O Drom interview

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Songs are always there to re discover. I suppose you want to make a song to give you that feeling that some song has given you, yet you don't want it to be like that song, you want it to be your own thing. Yet in a deeper sense all those kind of songs are like each other.
Hank, Williams, like Woody, was a performer too, and that's a thing that separates a person who just writes songs, who needs a song to play on stage year after year. A good performer can always make a bad song sound good, (i.e. Billy Holiday) Sometimes you might hear a good song, and wonder who wrote it, maybe because the performers; not as good as the song, maybe?
The best songs, for me, are made very quickly. But many I make never make it, haven't survived, I might come back and listen to them again maybe and try to re connect with an idea or feeling I started before. But it's nearly impossible to succeed with that. It's a game, rhyming and sitting around working out a rhyme, getting a rhyme and work it backwards, staying in an unconscious frame of mind to pull it off.
Some songs are made up in peace and quiet and delivered in turmoil, others might be made up in turmoil and delivered in a peaceful, quiet way.
It's Funny why or how you can like a song because of what it reminds you of, a time, a place, someone. Something you heard on the radio, music is evocative in that special way, put you in touch with a moment. A smell can do the same. It's funny I remember a smell of my grandmas coat in her wardrobe where I would hide in a game. I didn't know what that smell was till yeas later. It was moth balls!

All those words! In your songs! You're a poet.
I'm not a poet, poets don't drive cars do they or they don't wash up dishes they drown in lakes.
Some songs don't need words.
Some songs, for me, could go on forever, there are too many verses and there's not enough. It's too much and not enough. Others song won't stop, where do you end? It doesn't stop!
You could still be making it, a work continually in progress, a myriad of verses! a hundred stories in one story growing, being lived, breathing and continuous.
I am quite aware of writing lies, i.e. "I love you" when I don't mean it. I'm looking for truth. I try to be careful when I use the words "Love" or "Freedom"
While I make and sing my own songs and tunes. I still look for the core of the song when I'm performing it and record. I don't want prettiness or decorations, I'm looking for the emotional truth in the story, wanting to keep the strength, not to dilute it and paint and varnish it over but keep the raw wood grain, and brass! Let the songs breathe.
My arrangements are becoming more simple these days, also the melodies, so that the story doesn't get buried.
I was making songs before I ever played a guitar or harp I sang them accapella to myself. And when I was 10 year old I was given a broken old reel to reel tape recorder by an uncle, I fixed it by accident and experimented with my voice singing and speeding up the tape, messing around. I also borrowed an old cheap, Woolworth's organ that got very hot, I thought it might melt. I made up tunes and recorded them on the tape machine. I borrowed it off a friend and had to give the organ back.
I wanted a piano but we couldn't get one, no room, etc. I remember being on a holiday in the Isle of Wight. I must have been 7 or8 years old, staying in a B+B. There was an upright piano. I remember sitting there playing notes on it, making up simple tunes, enjoying the flats and sharps, the feel of the black notes, the feel of the keys, trying to reach the accelerator pedal. The next day I went to play it again but, It had been locked.
I was always a slow learner, I had no one to show me.
I was told I was a failure when I was at school. That was a disadvantage in one way, in another it made me try hard as I had no talent, I always had to work hard at it.
I craved praise and encouragement from my peers, as I never received it when I was younger. My self esteem low, I always had much self doubt. I always received criticism. It probably seemed like an kind of egoism, to want to be loved, respected, but I also wanted constructive criticism, discussion, to learn from others, not just flattery, which embarrasses me if it is blind.

Could you talk about your political songs?
I don't think I write political songs, or preaching songs, definitely not protest songs but love songs. Some are angrier than others. I've always said that.
Not ambiguous songs but explicit, to draw attention to why something happened and what can be done etc. I like to confront an audience with an issue, it does take some kind of courage maybe. I have upset some people.
I do like the ones that deal with the real feelings of the people in the song,
However hard they are to listen to, and if they upset anyone because they aren't ideologically correct. Those songs do teach us about our attitudes, attitudes that are often unacceptable. Men do reject real feelings all the time, their own feelings are never expressed by themselves often.
I don't believe my "political" songs will convert any one, ( I used to joke, and say that the Apartheid System will collapse after I sing this song!) Maybe they will make us feel stronger together when we sing them together which we did with 'Defending Our Homes' a Song I made for our action group. Westminster Tory Council wanted to evict us all from the tower blocks we lived in on Elgin Estate, West Kilburn, London. The most militant were the 'old folks' Molly was 87 years young. They had a lot more to lose than us young folks. Singing at the police, the Tory councilors. It did bring us together, all practicing the song I'd made, singing on the bus on the way to property developers offices, the developers weren't expecting us. Then singing together when we got there and wanted them to listen to us tenants, they called the police and we still sang. Eventually they did meet and talk with us and did pull out of the deal. And we still sing the song at our neighborhood parties that we'd hold at the Asentewa Afro Caribbean community arts Centre.
I write from my experiences, I don't get my information from the television set.
Away From Britain, I felt like a political deserter. I had involved myself politically, socially wherever I had gone, as much as someone can, not being part of a settled community as such. Back in London, my experiences, to talk, of were only of the road and Mexico or other places. That past of mine was all I knew or could talk about. To some it might seem I was boasting, like saying, "I've been there, done that" kind of a thing, yet I desperately was trying to fit in, and I didn't really know where I fitted in culturally, all these sub cultural groups.
I was never a "hippie", whatever that is. I grew up with mates who were skinheads, I identified with punk. In the end I can remember being reluctant to talk about my past, it seemed like another life, another world and landscape, and who could relate to that time, and share it with me? I was a loner, not out of choice. I remember telling someone that I'd been away for a while. I didn't realize till later that they thought I'd been "Away in prison"!
I love singing.
Singing accapella has a way of focussing attention on the words of a song.
I do like to move when I sing, I'd always sing while I was working, digging, cycling as delivery boy, walking etc.

What else do you want to do with your songs?
I still want to express the absurdity, vulnerability, insecurities we all feel about our lives too.
I have made songs and played different characters in them without feeling like it compromises my own personality. I can separate myself from the song.
Before I used to feel like the song is me and I have to be in the song. A couple of songs now have their own itinerary, not mine. i.e. God Loves me, Punchinellos confession. Those songs do different things to people than other songs I make. They can upset more too. Naked, Shock, "You can't behave like that"!
I believe that the way we touch each other is political too. Sex.
Some of my songs are theatrical performances, not propaganda statements or bulletins. I am trying to use stories and conflicts and people in specific situations to bring out some kind of meaning or to make some kind of sense of the world, to experience the feelings a character might have. It's not that I want anyone to agree or to disagree with some statement I've made, not that simple.
I want to interest people in these stories and characters. A personal world. Each of us is the core of our own experience and knowledge, but inextricably bound up with the social-political world outside. Even people who will not agree with my politics, I hope will listen and make their own sense out of them. I do make songs for the barricades too, for picket lines and demonstrations. I wouldn't always want to sing those songs in concert or always have to make those kinds of songs. I want to reach others who aren't converted, not just members of a political group, not exclude others. I might make them have doubts and they'll have to cope with these peoples feelings I am singing about. I try and give them space to think things for themselves. In making songs or anything we make, maybe I'm trying to give shape and form to experience, which we can all share in, to heighten the humdrum everyday world that we live in, to deepen our experiences of ourselves and others in the world we live in. To broaden our perspective and our understanding, give some heightened quality, to try to make life worth living. The world can be disheartening so I want to give people heart. I don't mean in an introverted way or a religious way, but trying raise wakefulness and knowledge somehow. I believe in the ability of human beings to transcend the most appalling conditions, and, to be able to create something out of them, says something about the human spirit and our ability to defy the worst. Of course I can't guarantee that effect! I know I've made songs that don't work. Some songs seem to, some do by accident. I want people to have a good time too, party like. It's also a physical thing.
(You can learn a lot from a song you make by living with it and singing it live for a few years. Performance is part of the creation of a song. I'm not making up songs to go into a book, but to be performed. That can be the test if a new song works or not, singing naked in front of an audience. There might be a word or line that isn't clear and I can hear that right away. See the hole in the song. I make up many songs and they can lie around for two or three years before I sing them. I'm too busy gigging or doing other things. I always have enough songs.)
A couple of songs might come from just walking, working and singing something to myself, maybe some are worth remembering, some aren't. I've never felt a pressure to make songs, I made some for a theatre group, on demand, but that was easier, having a deadline and promises to keep.

Do you make songs for Children?
For me my songs are Kids songs and adult songs, I don't distinguish I don't like the kind of songs that sing down to kids. But I think a chorus and some repetition is a good thing, for kids to sing along, join in with.
I don't think my songs about sex have any vulgarity in them, but I hope they have a certain amount of realism in them.
No pat, fairy tales, Not happy ending I feel they always create an alienation, in children.
Kids will ask me why don't I have this happiness thing you're telling me about? And comes to think that when his joy stops, that he has failed, that it won't come back. I don't want to mislead kids, or adults of all ages!
They are all real people in my songs from my history, half remembered, half made up.
Sometimes a song can seem a very limiting form, tight, demands of rhyming, the tune, rhythms etc. but it makes the song a very dramatic thing.
I'm trying to stretch it all of the time, Experimenting, have no repeated choruses, how to perform it live, to take people on a journey and capture them somehow.
Speech patterns can dictate a songs rhythm. Sometimes I have a more verbal approach than a musical approach when making a song.
I am trying to sing a little piece of reality without being a messiah.
I do all the arrangements on my recordings. Some of the horn parts I do. There are some horn parts I wouldn't have done on my own. Bob and Richard came up with some horn ideas on Travelling Home, on 'Spring is returning'
I don't think I can take all the credit, there is also a chemistry with friends I play with. They create some magic, we are friends who love each other, we all depend on some kind of chemistry when we play music with others.
'Back To Donegal' is like that too, I made the song, the story and then between us, Paul on banjo, Steve on Mandolin we worked out which tunes would flow in and out of the story, those traditional tunes. We were using the minor tune to come out of a verse that was quite wistful and sad. Then using the rolling thunderous tune outro at the end, I wanted to capture the sense of life that the songs story was about, I made it up as a celebration of times we all played sessions together here and there. I made it up as a leaving present, I was going away for a while travelling off to China and Australia, and my mates couldn't come with me, and I wanted them to. So it was a song I left behind for them. We recorded it much later. We recorded it as live as possible, all together in the same room. I searched for a studio that was spacious enough. Just a couple of overdubs.
Many of my serious songs are funny and some of my sad songs have happy bouncy melodies. That's because I want "Life" in my songs, breathing and sweating too. Humor is very important for me in Life, apart from song. The idea of making people laugh is irresistible to me even in quite tragic, dark situations, I can't help it. I laugh at it then I don't laugh at it because it is serious. There is a Dreadful seriousness really.
I make my self laugh more than I make other people, Cause I'm not a comedian. I was the class clown at school for a while though. Maybe laughter is a nervous release teetering on the edge of despair, But I can't help but see the funny side of dark moments. Laughing and crying are like two sides of the same coin. So I do like to get people to laugh at something serious. Otherwise life would be miserable wouldn't it? It keeps me balanced maybe.
I prefer the kind of humor that never grows old.
I am becoming more responsible in my old age.
Some songs are like painting for the ears. Other songs are rude buggers who want to be around you all the time.
My choruses change as the song progresses, which does make it hard for people to join in, they aren't predictable.
I try to create a particular moment in a song. A chord change, to the bridge, surprises, instead of a jump up, you go down to a minor key, and softly. Or a rhythmic change. It might be a cowbell, or a shaker that moves the feel, adds fluidity., It's trial and error and sometimes in performance I might discover something, change something, so the song is evolving, re interpreted each time. I guess like a traditional song might be?
There's a difference between a great song and a great record. A great song, for me, could be sung with just a guitar in the simplest way, even unaccompanied and it would still stand up. Sometimes on a record the production of the record has become a greater part of the song, so that it's only then, a great song, if you are listening to the great production on the record.
I think I wrote more songs when I couldn't drive a car.
When I had more time to think, a paper round, milk round when I was younger cycling or working in fields of a Mexican farm in the mountains there. Training my eye on the horizons, the mountains effected my visual sense, even though I was born in London. Touring is nothing like the same as travelling., i.e. You have to be somewhere, to arrive for a gig, then tear yourself away again from people you meet and the places, there's not so much time for contemplation or developing relationships with folks.
I should have been a plough boy walking behind a horse (Joke)
Songs are all born in different ways. I heard someone say once. Sometimes I feel like the old mountaineer, talking about climbing mountains. The songs, like the mountains. just happen to be there.
I've tried to help people make songs. To get their juices flowing.
I say things like:
'If you get stuck making a song, use the past, the present and the future to get more verses.
Every line is important. Draw someone in from the very first line,
Make them want to stay with the song till the very last note.
There aren't any rules but you might make your own.'
Try to inspire folks, and say. 'There's no time like the present. Lets go to a coffee shop or pub and make up a song together.'
I like to make songs that leave you feeling ennobled.
Moving from the bus and re discovering songs I'd made up years ago at the bottom of a bin bag or box, testing the old songs to see if they are workable, good enough to still sing, if they still mean any thing to me or not. Some are too topical, out of date.
some aren't workable without 10 singers, collective story song ideas like a mini short musical play.

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