A second go

In 1969, as a fourteen year old schoolboy, I read Hunter Davies’s official biography of The Beatles. What struck me about it was that they were basically ordinary people, who had succeeded in doing something that was extra ordinary. So I thought, if they can write songs, then maybe I can do it. I knew I had some musical ability, I got it from my mother, but at this point in my life, I had no idea what to do with it.

 As a young man, I enjoyed long walks, and would play around with tunes in my head. They were usually takeoffs of someone I admired. I remember for instance producing a 10CC song. None of these songs were remembered or recorded; they just existed for a moment, then were gone. But, I realised that I had some sort of talent, though what it was, I wasn’t sure. I’d also started to teach myself to play guitar, and, inevitably, there were some early attempts at song writing. They ranged from the completely pathetic, to the slightly promising.

 It took me decades to find out how to write good songs. I got more serious about in it my forties, though I was mostly seen as a plucky contender. ‘Your lyrics are good,’ said someone. (What’s wrong with the tunes? I thought.) ‘Do you only write in rhyming couplets?’ said a former producer.  I kept going. I joined a guitar class and I joined a musicians co-operative. I went to open mic things, and however hesitantly, I started recording myself.

 I only really off the ground when someone told me that there was a chap called Davie Munro in Evanton, who might let me record some of my songs. Some twenty years later, I am still recording with Davie as my producer and enabler. With his encouragement I have improved; no-one laughs at my songs any more, I generally get good reactions. I’m not a fabulous musician, but I am an artist. For me, any kind of writing is exploring what is possible, while grounding it in experiences that most folk can relate to.

 The CD ‘Foreverly’ is a compendium of my best songs of the past decade. There are songs of joy and songs of self loathing, and of many points in between. I think what the album is mainly about are the mid life uncertainties that many of us have in the early 21st century. I have recently written a new song called; ‘Trying to find a way back to you,’ and I realised, almost instantly, that the voice is that of an old man. My song writing is changing again. But ‘Foreverly’ is a celebration of mid life muddle, and I commend it to you.