By Witham Side

One of the  first songs that I wrote, which defined my style was a song called George Joseph Smith – a jokey take on the cult of serial killers.

Serial killers are of course so few and far between that its still almost possible to be jokey about them.  However despite their numerical insignificance, they have impacted on our lives, and restricted our freedoms.

My college was at the side of the A1 road near Grantham, Lincs.  All the students hitch hiked, the A1 was OUR road. The more literary minded had little Jack Kerouac fantasies about criss crossing England.  We all used hitch hiking as a practical means of getting home in the vacations, going down to London at weekends to take in the folk music at Les Cousins – there was even an annual hitch hiking race up to Hayling Island.

You don’t let your kids put themselves in such peril these days.  We just know characters like Fred West are out there.

Aunty Nelly

I had an Aunty Nelly, she loved to boogie woogie around

She used to get up on the table, and man she used to shake ‘em down

Well Grandma said to Aunty Nelly, Nelly you won’t come to no good

Hanging round the Yankees, stationed up at Burton Wood

But Nelly said to Granny, I wanna show ‘em something of mine

Before they get aboard of that big old B29

So Nelly went boogie ing, no matter what Grandma thunk

She used to come at dawn, with nylons and pineapple chunks

So that was the war, Daddy had to fight with a gun

But Nelly showed her knickers and just had loads of  fun

I had an Aunty Nelly, she loved to boogie woogie around

She used to get up on the table, and man she used to shake ‘em down

The Wayward Son

I wrote this in a hotel room in 2006 in Cologne.  Denise and I had been invited to mime on a German TV show – our 1983 song  Rummenigge was voted the 38^th most popular football song in Germany.  So there we were performing between a punk rock version of You’ll Never Walk Alone and The Village People singing Go West with the German football team.

We had been lodged in the Out of Africa Suite in a posh hotel, ( there were plastic giraffes standing guard outside our hotel room door, imitation leopard skin cushions strewn around the place and plastic elephant heads on the wall). There was a view out of the window of the train station and Cologne Cathedral.

Suddenly I realised that this was IT……this was THE DREAM.  This business of the hotel room and the guitar, and waiting for the limo to take you off to the gig was what so many of my dear friends had put their lives on hold for, trying to achieve; relationships and families subordinated to this great vision of creative fulfilment.  Billy Connolly even does whole TV series asking us to envy his gigging musician/tourist perspective on the world – what Christopher Isherwood calls the Down there on a Visit syndrome.

Somehow the symbol of the apple with a worm at its heart  seemed very pertinent.

Tuning DADGAD

The Wayward Son

Well I won’t say that we fell on our feet

It was just a place that we all used to meet

Always somethin’ to smoke there, and before too long

this guitar would appear – I’d play it

She’d  sing a song

And I suppose what we do, makes us what we are

A few old songs and a ragtime guitar

Some words of love set to a guitar strum

And a Lady that sang like a Wayward Son

So I played the music and she sang the songs

And sometimes we made it, oh yes we got along

Everyone listened before too long

To the Lady that sang like a Wayward Son

And I suppose what we do, makes us what we are

A few old songs and a ragtime guitar

Some words of love set to a guitar strum

And the Lady that sang like a Wayward Son

So here I am sat in a hotel room

Writing down some words, she’ll  be singing quite soon

While she’s out with some girlfriend,

My fingers endlessly search this guitar

And the TV station says they’ll send round a car

And I suppose what we do, makes us what we are

A few old songs and a ragtime guitar

My words of love set to a guitar strum

And a Lady that sang like a Wayward Son

I hope you like what we do, cos that’s what we are

A few old songs - and a ragtime guitar

The words of our love set to a guitar strum

And the lady that sings like Wayward Son

©2006  words and music by Alan Whittle

Mellow Moonlight

I’ve been ill with heart disease for nearly two years now.  I can’t communicate with the doctors, about how I feel.  I came to performing late in life and finding a way I could enjoy making a living out of it very late. I was lucky, some people never find as much.

As the illness grew worse I had to give up the way of life of a professional performer, something I’d loved and striven for, for years.

So I sat at home and played the guitar.  And one morning I was sat in my backroom, strumming away with the sunlight streaming in on me, and some words of WH Auden came into my mind

Life remains a blessing

Although you cannot bless

Some people are like that – sunlight streaming in on you.  One night I was in Mansfield folk Club, feeling very down about the way things were going.  This lady , Stella and her husband Erwin sat next to me and they were so nice – asking how I was, and what I was doing……

I think it was the next day I wrote this song.

Mellow Moonlight

Sunlight came through my window this morning

Found these chords on my guitar

I said, Sunlight you know who I am

And I know who you are

And your sunbeams must write the poetry

For this morning I have no words

I saw sunlight on my window

And this is the song I heard

Mellow moonlight, Stellar sunlight

I’m trapped in your spotlight, cradled in your beams

Mellow moonlight, Stellar sunlight

I’m trapped in your spotlight, surrounded by dreams

Sunshine came in my room this morning

There I was living on a planet of gold

These notes fell from my guitar like petals

Into a song that I seemed to know

And all the sunbeams wrote the poetry

For it seemed I had  no words

I saw sunlight on my window

And this is the song I heard

©Alan Whittle 2006-03-22 

Background

This song was written in the backroom of my bungalow in Nottinghamshire,  which gets the sun in the mornings.

In one of my favourite pieces of music, ‘An American Song’  -  Paul Simon famously wrote ……..

……………………….’you can’t be forever blessed.’

This song is about those rare moments when you feel you can.

 Hope you like it!

Ragtime Blues Guitar

There’s an essay on my site about the murky genesis of this song.  It’s a pretty straightforward piece of ragtime in D major (DADFsharpAD). Capoed 3.  I don’t have the musical education to think deep thoughts about the structure of music.

Nothing clever about it. A little guitar quote from Bind Blake is the last figure.

All I can  say further about it is that in the period of my life that this song deals with,  I knew I would write about it one day and how the hopelessness and idealism of a young life felt.  I thought at that  time it would be a book.  I realise now that I don’t have the application, or indeed the taste for truth telling that the novelist needs. 

Hairy Mary

Another tasteless offering, I guess.

My only defence is to say that it is a song about a fashion which is very widespread, and its about something which is going on today – namely pubic hair grooming.  Available in beauty salons on every main street in England.

And I DO get so pissed off with all these bloody songs that are like something off the History Channel.  Tales of brave Nelson, being in love with a Flapper who dances The Charleston,  fighting the Ist world war (yawn!),  what a gas it was going to silent films and taking in the latest Charlie Chaplin,  what a bugger it was being a child factory worker …….

I just feel like its an endemic faultline running through  our artform.  Not only is it monstrous arrogance to pretend you can comprehend what these people went through – and there was probably a bloody good reason why they didn’t like singing about it at the time.  Also every piece of factitious nonsense like this is taking 7 league steps away from the  tradition of  writing about the life and times you have lived through.

Here in stanadard tuning EADGBE

Waiting

Was originally a poem by Mary DeVille of Ashbourne in Derbyshire.  Terry Wood at the Vernon had a go at writing some music for it.  And then I had a go. Theres a whole section about this on the site.  The poem must have something to attract two songwriters to have a shot at it.

Took me a long time to settle on DADGAD.  The first song that I wrote using that tuning, which I had thought was the sole property of traditional folkies.  Ken Nicol put me wise on that!

The Day Delaney’s Donkey had Sex with The Pope

This started  out as an angry song.  The first time I performed it I made the mistake of telling the audience of why I had personal reasons to be angry with the Roman Catholic Church.  Years went by and one day I performed it somewhere else – and the audience just fell about.

One guy came up to me and said, I’ve never missed a mass in 50 years – that bloody song is beyond sacrilege, but my God its funny…….!

I still didn’t play it anywhere for fear of offending, despite one Irish radio station wanting to make it their demo of the week.  In fact,  I begged them not to play it. When I removed it from the website though I had several complaints – so here it is.

All I can say is that I have thrust it away from me, but I DO think its well written. Its obvious, I’m no good at angry songs.  A bit of a fool, and it comes out every time I lay pen to paper.

Moira O’Shea

When I was a young feller, I was rubbish at taking care of myself.  Couldn’t explain anything even to myself.

There was a girl called Moira O’Shea and she asked if she could become my girlfriend. The truth is , I was very ashamed of how my life was.  Didn’t want anyone too close to me. I was failing at college. Drinking and smoking excessively. My friends (nearly as gormless as myself) had let a tramp sleep in my bed at some point when I was absent, and thus I was covered in scabies.  I couldn’t really work out all the steps I had to take to get rid of this disease.  So I made up some foolish excuse and turned her down.

Thirty years later I was playing Irish songs in these theme  bars with names like Mucky Muldoons, and the like. I was very taken by the Richard Ellman book about James Joyce that appeared in paperback.  – around that time, and in particular the story of  his courtship of Nora Barnacle, and how they met in Nassau Street, Dublin.

Moira had  the sort of name that fitted into an Irish song.  And I decided to write something that evoked that sexual chemistry of  the literary Dublin man and the servant girl from Galway.

Dave Forbes and I were invited to the finals of an Irish songwriting competition on the Roscommon/Galway border with this song.  Where the Irish got their chance to hate us.

I’ve never seen Moira for many years – if anybody knows where she is – it would be nice to meet up and let her hear the song that bears her name – and carries her memory.

Tuning:  Standard EADGBE (Capoed 2)

BLUE RIDER

One of the nicest weeks of my life was when Denise and I did a summer school for the Open University as part of our degree course.  We went to Stirling University, which is in a beautiful setting by a Loch.

As part of our Arts Foundation Course, we had this lecturer called Sarah Walker, and she encouraged us to look at artists that we had previously encountered in the course.

Denise and I chose Kandinsky.  I still don’t know much about him – all I can really tell you if you want to get into him – give yourself an hour, and look at his pictures. An hour is quite a long time and if  you’re only used to figurative paintings of houses,  people and landscapes – it is quite long enough to lose any hostility and start to look at how this very dedicated artist decided to fill his canvas, and before long you will enjoy it.

Kandinsky could paint houses, faces and landscapes – but he had this Damascene type conversion.  He was walking up to his studio, and he saw sunlight streaming in and there were some pictures stacked on their side.  He realised at once -

THIS is the sort of experience I want to give people looking at my pictures.  The motif  of the blue horseman/rider was the last naturalistic  feature in his paintings.  After his Blue Rider period, all his paintings were completely abstract.

I’d forgotten about Kandinsky, and then this Christmas my sister, Susan gave me a book of his prints.  And thus came the song.

The Irish Tinker Son

When things go wrong in the music business – its like a train ride to the lower depths.  This song had its evil genesis in a night at The Caernarvon Castle Hotel one night .  I was in a duo with Dave Forbes called Celtic Minstrel – playing Irish songs.  I think possibly everybody hated us everywhere – certainly we hated ourselves and so did the Irish, the English and that night it was the turn of the Welsh to glare at us with stares of black vitriolic hatred.

Before he went off duty at at 7pm, the landlord made the mistake of telling me I could drink whatever I wanted at the bar.  And midway through the 2^nd set – I thought , hell….why not!

This rather posh English lady heard us talking at the bar and said, Oh! You’re English! I thought from the way you sang you were Irish tinkers, or the sons of Irish Tinkers......!

Guitar tuned Drop D that is DADGBE – I owe Jack Hudson for pointing out some of the possibilities of this tuning to me.

Winter Hill

I’ve never really felt settled here on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border where I’ve lived these nearly thirty years.  We came here because it was just about the cheapest place in the country to buy a house, and because I hoped my mother and father in law would be able to help me with the care of their disabled daughter.

I never clicked with people round here, have always felt like an outsider in the village, and the local folkscene by and large hates my music.

However the countryside is amongst the most beautiful in world.  During the summer tourists flock to The Peak District, and the sunlit hills and moors present a kindly and welcoming aspect.

In the high winds and driving rains of autumn and when nature has wrenched the leaves from the trees in winter , you can see further and understand better the true nature of the place.  This is a violent and passionate landscape. The numerous outcrops, strange place names,  inexplicable fields of standing stones, and breathtaking sweep of the mountains hint at the caverns and vast chambers of rock that lie beneath – surely  once inhabited by a race that fought for our souls and lost, and retreated nearer the earths  churning molten heat  and essence.

I don’t believe anybody visits Monsall Head – looks across the valley and doesn’t feel some kinship with a strange other life, somehow remote from us – and yet also resident in our deepest feelings.

Tuning DGDGBD (G Spanish)

Lets have  a drink….its Christmas!

This is another song that came out of the gig at The Running Horse.  Donald Ross Skinner lends his instrumental assistance.

Somewhere in my heart I still believe Christmas to be a time of real enchantment;  a magic glade of the wildwood that is special for children and everyone who surrenders to the magic.

However I hate Christmas dinners.  I loathe Christmas television..  Don’t have much time for charities that beg twenty quid off you, and spend it all on sending out mailshots asking you for more money which you haven’t got.  Bah! Humbug! etc.

The last ten years or so I simply took refuge in doing gigs on Christmas day – sometimes three or four in the one day, never less than two. This last year, I’ve really missed that. 

The Citroen Saxo Driver

I did a gig at The Running Horse, a famous rock venue in Nottingham.  I had turned up to a songwriters night, and the landlord offered me  a gig – a support slot.  I really loved it, But I knew I would need some robust original material if I was ever to do this sort of thing.  This was the first or maybe the second song I wrote, but like I say I got too ill to do any more gigging.

I’m sure Citroen Saxo cars have mainly mature responsible drivers. This was written,   after a friend told me his son had bought one.

Donald Ross Skinner provides the bass, lead and keyboards.  I provide the E chord.

Standard tuning.