A kind of (sonic) introduction

I’ve started this blog because I’m about to have a strange (and hopefully wonderful) experience…

In the ‘About’ section of the site, I’ve already said a little about how and why I got into song-writing. Last year, in August, that interest took me along (though only online, alas) to the Glasgow Songwriting Festival (https://www.glasgowsongwritingfest.com/) — an annual event organised by Scottish musician Findlay Napier.

As well as meeting and learning from brilliant musicians, I had the good fortune to be placed in a group with a wonderful bunch of fellow learners… One among them was Cath Harney. We all kept in touch — swapping songs and stories — in the months that followed and Cath encouraged me to enter a new, ‘age-positive, national songwriting competition for the over-50s, called ‘Talent is Timeless [TisT]’ (https://www.talentistimeless.com).

To cut a long story short, I won the competition with a song called ‘Bloodrush’ (more of which later). The main prize is that I get to record the song at Abbey Road this summer. I think that this weird and wonderful turn of events needs to be captured somehow. So my plan is to blog about each stage in the process of arranging, recording, producing and releasing the song.

Being part of (and supported by) the online community associated with the competition has also helped me develop a bit more confidence in sharing songs I’ve written, so I’m also using this site (and this blog) to do that.

And, as it happens, I recently recorded an older song of mine (from 2014, I think) which works pretty well as an introduction to me and my songwriting. Indeed, my anthropologist friend Alison Phipps tells me this song is a bit like a Māori ‘pepeha’; meaning, a story that serves as an introduction, locating the teller in time and place.

The lyrics of ‘Shoemaker’s Son’ are based on genealogical research that I did when I was about 20 or 21; I spent a day in National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh, tracing my paternal line. Later, I visited the places associated with the ancestors I discovered — mostly on the west coast of Kintyre.

Last year, in the first Covid-19 lockdown, I spent a very enlightening hour (online) with the renowned Orcadian folk musician Kris Drever, who sometimes offers ‘guitar hangouts’ (i.e. tuition). Rather than focusing on guitar-playing, I had sent Kris this song in advance and asked him to help me improve and arrange it.

For the songwriters among you, Kris changed the song structure from ABABABAB, to AAB-AAB-AB, and suggested the addition of brief instrumental breaks. He also suggested a change of title (since the original title gave too much away, and he thought it better to let the listener discover the story in the listening).

I set up a very basic and very uncomfortable recording studio in my cellar — just one microphone (Rode NT1A) and a load of DIY sound insulation. I recorded three or four takes of the song (with guitar and vocal recorded simultaneously) and sent those off to Jamie Savage, who mixed and mastered the track.

So, if you want to know where (and who) I’m coming from, all you need to do is listen to this:

https://soundcloud.com/user-57337486/shoemakers-son

Lyrics

My father was a shoemaker on the old farm at Beacharr

He worked beside a standing stone raised centuries before

They married in the new church, the year was 1789

And I have stood right where they stood – above the water line

My father was a labourer on the fields of west Kintyre

But work was hard to come by, though he struggled and he tried

He married twice, for love or need, he rests in a pauper’s grave

But many children bear his name, both sides of Atlantic waves

My father was an iron-driller, in the yards at Campbelltown

He moved east to Glasgow, that’s where we settled down

A working man of working men, and the rock on which we built,

He knew the worth of learning, but his dreams were unfulfilled

My father was a blind man, and music was his gift

He struggled for utopia in 1926

They found love through Esperanto, because they both believed in peace

And raised a son to share their dreams, he passed them on to me

Now I am the father, to a daughter and a son

I know life will bring to them the same trials I’ve begun

We may never see the victory, never reach the promised land

But we’ll walk that way in unity; we’ll travel hand in hand.

Credits

Words, music, guitar and vocal by Fergus McNeill.

Mixed and mastered by Jamie Savage.

All rights reserved. (c) Fergus McNeill 2020