This one I ended up nicking some drums of Tim's from another tune that fell off the last record. Mikey Rowe stuck some bass and keys on for me one afternoon, and Chris Farrell did some ebow bits and the solo...

I love this one, though for me the mix will never be right whatever I do. But it's better I get it out there now, rather than fiddling for the next ten years.
It's about a feeling I used to get every September/October in York, when people were back from holidays. I used to look out of Chris Farrell's loft window on Bishophill at sunset, at the rooftops and church spires. York is the city where the old world raises it's hands into the sky and tries to touch God's feet. It's like they pierce the bubble at sunset, and the maroon light comes pouring in.

When you came into the kitchen in our old place I shared with Jamie and Jake on Monkgate, at a certain time the tiles would go blood red as the sun fell into the skip behind Sainsbury's. I'd do anything to be back in that house for one day, writing, getting ready to go out with the people I was with in 2001. 

I loved that feeling of optimism I got every year there in September when the air went cold and you could smell the chocolate on the wind from the Nestle factory. I needed that feeling so bad when I wrote this. I was trying to start again. 

---------------------------------------


The Blue Screen

September on her throne
I can see the ground is sewing
Where all of the trees
shake confetti leaves
 The eiderdown keeps on growing

I can smell 
they're blowing chocolate across the rooftops
The sky stabbed with spires
drips maroon across the kitchen tiles
til the present covers me with raindrops

Put away those photos of the past
it's time for painting new memories
Run your colours up the mast
Get yourself in front of the blue screen
It's time for the start of a new dream

Make a palm out of your fist
Weave a psalm out of those feelings
Can't reclaim what is gone
But there's time to make another one
And in the building start your healing

So put away those photos of the past
it's time for painting new memories
Run your colours up the mast
Get yourself in front of the blue screen
It's time for the start of a new dream

Can't keep harvesting the past
It's time for gathering new memories
 Build something and make it last
A new life in front of the blue screen
It's time 
For the start of a new dream



The Blue Screen (rough mix)

With Ben Trigg, Mike Rowe, Sophie Smiles, Richard Causon and Tim Weller (and me doing a guitar solo for once... errr...) - this is one I wrote at Monestevole in Umbria with my good mates Geoff Martyn and Damien Bracken. Geoff is such a great writer. He blasted the chorus chords out and it fell out from there between us. He has a brilliant grasp on the Del Amitri/Costello thing that I love. And Damien played that riff on the first play that stuck with us.

And yes, the drum fill is a rip off of Up The Junction - but I did ask Chris if I could do it as a 'nod' in his direction which he chortled at, before vanishing in a puff of smoke, as is his way...

There's something I can never understand:
Is it just another card, just another hand?
If I say something that I come to regret
It's just a crime a passion I hope you can forget

I'm running out of reasons running out of time
running out of pictures, running out of rhymes
It's just another hour with my hand stuck to the phone
trying to pull the sword from the stone

You can't fall if you're hanging on the wire
It's alright hey, God loves a trier

There's something I can never understand
When to cross the line, the layout of the land
If I say nothing and you turn to go home
Would your soul have kissed me back? 
Well I guess I'll never know

Cos I'm running out of reasons, running out of time
running out of pictures, running out of rhymes
It's just another hour with my hand stuck to the phone
trying to pull the sword from the stone

You can't fall if you're hanging on a wire
But it's alright hey, God loves a trier

There's something I will never forget 
It's that freckle on your lip, and the circus in your head
I'll say something and it's straight from the heart:
I wanna make you happy and I hope this is the start

Cos I'm running out of reasons, running out of time
running out of pictures, running out of rhymes
It's just another hour with my hand stuck to the phone
trying to pull the sword from the stone

You can't fall if you're hanging on the wire
It's alright hey, God loves a trier

The Sword And The Stone (rough mix)

This is continuing the theme from the Blue Screen: we may as well have a go anyhow even if the world is all belly up. (We might drown in a wishing well, but at least we'll fill our lungs with light) No matter how tied to that job you hate you think you are, they're only cotton handcuffs… rip them off.

Funny - I think when I wrote this I was on a turbo downer - I tried to be ludicrously optimistic to bring myself up, and it kind of worked. Who wouldn't be pleased with getting 'Scaramanger' in a song?? I was listening to Seachange a lot when I recorded this one.... there's a mix tweak coming...

Golden

So, nobody saved for a rainy day 
I've got a feeling we're in safe hands 
It's a colour the news can't wash away:
we're golden
Golden

So maybe we'll just have a lazy day
let the numbers just melt and drive
drive, drive
It's your money or your life
we might drown in the wishing well
but at least we'll fill our lungs with light
cos we're golden

It's never too late to change the plan
just rip the cotton handcuffs from your hands

And we'll keep on blasting through the grey
Like Scaramangers in monochrome

Cos we're golden
Golden

Golden (rough mix)

This was the last solo song I wrote. It was time to stop.
I hope this says something about other people's lives. 
Not just a pointless blip in my own
Otherwise I'll bin it.
It's not as autobiographical as it sounds, but it's enough to say time to celebrate the magic of other songwriters instead of tenderising my own soul with a hammer.
It's a patchwork for people who have been audience 
to a magic show
And a vanishing act. 
We all get our money back in the end.

-------------------------

The Girl With E On Her Tongue

I don't know when the camel's back broke
Euston Station?
Or your dinner party?
Or that Saturday, just when my skies had opened?

Well I don't know
Was I on a meter?
Did all of your friends think that I was a bore?
Well you say you don't care, but I don't believe you

Well there's one thing I know
You've got little wings
but the bird has still flown
If I'm not worth keeping 
then I'm letting you go
But something got you scared

Well I don't know, was it an ex or a new guy?
Or did I tell the truth too much of the time?
Did I tell you too often I thought you were beautiful?
or was your dad such a prick
I had no chance to shine?


Well there's one thing I know
You've got little wings
but the bird has still flown
If I'm not worth keeping 
then I'm letting you go
But the silence wasn't fair

Someday, hope you give someone a chance
When your ribcage floods with music
don't be scared to sing
or dance

Well I don't know, maybe I'll see you
in some east London bar
or gig in the sun
I'd have mortgaged my ghost to change how you're feeling
Yeah
I thought it was love
but there was 'E' on your tongue

The Girl With E On Her Tongue (rough mix)

Here's a work in progress - written with Andy Bruce in the library of a big country house at 3am... I'd had the lyrics for a while on bits of scrap paper in my head... He put the music to them as they fell out: brilliant Bruce. We must have written it in 20 minutes, then added the end when we recorded it. Did it live, I think you can tell.

I'd written nothing I was proud of in ages and had those familiar feelings of caving it all in and doing something else entirely (like I had since I was 17) but then this rolled out. I guess you can hear I've been listening to a lot of Talk Talk.

Ben Trigg came in and wrote (and played) the string arrangement - such a great player, and so generous of him. The low note at the end of the instrumental, and the line about supermarket Sunday darlings both upset/delight me every time I hear them.

The whole idea of the song came about from three things: the addiction that gambles away something beautiful you've built when you unconsciously engage in the search for the initial hit - the spark - all over again, deluding yourself that it's worth the vacuum you're left in your lungs for the shot of creative inspiration; the conviction you have when you're suffering from depression that nothing you create is of any colour or value (usually wrong); and my phobia of Sundays. For years it killed me seeing people shopping for their Sunday dinners together; and while I hated being locked away solo, the one thing I hated more was having to socialise. Sunday is the day for lovers to lounge, and for family to be. But it's a screaming wasteland for some.

While I'm perfectly content these days (I did my time though!) and am not worried or suffering myself, not everyone finds it so easy to start again when they lose/break up with someone after a long time, especially when they know it's their own fault... and this song is for the army of people out there who tore up something good and spent months, years, decades hunting for what they once had. Everyone deserves to start again when they've served their sentence. And in a world of instagrams and facebook feeds, the past is like a cement that never sets.

I tried mixing in
Some sunlight
with hope and rain
but all I got 
was smoke rainbows

These days we feed ourselves
to 
the sepia
sunday mornings

I sold the light for half the dark
the worst kind of treasure hunter:
a raider of the lost spark

Some of us
can't start again
once we've gone nuclear
and hide behind the tinfoil blinds

And it's not right
we're making do with mouthfuls
of monochrome
terrorised
by supermarket Sunday darlings

But we sold the lie for half the dark
A lost kind of treasure hunter:
We're raiders of the lost spark

We sold the light for half the dark
The worst kind of treasure hunters:
We're raiders of the lost spark

Raiders Of The Lost Spark (rough mix)

This is one I wrote with the lovely Kathryn Williams in a hotel in Wales on one of the retreats I do with Chris Difford. We did a handful of songs (check out her new record Crown Electric - there's one I helped on on there - the whole record is stellar.) This is the one that suited me best. Nearly finished, needs mastering

Tomorrow, Again

It’s just a day behind some other days
let it go, turn around and wave
Don't you know here it always comes
Tomorrow, again

It's you who gave me heart
So why is yours failing?
It stops, and then it starts a trampoline springing

Just a day behind some other days
Just let it go, turn around and wave
Don't you know here it always comes
Tomorrow, again

We've been waiting such a long long time
Palpatations with no steady rhyme

Are you feeling homesick?
Do you measure it in years or miles?
Behind us is a lost world
look forward with those eyes

Cos it's just a day behind some other days
Let it go, turn around wave
Don't you know here it always comes
Tomorrow, again
  

Tomorrow, Again (Unmastered)

I love this, it's horrible!
That's a knackered old mouse organ sample... I know it sounds like your speaker has blown, but that's deliberate, honest. I wanted it to sound like some grumpy old recluse snarling to himself in his kitchen at 4am. 

I recorded everything on my own when an acoustic one wasn't working out. Never thought it would be a keeper… But then those days are the best. Did the whole thing from lunchtime until midnight.

The lyric is from some forgotten time when I was a furious young man... who would believe it? These days either on Facebook (or occasionally in real life) I bump into people from my past that this is incredibly relevant to. Which is a shame… 

-------------

Inside In

Such a shame
you didn't see it coming
Did no tell you that beauty
was just a temporary curse?
Your face is a map
one compliment to another
when all the others were spending
you kept your love in your purse

There's a grenade in every soul
but now the rust has got your pin
And you're dead
from the inside in

Such a shame
they went and drowned in you in honey
Now their lines are all sticking
where they used to disperse


There's a grenade in every soul
but now the rust has got your pin
And now you're dead
from the inside in

Inside In (rough mix)

Featuring some good pals Charlie Wood, Matt Deighton and Tom Mason
I don't think it needs much explaining.

When you're waiting for the right time
You're building a cuckoos nest
I was laying dirt over landmines
One false move, there was nothing left

When you're waiting for the right time
You're building an empty house
You paint the walls
and you lay all the carpets
and build a mansion for someone else

We said we need time for growing
but this is different from growing pains
I've got a feeling we're done forever

I see her hanging her head just like a bluebell
I see me happy as I could be
But when I look through the tear
and through the telescope
I can see that the guy ain't me

It's easy to be uncertain
and crush yourself under weight of choice
I wish I'd closed my eyes to the options

I know that look
Thought I used to own it
but every smile is a human loan
Her leaves have turned
and the winter's coming
It's only things that I should have known

The Tear And The Telescope rough

A couple of never to be released lost tracks and demos

2005, written at Huntsham with Chris Difford and co
(This was written by me, Jill Sobule and Richard, who I share a studio corridor with still, after 10 years... top man)

15 Death in Venice (With Jill Sobule and Richard Causon)

This mix had  a glitch in it towards the end, and I never got back round to it. Was a good excuse not to as I always thought it was a bit too heart on sleeve - but then when it got such a lovely reaction at my final gig in Paris with Steve, I figured maybe I'll go and finish the mix, and master it, sometime this year for catharsis sake... 7 years ago to the day it was originally mixed. Time finds any hole in your life and tumbles through. 

Doesn't Matter That I Lost You - rough mix

Tracks from the first album, all muddled up in order...

Not Just You

Dancing In Cemeteries

And this was the tune I wrote later that year, annoyed, if I remember right, about being powerless to do anything much about it all. A song in general about swinging between being aware that I was being all opinionated, thinking I should stop being so judgemental and grow up, to being annoyed at calming down, to wanting to do something worthwhile for the world but feeling like you can't make a difference. I felt a lot of the time as a songwriter I was wasting energy trying to say something to people who didn't even listen to the words, or care what was in there. That's where the Dancing For The Blind idea originated at least. I was a frustrated 24 year old.
There's another story associated with this song that Matt Deighton loves. It's too Ricky Gervais to tell.

Dancing For The Blind

In a nutshell: met a wonderful Finnish girl, Jenni in a bar in Helsinki after two of my best mates (Vinny and Kaisa)'s wedding -  (The Great Finndian Wedding) we got chatting (just that, nothing else) and I lost her in the crowd without getting her number. It nagged at me for months that I hadn't done anything about it as she seemed so lovely, so I wrote a tune about it and wrote a blog about Finland. Somehow it got reblogged until Johannes Saukko from the Voice (Finnish radio) read it; asked to hear the song and they played it on the radio; Helsinki conducted a mass woman hunt; they found her (6 hours and 21,000 plays later); and it turned out she was already married!

I accidentally stalked a married woman via her national media. She (and her husband) were lovely about it, as were the rest of Finland. We met some years later and had a beer, and talked about what a crazy day it was for us both, sat there in different countries. She's a really special person. We're both happily settled now with kids, but we're still penpals. I love Finland and the Finns, and married my Chilean wife there.

Waiting For Jenni

I Fought The World (and won) rough mix

This here is a lillipad. 
I have a few years worth of songs whipping their tongues out 
trying to catch flies
I've made 3 records
and there's another there
tanning itself lazily
in the depths of the hard drive's digital winter

ChrisSheehan

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