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Parking Caravans
So briefly the subject of the song came from 1. Two mates that worked in Caravan factories. 2. A documentary about Hull night life in which people said they were ‘working for the weekend’ (I didn’t even see the documentary!) 3. My own experience of working in factories in Hull. 4. Chucked in unrequited love.
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Moonkissed – Old Park Dream
This track features on the album Old Park Dreams, released in 2022 and is the only song I’ve ever joint written, and it’s an old one, probably written around 2008. I remember the room we were all in, but (disclaimer) I don’t really remember who wrote what, but think I remember. Myself, Loreto Murray and…
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Fair Love – Old Park Dreams
The sound of that first chord was really open and dreamy, not a sound I had used much previously, and it called to mind an old-fashioned world, or a cinematic image. This was my jumping off point lyrically. The first line [Grey skies and streets] came from the chord changes and just the image that…
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POETS Day – Song Writing
I can’t really remember when I wrote this song but I do remember it took me ages! I’d heard the phrase POETS Day (Piss Off Early Tomorrows Saturday) from working on various building sites. I was always struck with the poetry of the phrase rubbing up against the harshness of its meaning. Also, I felt…
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Losing Streak – Song Writing
A couple of times in my life I’ve written about factories and blue collar working life (as Bruce Springsteen would describe it). Often it has taken me to be away from the environment I’m writing about in order to see it clearly. The same was true of this song… And so I sat with a…
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Growing Up – Song Writing
This is the first track of my EP Our Mate John. It was specifically written to be part of a group of songs I had about caravan factories, drinking in parks, manual labour and young love. The other songs had come organically and weren’t set up, unlike Growing Up which was written because I thought…
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Making an EP – Our Mate John
This five track EP was released in 2015, and as part of a series of blogs I’m pulling together I thought it might be fun to talk about how it was completed. I will try in some other blogs to go into some of the individual songs but I’ll try and stick with the overall…