SPOTTISWOODE

IT WASN’T IN THE SCRIPT
The fact that a feature script of mine was significantly changed by a Hollywood director only days before shooting began is entirely irrelevant. Honest. The fact that life never turns out exactly as planned… that’s what this is about. To add insult to injury, my daughter Sophie Lee sings the “na na na” part. Seems appropriate. Hats off to Brian Geltner for his monster drumming.

It wasn’t in the script for that loser to be me
I’m either ready nor equipped for my date with destiny

PRAYER #1
My favourite recording on the album and not just because it’s a duet with my daughter. It’s so easy to take everything we have for granted. And so hard not to get frustrated when life doesn’t go the way we want. This is a simple song/prayer I wrote in an attempt to cultivate a sense of gratitude.

I remember just as we were about to record the tune I overheard the other musicians grumbling about the music business. I laughed and reminded them what the song was about. A few seconds later Drew Hart (bass) and Kenny White (Fender Rhodes) improvised a duet which became the gorgeous intro. More reasons to be grateful.

And then a wonderful thing happened in post-production. When mixing engineer extraordinaire Michael Scherchen sent me his first stab at a mix I didn’t like the way the drums sounded. No disrespect to Brian Geltner but they killed the tenderness of the song. I wondered if it had something to do with the compression Michael might have put on the kit - a common mixing technique. I asked Michael to send me a mix with the compression rolled off but I also asked for an alternate mix with the drums only joining the song towards the end.

A few days later Michael sent me the new mixes. I listened first to the mix with just the compression rolled off the drums. It sounded fantastic. Had Michael sent me this mix in the first place I would never have asked for an alternate. Then I listened to the mix with the drums coming in later. It sounded even better! Thank you.

OLD MAN AT THE STATION
This is the longest song I’ve ever recorded. Maybe I should have put it later in the sequence but I’m an emotional bloke and this is an emotional album. It’s a tune about meeting my daughter and her mother as they get off the train at Paddington Station.

Over the course of my life I’ve experienced my fair share of romantic railway station arrivals and departures. Still, there is nothing more romantic than catching your young daughter as she runs to greet you. Hats off to Drew Hart for chugging along with the driving 80s bass line and to Martha Redbone for bringing extra soul to the Lennonesque coda.

Oh, What A Beautiful World
I wrote this shortly before lockdown but it made more sense when I performed it just after. The catchiest tune on the album and a definite candidate for opening number but it didn’t quite set up the theme.

Also the only song with Farfisa organ. It comes in on the second chorus. A pleasant surprise to me. All thanks to a late night studio session at Brooklyn Pearl which I didn’t attend. Hats off to producer Peter Fox and keyboard sensation Kenny White.

WHEN I’M WTH YOU
This is the first proper song I wrote about my daughter, Sophie Lee, which is why it’s always felt like the heart of the album to me. I composed the melody when she was two. During that time my mother passed away. Unusually for me it took several months to complete the lyrics.

I’m a washed up rock and roller
I played a season in hell
Now I’m pushing a stroller
Along the Regents Canal

JUST AS WE PLANNED
I’m usually such a glass-half-empty person but as I sat at the piano and played these chords I believed every word I sang. I loved writing it. It even includes a homage to Roger Hargreaves’ popular Little Miss series that my daughter still adores. Another tune for her, this time from the optimistic father I’d like to be.

Be strong be strong
We’ll love you forever
Little Miss Beautiful
Little Miss Clever

THE BULLET’S COMING
Brian Geltner adds extra levels of noir to this morbid ditty with some Marxophone and Mellotron during the spooky instrumental.

I needed to lose one song from the vinyl version of the record because the sound degrades if there’s too much music on each side. This is the tune I decided to cut. It’s all the more heartbreaking because Clare Elliott’s design for the back cover looks so good. It would work even better with this song title on the album sleeve.

Midst the confusion have no illusion
You can be sure of one thing
The bullet

I’M A WORRIER
A documentary ditty about an anxious singer-songwriter. While I was writing the lyrics on my sunny balcony my then four-year-old-daughter really did tell me to relax.

But I still didn’t think it was a song. I only had the words. I sent the lyrics to Kenny White. A few days later he sent me the chords and melody. Easy. Nothing to worry about at all.

My four-year-old daughter told me to relax
While she bludgeoned my with an inflatable axe

THROUGH THE SHADOWS
Leonard Cohen meets The Byrds.

Another song about a journey with my daughter over Primrose Hill except this time she’s older. Instead of me pushing her in her stroller I’m now chasing her as she zooms off on her scooter. We shot the video a few years later. I could still just about lift her.

Shout-out to Brian Geltner for the brilliant employment of castanets as part of the percussion track.

IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING
I composed this tune during a frustrating time in my life. Problems everywhere. Murphy’s Law on steroids. One night I decided I needed to write a song to vent my anger. The title of the tune would be It’s Always Something. The next afternoon I sat at the piano and heard myself play a pretty five-note melody. I searched for some words to go with it and remembered my song title. Except there was nothing angry about the music. I had the complete opposite. A love song.

YOU THINK TOO MUCH
Words to live by. A fun call-and-response ditty either at a live gig or in the studio with my daughter.

Also the perfect excuse to bask in the sunshine of Kenny White’s ludicrous piano-playing.

The qualities you’re proud of
May cause envy and alarm
The ones you are ashamed of
May be the ones that bring you charm

SUMMER DAY
I’m not Ray Charles, I’m not James Brown, nor am I Leonard Cohen. Still, I needed some composite of the three of them to get this tune across the line. I tried my best. With a little help at the end from the amazing Martha Redbone.

I don’t know when it began
But I’m a happy man
I’m gonna savour every drop
Don’t let it stop
Refill this cup
Lift me up!
Don’t go round that mountaintop

Summer day don’t go away
Fill this memory with light
Summer day I wish you’d stay
I’m not ready for the night