Well, it's fair to say my writing comes in fits and starts - for years nothing but a senile old dribble... Followed by a flood. Inspiration come from the strangest places as I'll explain.
For a while now, I've had a half written song on my PDA (a great device for songwriting as you can note down scraps in the same way as on scraps of paper but without the fear of throwing it away while tangled up with some parking receipt). This song was titled "The Drowning Pool"... But more of that later. Possibly the biggest hurdle for me writing is I think I'm past the "moon, soon, balloon", "I love you, love me, love you" kind of phase in my life where songs are written to impress girls - although if any girls are impressed by recent offerings, BONUS!
What started me off again following "It Can't Rain All The Time" was the above picture. This is from an Alchemy Gothic t-shirt I just had to buy on eBay. The scene depicts the Absynthe Fairy. Thus I came up with the title "Absynthia" Now, my motive for this is not airy fairy abstract, I am particularly partial to Absynthe on occasion, although a night on Absynthe is a weird experience!! First you experience a liquid fire quite unlike any other alcohol, then your system becomes numbed to the burn, then you get drunk VERY quickly... But the weirdest thing of all is that the wormwood content kicks in and your mind does weird things - particularly when you stagger to sleep. "Absynthia" is about all that - a marrying of the strange experience of being utterly pissed on Paris's finest and an echo back to the Bohemian era of the early 20th Century. Slainthe! Once the words started to flow, coupled with non stop listening of the new Abel Ganz album "Shooting Albatross", I realised this song should actually be a journey. In conclusion, the concept is in my head and it looks like about a 20 minute piece of work.
Next up, let's go back to "The Drowning Pool". The theme of this song is that of a young woman accused of witchcraft in the dark ages. The lyric takes us through the kind of scene as she is led to her death. The question is, is she innocent or guilty? I don't know, does she weigh the same as a duck (obscure Monty Python - Holy Grail reference). Hopefully this one won't be quite as long - equally, hopefully I can add touches such as the brilliant Stevie Lawrence & Fiona Cuthill elements of "Shooting Albatross".
The final completed lyric again has a tenuous link to the mighty Ganz. I had the pleasure of being at the recent launch of Albatross at Stereo in Renfield Lane, Glasgow back at the end of March. As I stood outside in the lane, I pondered how strange a quirk it was in my home city that, joining all the major thoroughfares, are small cobbled lanes. Through a combination of Taggart episodes and watching late night revellers pass the end of the lane on Union Street, Renfield Street and suchlike, they could be completely unaware of anyone in the lane. Or even a body perhaps... So, while my wife was waiting (fruitlessly) to hurl herself out of a plane at 10,000ft, I put together this lyric - pretty quickly really... The story goes of a young woman dying in such a lane in a city centre. It is taken from a first person perspective but given no indication that the person is dead. On reading back the lyric, what I think I can do with this is (1) treat it as almost a follow up to Pallas's "The Ripper" but (2) with the news report section at the end, make it the same theme as Paul Kelly's brilliant "Dreamaway" by Abel Ganz.
Now the hard part - how to record them (and come up with another 3 or 4 to make an album).
Oh yeah, and complete the couple of The Shine lyrics Andy and I have been jointly working on...
