Song and a Chat

Episode #227: The Prettiest Picture (Song starts at 5:14) I wrote this song for my mother (Mum), back in 1987 {!). I remember like it was yesterday. It was Mother’s Day, in the morning and I’d remembered. I like to give some sort of an original gift, so I thought I’ll paint mum a picture. Yes, I thought I would come up with something suitable in a couple of hours, rock around to Mum’s house in the afternoon and deliver it. Unfortunately the painting just didn’t come together. It wasn’t up to

Episode #226: The Smallest Of Dreams (Song starts at 3:47) I found a quite extensive amount of audio of me composing this one. So I’ve included some of it on this episode. As I listened back to the process of the smallest of dreams coming together, I found it fascinating. Often songs come together quickly for me. This one was different. Each time I picked the song up, and gently sung it through, it seemed a new bit revealed itself each time. Even if what I was playing didn’t seem to be heading

Episode #225: One More Cup (Song starts at 4:27) As usual, I thoroughly enjoyed producing this episode. Earlier this evening, I had a feeling I had some recordings of myself composing One More Cup – somewhere on one of my hard drives… By some sort of miracle, I managed to locate the snippets of audio. I put them all together on a timeline and as I recorded this episode, I listened to each new section in turn, much as the listener would do, discovering what I got up to. I found it at times sur

Episode #224: Old Horse Grey (Song starts at 3:45 ) There’s a state of mind you get into when you’re doing something creative like writing a song lyric, composing the accompanying music & arranging the instruments during the recording process. You’re right in the moment. Honouring what you’ve already created, you’re asking constant questions to guide you to what’s next. The questions come from feeling. And the answers just seem to appear and fall into place like they were meant to be. Welcome

Episode #223: Changing Times (Song starts at 4:18 ) The featured song on this episode is song #7 on the album ‘River Walking’, by Paul Dredge and myself. At the time of recording this episode, the album has not long been out and I’m working my way through the songs. I’ve actually skipped one in the sequence the song ‘Gone Too Soon’ is song #6 on the album. I’ve already recorded an episode featuring this song (do a search on the platform you listen to your podcasts to and you’ll find it – or fo

Episode #222: River Walking (Song starts at 4.22) This song is the title track of the album by the same name, by Paul Dredge and myself. It was fun looking back to see how ‘River Walking’ came together. Although it was written in sections, by 2 people, in a sort of a call and answer style (which we do, as we’ve lived in different countries for some time). We send the sections online back and forth. I think the finished song sounds like it was written by one person. It’s an example of how much