Song and a Chat

Episode #214:  Trust To Receive.   (Song starts at 7:12)

Hi there &  welcome to another episode. Here we are, looking at another song again, in a ‘songwriter speaks’ style  – inclusive, casual fun, entertaining.… this time it’s Trust To Receive, song #105. Composed in 1989!

Again this week, this song popped into my mind. I knew it was in the ‘green book’ (my 1st old book of handwritten songs)…as an experiment, I held the book upside down and back to front, flicked the pages once – and it opened, sure enough – on Trust To Receive. Amazing, to me. Go figure. I take it as a...

Episode #213: Revolving Door  (Song starts at 5:42)

I’d completely forgotten about song #453, from 1999, Revolving Door. Well, it isn’t 1999 now! The years have certainly whizzed by.

The great thing about being a songwriter (or doing any creative activity) is, it gets you ‘in the moment’ – the moment where your sense of self is put a side somehow. You are so focussed on your art, you’ve let go completely. In that moment you’re inspired.

A song becomes a document of a series of moments like this, it’s a magic, slightly altered...

Episode #212: New World Dawning  (Song starts at 6:22)

I really enjoyed writing song #207, New World Dawning, back in 1992.

The lines ‘I never thought I’d cry tears You can buy at the chemist’ Were never going to shake the foundations of anyone’s world, but that was my opening gambit (I was talking about the saline solution I used with my contact lenses). Undeterred, I carried on.

The words came and they lead on to an expansive sort of a world view. A world that felt like it was yet to exist: a world o...

Episode #211:  Got Away On Me Again  (song starts at 4:02).

Welcome to another episode. Picture me sitting at my piano, with the microphone on. Before me I have my songbooks. I’ve picked out a song Got Away On Me Again (Song # 663, written in 2017).

Yes, I have a song to sing, which is nice to be able to present and talk about. I’ve written quite a few over the years. It’s nice to have them up my sleeve. The real pleasure has been the time spent creating them.

There’s a line in...

Episode #210: Forever  (Song starts at 4:20)

I went outside tonight, just before I recorded this episode. The stars are incredible aren’t they? Infinite. Makes you realise how insignificant we are, really.

I like to think we all count. We all made up part of the universe.

Those sorts of big thoughts are the sorts of things I was thinking when I wrote Forever, song#85.

It was 1988. I had a gig at the ski fields in New Zealand. I was playing the piano and singing in the evenings. Apart from thi...

Episode #209:  A Certain Kind Of  (Song starts at 4:41 )

This song, #213, is in a different style to the piano vocal ones that have made up the bulk of the songs featured on this podcast. It was written in 1992 by myself and with Paul Dredge on guitar. So it’s a guitar + voices song.

Writing with Paul, when we are in the same room, is great fun. Having had a brief chat about the lyrics, what sort of mood style might suit, Paul will start playing a riff or some chords on his acoustic guitar. I ha...

Episode #208: Country Gentleman Jack (song starts at 4:30)

Back in 1993, I was the piano man at Wairakei resort, in New Zealand’s north island, near Taupo – beautiful place.

Outside of my regular entertainment in the restaurant hours, I wrote songs like this one: Country Gentleman Jack, song #319.

As part of the contract, I was also hired to play piano vocal music for conventions. One particular calm winters evening, I found myself in the scene, playing away, equal parts lost in the music and also keeping an eye the patrons, making sure what I’m...

Episode #207: Better Late Than Never    (Song starts at 4:30)

This song (#659), came about back in 2017.  I was on my way to work and there was a bit of difficulty getting there, due to the public transport not exactly running smoothly.

I was off to teach piano for the day ( I’ve been a piano teacher now for probably about 15 years. I teach as a contractor in a primary school. I teach 24 private lessons in 2 fairly intense days (I’m working steadily on video courses. More on this later).

Anyway, on this particular cold wi...

Episode #206:  Whirlpool (Song starts at 5:20)

I enjoyed recording a demo for this episode. It’s such good fun when I do this. It occurs to me as I write these show notes, it’s been a great way to archive some old songs (and of course putting them together with a show that gives them a context.

A context? Con : more than one. Text: story.

That’s one of the things that makes a song interesting and engaging. That over used word the ‘back story’… I guess that’s actually a step on from th...

Episode #205:  Piece This Star Together (Song starts at 4.45)

I find it endlessly fascinating, thinking about where a song might come from. ‘Piece This Star Together’ came from something my grandfather, Harry, said. My mum passed it on to me, when I was a youngster (bit of wisdom, I think):

‘We’ve all got a little piece of the star within us all and we’ve just got to piece this star together’.

It resonated in me and it remained in me. Years later, in Melbourne, Australia in 1998, the phrase/ concept popped into my mind...