My Father’s Trees – the story behind the song
There is a stretch of road below Wittenham Clumps in what now Oxfordshire (originally Berkshire and I consider myself a Berkshire Kid) where my father planted a row of poplars…
Edinburgh
The Factory – the story behind the song
In the 1940s men would regularly bicycle from Didcot and local villages to the Oxford car plants. This is my song about their early morning rides in convoy which especially…
Road is a River – Story behind the song
Strange one this. I have lyrics for all the other songs but not this one. Maybe a one off recording. Fairly minimal and quite sad. The road is a river…
Room 22 – The story behind the song
My homage to a unjustly neglected band The Vulgar Boatmen who I discovered in the early 1990s. They also drew on Velvet Underground but with an academic (lead singer a…
Where Two Rivers Meet (Mary’s Dream) – The story behind the song
Whilst living in Edinburgh I attended the first year of a evening course in Scottish Cultural Studies. Tutors included Murdo Mac Donald and Cairns Craig and I met Robert Alan…
Black Tin Barns – the story behind the song
As a child they were all around but as developers moved in they faded away..the last ones behind my grandfather’s house now being turned into an Eco Museum for Trees!…
Prodigal Son – the story behind the song
Another play with classic americana themes. Here the black-sheep boy returning home. Based on people I knew in Didcot very loosely. Some added harmonica and guitar. One of the strange…
The Devil’s Address – the story behind the song
Well my mother’s father and my uncle were both truck drivers all their lives but I don’t drive which kind of sad considering how many times driving features in my…
Man with no name – The story behind the song
‘Unknown man with my step-grandfather’ Photograph Long Wittenham 1920s. Aubrey my step-grandfather is on the right. This song goes way back. Probably mid 1980’s in first version . This 1995…
These Three Rooms – The story behind the song
A love song to poverty or those three rooms in South Edinburgh..our tiny flat…we somehow survived two years in and were still together. It took Oxford and a bigger flat…