Mirrors

Another track written for hypnotherapy!  This track was inspired by experiences at Damanhur again.  Latest thinking in quantum theory suggests that we live in merely one quantum dimension with another 10 (at least) to explore one day.  Many folklore tales both old and modern talk of the existence of 'hidden' or 'shadow people'.  Unexplained disappearances, arrival and teleportations.  Strange people such as the children of the woolpit in norfolk.  As science begins to realise that the next phase of physics research will rely more on philosophy than analytical techniques, Damanhur is one of those places where physics and folklore seem to meet somehow and live in peaceful, unassuming harmony.

Lil Lil

My first venture into mixing that acoustic sound and otherwise ambient/dancey loop type thingies.  I was really happy with it though it's a bit rough.  Improvised 'live' in 3 passes.  Written for my friend who first suggested it!

Waiting For Eunice

A song about facets of waiting and anticipation, and how things in life can be both eagerly anticipated and the source of anxiety.

Pink Cottage

Yaay!  p-a-d does jazz!  Like Alex Lifeson says "Jazz is like what happens in my head. Nur nuh nuh nur nuh Wake Up!"  I get that.  A dreamy little song about a beautiful future. The first song to be written almost entirely on the Stick.  The way the Stick is tuned just lends itself to these beautiful suspended chords quite naturally, and its understandable with Emmett Chapman having come from a jazz background.  Thanks Emmett, it's opened up some really interesting paths for me. To be honest, my favourite song on the album!