Rehearsals… and a new song (maybe?)

I haven’t posted much in recent weeks, partly because I’ve been trying to clear the decks —at work and home — ahead of the summer holidays and the Abbey Road trip.

Although I haven’t rehearsed as much as I’d have liked (either alone or with the rest of the team), we did manage one session on 1st July with everyone based in Glasgow, minus James (on guitar). James and I are catching up on Monday coming and then Louis (percussion) and I are back in the rehearsal studio on Thursday. That’ll be the last rehearsal before we all pile into a van and take the big road trip south on Monday 26th… Abbey Road is beginning to feel close, though I can't quite shed the worry that Covid is somehow going to derail us… I guess — like everyone else — we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.

What did I learn from that one ‘band’ rehearsal? Quite a lot, on reflection. Although Louis, Donna and Jill are all friends, I still felt quite nervous — and I realised pretty quickly that I’m not at all used to making music with other people! That said, they were all very patient with me, and it helps so much to be working with people who are much more experienced and skilled than I am. I think it took me the better part of our first hour together to relax into it, even playing a song that is, by now, written deep in my muscle memory.

I was initially pre-occupied with getting the singing right; and, of course, it’s really hard to sing well when you’re tense — especially reaching for those high notes in the ‘big’ chorus. But by the end, the main technical issue was, as I had expected, related to tempo. I’ve never been very disciplined in trying to play to a click, either in rehearsals on my own or in making most of the live guitar+voice live recordings that I post on YouTube. As soon as you add other people into the mix though, that starts to matter a lot! Louis did some tempo mapping in our first couple of play-throughs and discovered I was slowing down quite a lot when I switch from finger-picking to chords (which is the opposite of what I thought I might be doing). So, I tried to focus hard for most of the rehearsal of keeping in time with his drumming; I certainly found that a lot easier and more natural than playing to a click, but even then, I didn't get it consistently right…

We also chatted about song arrangement. It’s hard to pin all of that down without James also being involved, so I don’t think it’s all going to ‘click’ until the rehearsal in London on the 26th, the day before we head into the studio. It helps that we have a decent recording of there last run-through, which I was able to send to James and Saskia to help them in their preparations.

To be honest though, the over-riding impression of the session was just the delight of making music with people — and with such talented people. Such a treat at any time, but after the year or so that we’ve all been through… The song seemed to come alive in their hands.

Amidst all the deck-clearing and rehearsing, I have managed to write one more short song — called ‘Slow Fuse’. This was written in a songwriting workshop with Chris Difford (of Squeeze) which was a prize for all those short-listed in the Talent is Timeless competition. Chris’s prompt was to get us thinking about ‘imagination’ and ‘imaginary friends’, and to reflect on childhood and creativity. We were also encouraged to try to write a song of no more than 2 mins 15 secs (a challenge that I failed…); and to tell a complete story within that constraint. I was reminded of an Emily Dickinson (1924: 1687, J) poem:

“The Possible’s slow fuse is lit

By the Imagination.”

Comments in the workshop with Trudi Brunskill — who, like me, has come to songwriting quite late in life — got me thinking about how my own creativity was, from quite a young age perhaps, subordinated to more academic pursuits and achievements. It was only a few years — and specifically in a prison workshop that Louis and Donna helped facilitate — that my creative imagination really sparked back into life. In other words, it was a very slow fuse indeed!

Anyway, you can listen to a very rough demo of the song here: https://soundcloud.com/user-57337486/slow-fuse

I’m honestly not sure whether or not it’s a ‘keeper’, so do let me know your thoughts either way. Also — by way of acknowledging my influences — the idea for the guitar part owes something to the Big Dish song ‘Where are you now?’: https://open.spotify.com/track/299WRiu3U9fGlziGK48oAN?si=9b24f15689654eeb

Lyrics

You lit a slow fuse, I didn't smell burning

I never saw flames or sparks

We lay on the pavement, watched the world turning 

Felt the beat of the human heart

I hid my head in the books, lost the light in the study

Drowning the spark in thought

I learned about love in too much of a hurry  

Somehow that voice got lost

Only now, the walls are falling

A barrier blowing down

Only now, I hear you calling

Imagine your voice out loud

I wasn’t looking for something, lost in a prison

Still somehow the ember glowed

In a room full of strangers, a moment of freedom  

I let the slow fuse explode 

Only now, the walls are falling

A barrier blowing down

Only now, I hear you calling

Imagine your voice out loud

You lit a slow fuse, I think I smell burning

I think I see flames and sparks.

(c) Fergus McNeill 2021