My First Album
“Glastonbury’s Child”
My first collection of songs ‘Glastonbury’s Child’ is now available on Spotify.
It features ten songs all recorded at Orchard Cottage Studio in Cambridge with Mick Jones. You can listen to and read the stories behind each as well as the lyrics here.
1. Someone To Love
Someone To Love is a new song written within an hour in Spring 2022, a very smooth and blessed process. The verses are about a fraught love affair from many moons ago which still haunts me. This was one of the final songs to be laid down in the Summer of 2022.
Lyrics:
When we first met
You were the ocean,
I was a drop of rain.
Then we became one,
A part of each of us frightened of the sun.
I know you,
Will you know me again?
Do you know me
Like I know you, my friend?
You’re deep,
You’re deep as a sea;
You’re deep like the ocean,
No one can find the bottom.
It’s deep,
It’s deep as my heart;
It’s deep like the ocean,
No one can find the bottom.
I know you,
Will you know me again?
Do you want me
Like I want you, my friend?
This could be someone to love,
You could be someone to love. X2
Down in the depths,
Deep in the ocean
Beneath the tidal waves
I am with you
Eternally, until someone finds the bottom.
I know you,
Will you know me again?
Do you need me
Like I need you, my friend?
This could be someone to love,
You could be someone to love. X2
2. Isolation
Isolation was originally a poem, for which I rearranged the chords to an old song in order to accommodate. It’s probably my favourite track on the album and was one of the later songs to be recorded in Spring 2022. Thanks, Mick!
Lyrics:
Oh no, the rain is coming down,
It’s falling hard now all around.
It stirs the monsters in your head,
Makes you awake and sit up in bed.
Look now, the sunshine never ends,
While you make darkness your best friend.
Go out and enjoy some piercing rays
To burst the bubble of isolation.
Isolation.
In time the wind will speak your name
Throughout the back streets and the main;
Avenues of deep understanding
Filled with blessed noise.
And when the mountains become dust
You will know surely who to trust.
Fake gods and real scoundrels,
They traipse across the deserts of your mind.
3. We are Love
We Are Love was a song written about my Mum approximately 5 years ago, which was recorded circa 2018. My Mum sadly took her life in 2003, but as the song states I feel an eternal bond with her. When I finished recording the track my producer, Mick, said “That was a strong one!” and I do feel the lyrics evoke particularly powerful ideas about politics, the education system and our higher nature.
Lyrics:
I love you ’til my mind aches,
I’ll love you ’til my heart breaks
And all souls are one.
You hurt me more than words can ever tell,
You loved me less than death or sadness.
I’m yours now.
I’m yours now,
Like I was yours before.
I’m yours,
I’ll be yours forever.
My education destroyed my mind,
My purpose of life corrodes my worth,
My religion offends my soul,
My government just destroys my world.
The sun will make you blind,
The dark will make you blind,
Fear will make you blind,
But when I close my eyes I find
We are love.
4. A Lover’s Passion Found
A Lover’s Passion Found was the very first song I recorded at Orchard Cottage Studio as a birthday present from my family in 2014. It’s one of my favourite songs on the record and I have always appreciated its ethereal vibes.
Lyrics:
The angels come
And where they lay
I scream in sleepy, tender care.
And in your arms of wonder bound
I dream with a lover’s passion found.
5. War Generation
I wrote War Generation after observing the reaction to the 2003 war in Iraq and the inauguration of George W. Bush. I was furious with the calibre of leadership and the lack of power the populace had over the criminal decisions that were made. It’s currently the only song from the album with a music video thanks to my friend John at Mill Road TV, who kindly produced a visual accompaniment to the track in 2019. Hopefully there will be another music video coming soon for Isolation with his kind help!
Lyrics:
War has hit my generation
Like Autumn leaves trouble graves.
We’re just so deep, man:
In apathy,
In mental poverty
And spiritual desolation.
50 million people came to democracy’s funeral
And the President received a speech
Instead of what he deserved.
My darling, listen to the heartbreaking silence
In the corridors,
In the coffee talk,
In the minds and hearts and souls of the people.
“10 years on Tuesday,” he said
And went to bed, wept then slept.
My darling, listen to the heartbreaking silence
In the wedding ring,
In the bedroom,
In the kisses of nicotine.
6. Would It Happen To A Goddess?
I strongly believe that our perceptions of the divine influence our wider society and I collated my thoughts on this matter in Would It Happen With A Goddess?. This track was recorded circa 2018, but was written about 5 years earlier. It was initially the title track of the album and I consider it to sound akin to acoustic Portishead, who were a big influence with their unusual chord structures and melancholic lyrics.
Lyrics:
I know I’m on fire
Like the sun
And all the pain I feel helps no one.
But when you call out my name
You know I feel your voice like the rain.
How dare they use God’s name in these ways?
So used, abused: acting like little children.
Would it happen with a Goddess,
All this violence and hatred of everything but male humans?
People carry roses and make promises they cannot keep
For the best part of their lives.
I’ve been given roses, been made promises that can’t be kept
For the best part of my life.
I’m going to the desert
With the theory that with no one there
There’ll be no one to hurt me.
Would it happen with a Goddess
Or a hybrid of all creatures and inanimate objects?
Would it happen with a Goddess?
7. Like, Lust, Love, Lose
Like, Lust, Love, Lose is the oldest song on Glastonbury’s Child, written when I was 16 or 17 around the turn of the millennium. I have always felt the song would have fitted in with The Doors’ repertoire as it is very moody and poetic. It was the last song to be recorded for the album in Summer 2022.
Lyrics:
Dancing round a fireplace backlit,
You’re the one I’ve always wanted
To be with me.
He said “You have to fight not to live life like the living dead.”
He said “Contentment is a pretence:
Everybody wants change.”
Barefoot, bare chest, arms and legs painted;
The rare beauty of the unselfconscious.
He said: “Make war on yourself before anybody else.”
He said “Happiness is the refuge of the stupid, but the prison of the enlightened.”
So it goes: like, lust, love, lose.
8. I Don’t Wanna Talk About Jesus
The chorus for I Don’t Wanna Talk About Jesus came to me in a dream during the pandemic in 2020. I managed to find simple chords to accompany the sarcastic lyrics and it was the second last song to be recorded in Summer 2022.
Lyrics:
I don’t wanna talk about Jesus,
Don’t wanna talk about no wars in foreign lands,
Don’t wanna talk about the homeless on the streets,
Don’t wanna talk about the cruelty of the beat,
Don’t wanna talk about it.
Hey ho, the sun is rising
But only the darkness is your friend.
I hope I get to see you again,
I hope I get to see you again.
Said only the darkness is your friend.
I hope I get to see you again,
I hope I get to see you again.
Don’t wanna talk about Jesus,
Don’t wanna talk about no wars in foreign lands,
Don’t wanna talk about the homeless on the streets,
Don’t wanna talk about the cruelty of the beat.
Don’t wanna talk about Jesus
Or empires in the sand,
Don’t wanna talk about the homeless on the streets,
Don’t wanna talk about the cruelty of the beat,
Don’t wanna talk about it.
Hey ho, moon is shining
Maybe the light will come again?
It’s dawn on the edge of the world,
It’s dawn on the edge of the world.
Said maybe the light will come again?
It’s dawn on the edge of the world,
It’s dawn on the edge of the world.
Don’t wanna talk about Jesus,
Don’t wanna talk about no wars in foreign lands,
Don’t wanna talk about the homeless on the streets,
Don’t wanna talk about the cruelty of the beat.
Don’t wanna talk about Jesus
Or empires in the sand,
Don’t wanna talk about the homeless on the streets,
Don’t wanna talk about the cruelty of the beat,
Don’t wanna talk about Jesus.
9. Calamar
Calamar is about reassuring someone that a stable relationship is worth keeping when distracted by shiny alternatives. It’s an old song from about 2013 recorded in around 2018.
Lyrics:
Calamar, don’t go
Stay with the one who’ll love you most.
Calamar, please don’t go
Stay with the one who’ll love you most.
People put faith in princes and queens,
But nothing’s gonna save them
When they become all they’ve ever dreamed
And realise that royalty’s nothing.
Calamar, don’t go
Stay with the one who’ll love you most.
Calamar, please don’t go
Stay with the one who’ll love you most.
Problem is that her love’s just too pure
Too limitless and endless
And you’re just the kind who has got in their mind that pain’s another word for life.
Be as her wings,
She’ll be your sky:
Your dreams will fly high!
10. The Devil As My Valentine
The Devil As My Valentine is about my propensity for religious confusion and feeling as though I don’t fit anywhere given the criteria of most organised belief systems. It is another old song from my university days and I estimate it was written in 2005. It was recorded circa 2018.
Lyrics:
Calm the forces rushing me
From the streets that I call my home.
Calm the waters washing me
From the streams and the lakes
I’ve made my own.
Went on a first date – a last date –
With the Devil as my valentine.
Took me to church on Sunday with a rose,
He said “Welcome to a palace of mine!”
Went round to God’s house
For a minute my love for Him lit up my life again.
But when I told Him where I’d been
He said “You whore!’
And He shut the door.