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Bardishish
Whitby Lifeboat
2020: Sleeve notes
Image “Under the wing of St Mary’s church, Whitby”. Reproduced with kind permission of the Sutcliffe Gallery, Whitby: http://www.sutcliffe-gallery.co.uk
The Album: it all started with garageband and lockdown. No, actually I need to go back a little further. In December 2019 I went into Ant MacAndrew’s studio to record “I think its going to rain”. I had always struggled to sing it and Ant had agreed to record the vocals for me. As it was I struggled to hit the click track and he ended up recording alost all of it with me watching in admiration. Listening to his songs on the album (this one, “Don’t let the bastards get you down” and “This is the last time that I cry”) I love his efficient production, with each part working in harmony. The latter tracks were recorded by Ant alone in lockdown, with me sending him the words, chords and a rough sketch of my idea. Critiquing my first attempt at production, that is evidently not my way. If we are ever listening to “Whitby Lifeboat” (the track) together, you may be listening to the words whilst I may be listening to the 6th layer of guitar.
Anyway, back to garageband. For several years I have used a recording package at home and some of these efforts are still available on soundcloud but I was never happy with them. My friend, collaborator on the album and spare harmonica player Kev bought an iPad and started sending me his recordings, which sounded fantastic. By the way, every musician needs at least two harmonica players. It may sound harsh but be in no doubt they will be playing in several bands at any one time. I bought myself an iPad and started working through the back catalogue. Eventually I learned the vital skill of playing to a click track or drum beat, essential for using the automatic drummers on garageband. A song took about a day and I quickly had about 20 recorded. Whilst COVID and lockdown happened at about this time, this was probably coincidental. It gave me a ready excuse to spend time doing what I would have been doing anyway.
Given that live music had disappeared, I decided that I would make an album and picked 10 tracks. Ant’s recordings were an obvious choice. Beyond that, I wanted to ensure a mixture of speeds and themes but the choice was otherwise fairly random. There is more to come….
The guitar tracks are real, as are some of the bass and keyboard tracks. A 3 chord keyboard sequence could require 20 takes or more and a melody could take even more. This would not have been affordable in a professional studio. The other instruments were produced my me pressing the screen (often quite a lot) in garageband; percussion, keyboards, strings and the erhu on “Can you hear the wind blow”.
I was struggling for an album title but fate intervened. I found the picture as a postcard in one of mum’s own scrapbooks.
The best days of our lives
A rare direct reference to COVID 19 lockdown and a new love of F#.
In the morning in town or in suburbia
Go downstairs reach for the proverbial
Cup of tea along with toast or cereal
Either or both the detail’s immaterial
These are the best days of our lives
In the morning just as day is breaking
In the trees all the birds are waking
The sun is peeping through early morning mist
Listen to the singing get the joyful gist
These are the best days of our lives
They are the best days of our lives
They’re the only ones we’ve got
The past is just a memory the future who knows what
So just enjoy the ride
Don’t overanalyse
Enjoy the best days of our lives
Go outside create some pandemonium
Learn to play the bagpipes or euphonium
Never mind if anyone’s complaining
Don’t hold back there’s no use in restraining
These are the best days of our lives
Meet a stranger swear in the vernacular
If it don’t get a rise go for the spectacular
Light the fuse and go and launch that rocket
Or smoke that home rolled joint in your pocket
These are the best days of our lives
They are the best days of our lives….
If you can’t get a hug because of social distance then
Just give a smile and build up your resistance and
Don’t be fey don’t make like you’re eschewing them
Please enquire ask them how they’re doing
These are the best days of our lives
For an entertainer or practising musician
Don’t forget they’re not on a commission
If something moves you or if there’s someone funny
Don’t pass by but give them loads of money
These are the best days of our lives
They are the best days of our lives….
Don’t let the bastards get you down
Before this event, I only ever had third party car insurance. One December morning I was driving to work on the Lincoln bypass (let’s be colloquial). It was about 6:30 and I was probably on auto-pilot. On a clear road, the car ahead of me decided to pull an emergency stop 20 yards short of the roundabout. I realised too late and went into the back of her. The driver said she was feeling dizzy. I got both cars off the road and waited with her some time for an ambulance to arrive, reassuring her as we waited.
Feeling virtuous, I called my insurance company from work at lunchtime. It was fine until I got to the bit where I said she was feeling dizzy. At this point, everything became my fault (I don’t think she should have even been driving!). Esure paid her expenses and I lost my no claims bonus. After driving my car for a few days I took it in for repairs only to be told that it would cost more to repair than the value of the car (it had done 120,000 miles). I was very angry until I wrote this song. Songwriting as catharsis; I can recommend it. I have comprehensive insurance now.
Ant recorded this himself in lockdown and his version was surprisingly upbeat. My own version (to follow) packs more venom!
I’m standing on top of a vertical cliff and looking down at the floor
And I think of my life and I wonder what if I couldn’t stand it any more
Just one little step and I’m floating on air
And I’d be the talk of the town
But inside my head a voice cries out don’t let the bastards get you down
I’m standing alone at the edge of the world and I call to the wind and the seas
And wondering how a slip of a girl could bring me down to my knees
One little pill would be all that it takes to help me to my final bow
But inside my head a voice cries out don’t let the bastards get you down
Don’t let the bastards get you down (x2)
Face the slings and arrows, be of high renown
Don’t let the bastards get you down
I’m walking along a very long cave and looking out for the door
To my right and left lie the unmarked graves of those who’ve travelled before
I could lie down for a very long sleep and no-one would know where I’d gone
But inside my head a voice cries out don’t let the bastards get you down
I’m seated in front of a Kafkaesque face and wondering what I’m to do
I shout and I rage, I stamp and I pace, but nothing seems to get through
One little bomb of an Acme design and I’d be the talk of the town
But inside my head a voice cries out don’t let the bastards get you down
Don’t let the bastards….
DWP Blues
Tuning GADGBD (open G)
In 2016 Conservative member of Parliament and former leader Ian Duncan Smith left the Department of Work and Pensions after a sustained attack on the most vulnerable in society. The result was a mean, petty system designed to punish benefit claimants in whatever way it could. A series of hoops were created, often defying logic. A person not attending a benefit interview could have their benefits stopped for several weeks. Illness, hospital appointments, cancelled buses and even proper job interviews could trip someone up. With almost no savings, they were forced into poverty, theft and food banks. People started to die; malnutrition, suicide and other illnesses. The DWP always refused to investigate and denied any link.
Unfortunately, it was not the end of IDS’ career. Not satisfied with making life a misery for the most vulnerable, he helped give us Brexit, another logic defying act which will punish a whole nation for decades.
Gather round, gather round, have you heard the news
Found his conscience under a rock, no wonder we’re confused
Ian Duncan Smith after six long years
Has the DWP blues
He presided over misery, bullying and bigotry
Since the day that he arrived
He’s introduced analysis to practices of callousness
Against the most deprived
Though the link is convoluted and the arguments disputed
It seems some of them have died
It’s hard, oh so hard, to make sure you don’t loose
At interview, or in a queue, it isn’t an excuse
If you have a melanoma or in fact you’re in a coma
You’ll have the DWP blues
They trundle out the platitudes and they all take the attitude
They really aren’t to blame
Their purposes are laudable, generous and applaudable
The suffering is a shame
In the end what will matter al-though the damage that’s collateral
Justifies the final aim
Are you hungry, are you cold, living under the stars
Watch your neighbours from afar
In hermetically sealed cars
And the food bank’s just run out of champagne and caviar
They take each opportunity to act with an impunity
That really isn’t right
If asked about benevolence they spit with a malevolence
How do they sleep at night
So come the revolution we will douse them all in hooch and set the lot alight
The last time that I cry
Tuning EADEAE
Loosely based on the experiences of my grandparents who lived through world war 2. Mum’s dad, Frank, was a signalman in India and never spoke of his experiences. Dad’s dad, Ron, was on the anti-aircraft guns at Dover during the Battle of Britain. He later served in the Africa campaign and followed the fighting at the end of the war through Belgium into Germany at the end of the war. He did tell stories about the war, although he died when I was six so I do not remember any first hand.
In 1941 Ron was repatriated to north Wales for officer training and his wife Jessie was allowed to join him. She said that they had a lovely time and when she came home she was pregnant with my dad. It took me years to understand fully what she meant. The song is based on me imagining their meetings and partings at railway stations. Other than that, the two stories are muddled, the date of Frank’s death is wrong (although not deliberately so) and nobody tried to commit suicide (although Jessie did suffer with depression in her later years). In short, artistic license is given a free rein.
The song was recorded by Ant McAndrew in his studio in Newark. He had already been putting the finishing touches to “I think its going to rain” when COVID 19 struck. In lockdown, Ant and many other musicians lost their livelihood overnight. I negotiated a rate for Ant to produce one song a month for me. The working title of the album was “Value Added”. I picked songs for Ant like this one where I struggled to reach the higher notes, giving me the greatest value added…..
This is the last time that I cry
The last time that I shed a tear before I say “goodbye”
I’ve got this sinking feeling welling up inside
And if I’m not back tomorrow then you know the reason why
This is the last time that I cry, the last time that I cry
Standing on the platform, waiting for the train
Got my one way ticket and my suitcase full of pain
Ain’t no Celia Johnson moment waiting down the line
This train is right on time
This is the last time…
Standing on the platform 1939
Wearing brand new stocking, lips as red as wine
Waiting for that tide of khaki coming down the line
This train is right on time
Swept up off the platform gathered in his arms
Covered by his kisses smothered by his charms
I know that he’s a soldier and he’ll heed the call to arms
This train is right on time
This is the….
Waiting with the children 1945
Looking gaunt and dowdy glad to be alive
Listen for the whistle as the soldier boys arrive
This train is right on time
Standing by the platform staring at his face
Eyes betray a story the stolen word can trace
I feel a fog between us in a world I can’t quite place
This train is right on time
This is the….
Standing by his graveside 1983
Dwarfed by ghosts and shadows wrapped in memories
Watch the world around you as it turns defiantly
This train is right on time
Lazing on the sofa gazing at the fire
Erasing all the memories as the medicine creeps higher
It’s time to go and join him at the station to the pyre
This train is right on time
This is the last time that I grieve
The last time that I take a bow before I take my leave
As I face the final curtain my heart is on my sleeve
If you see me tomorrow then its only makebelieve
This is the last time that I grieve
A pub right next door
I used to live in North Hykeham and the Poachers brewery was two doors away in some adapted outbuildings. A few years ago the owner, George, built a small pub in their back garden. I could see the top of the wooden wall from my garden and, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, I thought it was a pig sty. George opens the pub every Friday and the clientele is drawn from a small area so a friendly welcome is guaranteed.
I’m an upstanding member of my community
I’ll put my name forward at each opportunity
If you want something running then I’ll volunteer
But that was before the beer
You see there’s a pub now that’s next door to me
So now I’m there most every Friday
And now my liver is screaming “no more”
Since you opened a pub right next door
George, George please sell me no beer
And please move the Poachers a long way from here
Down a deep well or the end of a pier
I just cannot stand any more
Since you opened a pub right next door
Well a pint of the Shy Talk will slip down just fine
And a pint of the Billy Boy is better than wine
Now I’ve decided to make a career
Of sampling every new beer
I’m there when it opens and at last orders
I’ve neglected my veg plot and my flower borders
And now my liver is screaming “no more”
Since you opened a pub right next door
There’s a lovely beer garden for when it is hot
And there’s the bar for when it is not
There’s music and darts and there’s football
On a TV that’s almost as big as the wall
To get myself banned I’ll commit an atrocity
I’ll spin your dog round by its tail at velocity
I’ll run amok through the pub with a spear
And then I’ll be free of the beer
Then I can resume my place in society
I’ll be a picture of health and sobriety
My liver and me are talking once more
Farewell to the pub right next door
The Devil’s Band
This was a backlash against myself, or at least against a song that I wrote. The other song (not on the album) was mystical, perhaps quasi-religious. To purge myself, I contemplated what would happen if the Devil had a blues band….
I was born in a church on a dark night in December
They say it was a terrible storm
I was raised by a priest and seven drunken nuns
I guess my mother didn’t want me born
I was taught by a strap to fear god and the bible
My guitar was the only peace I found
And that is why on the first possible occasion
I left my home to join the Devil’s band
One fateful day I stumbled on a house
It had no windows and no doors
I don’t know how but I found myself within
A pulsing bass ripped through the floor
Then the drums kicked in and a wailing violin
It’s like the space for me was planned
I picked up my guitar and followed where they led me
And that is how I joined the devil’s band
The devil has the best tunes
‘cause he has the Rolling Stones
Saxon, Iron Maiden and the Damned
And he doesn’t ask for payment except your mortal soul
And that is why I joined the Devil’s band
The horn section comes from a club in New Orleans
They play every Thursday at eight
And the mums who lend their voices to a tabernackle choir
Bore their asses at the Pearly gates
But the devil drew a line when it came to Ginger Baker
It seems there’s some evil he can’t stand
And the string section plays the entire works of Wagner
They’re the evil heart of the Devil’s band
For now I am playing in the greatest blues band ever
I don’t know how long it will last
I know that at the final curtain I’ll be going down to hell
My future’s much more certain than my past
I traded my soul to play G augmented seventh
To have the crowd at my command
And adoring fans ask me if it’s worth forgoing heaven
To spend my life in the Devil’s band
I’ll go to sea no more
Dad always had a love of boats and the water and worked his way up from a home made canoe, through a mirror dinghy (which he famously found himself becalmed, without oars and covered in thunder flies in Filey bay) to small cruisers. Eventually he bought a cruised with a keel that was capable of going to sea. He started doing navigation courses and getting the boat “ship shape” to launch into the wash. He was by this time in his sixties, overweight, with a knee replacement and not particularly steady on his feet even on land. The small boat rocked alarmingly whenever he moved. We had visions of his first trip to sea also being his last. Mum set a family policy of “non-encouragement”; we never discouraged any sea related activities but we showed minimal interest when he told us of his progress. Eventually he sold the boat and I wrote this song to mark the event.
It didn’t take him long to get the bug again and buy another boat but this had a shallow keel and he was happy cruising on the Witham (it was latterly moored at Southrey and then the Brayford Pool Lincoln) or mainly just sitting on it, watching television and making bacon sandwiches. I sold it for a pittance when dad went into hospital. It was now moored on Lincoln marina and quite dishevelled. The harbour master seemed to imply that it might “infect” the nice shiny boats he was trying to encourage and I was on the cusp of keeping it just to annoy him.
My name is Jack Hardy I’ve sailed from every harbour
Twixt Flamborough Head and Filey, Bridlington and Scarborough
I’ve crewed on every fishing boat, captained every trawler
Spent my days upon the water
Across the North Sea, I’ve sailed in every weather
From slate grey seas and metal skies to the teeth of a Sou’ Wester
I’ve pulled in ropes in icy rain that’s chilled me to the core
Now I’ll go to sea no more
All my days I’ve chased the shoals of herring
Through fog and haze where no man can find his bearing
I went to Iceland, fought the cod was for the nation
Now there’s someone at my station
The sea’s my owner, my friend and my provider
With the Pole Star over, I’ve laid my head beside her
I’ve landed my catch be-fore you are out the door
Now I’ll go to sea no more
My friends go with me, they sail beside me
When trouble’s knocking, I know they’ll hide me
They’ve been with me through the tears and laughter
But there’s no happy ever after
I’m never lonely, we are united
When I’m far from home and the catch is blighted
But now I’ll plough the empty beach and stare out from the shore
But I’ll go to sea no more
Oh Doctor Peebles, can you tell what ails me
My heart is feeble, and my eyesight fails me
Once was the time when the men locked up their daughters
Now I have to leave the water
Oh Preacher Billing, I’m not able
To earn my shilling, to put food on my table
I don’t feel ready yet to knock on heaven’s door
But I’ll go to sea no more
I think it’s going to rain
Mum died of cancer in 2014 after a short illness and I wrote the song later that year. I don’t know where the idea to pick some of my favourite hills for the verses came from but it tied things together.
Ant recorded it in his Newark studio. I did try to give it my spare guitar picking but couldn’t get the timing. After a lot of work there is a little of my strumming in the background. The rest is Ant’s work.
Looking back now, when I think I’m so much wiser
I can see myself, just a child at play
On the granite teeth of Malvern, hiding in the bracken
Grass sliding on the hills, what a perfect day
The light danced through the oak woods,
There were elves in every tree
Fairies in the toadstools and magic in the breeze
I never thought that I’d grow up and things would ever change
I was wrong
I think it’s going to rain.
I walked up Jacob’s Ladder on a cold October morning
Alone again, just the mist and me
On top of Kinder Scout with the grouse, the peat the heather
No light to guide, no paths to see
As I walked to Kinder Downfall there were shadows in the air
Voices all around me but nobody was there
I looked out west as the clouds rolled in across the Cheshire Plain
So now
I think it’s going to rain
In God’s own country where heaven meets the heather
I’m home again, just the breeze and me
On the back ways looking on the town of Ilkley
For a while at least, in the wild I’m free
From the tors which top the moors a picture book unfurls
Whatever storm that buffets me, it’s still a lovely world
And down the years and through the tears the clouds roll in again
Its late
I think it’s going to rain
If I could walk with Milton or touch the pen of Byron
I would tell everyone what you mean to me
And if Sibelius could lend me his ear
I would sit right down and write you a symphony
If I could bring you back again for just one day
I’d tell you all the things you’d missed, you’d listen that’s your way
It’s all you ever wanted, but I miss it all the same
But now, I think it’s going to rain
Whitby Lifeboat
Tuning EADEAE
I have no idea where most songs come from and this is a typical example. The tune came first. The tuning is one used by Martin Carthy (i.e. Prince Heathen) and I watch television and fiddle with the guitar (luckily I live alone). I will then take the music for a walk; playing the tune and then walking with it fixed in my head until an idea occurs. This usually yields a few lines and the rest is graft.
It was a dark night, and the swell on Whitby harbour was scattered by the rain as it splattered on the shore
And the ghosts, who roamed round Whitby Abbey, were sheltering in the crannies from the wind upon the moors
And the lights, from the slotties and the bars, warmed everybody’s hearts as they nestled with their pints
And the chatter, as the wind whipped through the wires was only heard by those who chose to venture out that night
But the sea, out beyond the harbour was boiling like a frying pan trying to explode
And the rocks, with waves as high as mountains were beckoning a reckoning with the undertow
And somewhere in the turmoil a fishing boat was tossing as fought along the shore as it sought the harbour lights
And the skipper, who hadn’t seen the wind change was hoping that someone could help him out that night
Please can you keep me out of the storm (x3)
And the siren, that called the crew to action was thrown down the Esk like a feather in a storm
And the men, who bent to kiss their wives knew once again their lives would be thrown to the hounds
And the boat, was cast into the water like some unforgiven daughter who’s abandoned to her fate
And the storm, saw there was a chance to serve some wayward souls up to the pearly gates
And then out beyond the harbour the crew peered into the darkness, looking for the boat as the water stung their eyes
And the joy, as the lights of the fishing boat came into their vision beneath the leaden skies
And then all that was left was some dangerous manoeuvres as the lifeboat and the fishing boat regained their sanctuary
And the dawn was as quiet as a lamb and the trawlers and the lobster men worked on the estuary
Please can you keep me out of the storm (x3)
Can you hear the wind blow
Tuning EADEAE
Another song that came “tune first” with the words following later on a walk.
With excerpts from “The ballad of Reading Gaol”, Oscal Wilde
Can you hear the wind blow? Do you wake in the night to a sound when there’s nobody there?
Can you see the moon glow? Casts a shadow of the bars of the cell you no longer share
And nothing much inside but a table and chair
I never saw a man who looked with such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue which prisoners call the sky
And at every drifting cloud that went with sails of silver by
And do you hear the birds wake? A call that doesn’t heed their soundscape to the play
And can you see the day break? The fragile little light that hints to the heat of the day
And a dawning with the dawn of the price you have to pay
I only knew what hunted thought quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day with such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved and so he had to die.
And if you could go back now would you make the decisions that you made on that terrible night
You remember the attack now the visceral noise of that struggle and fight
And a knife in the dark and that deathly awful sight
Yet each man kills the thing he loves by each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss the brave man with a sword!
And now you are a damned man do you think you’ll feel the pain before your heart stops
Do you see the hangman preparing his tools for you and the very last drop
Nothing more to watch than the turning of the clock
He does not sit with silent men who watch him night and day
Who watch him when he tries to weep and when he tries to pray
Who watch him lest himself should rob the prison of its prey