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Sounds for dancing at The Starling Ballroom

The Starling Ballroom

This is a musical version of the title poem from my book 'We The Wild Ones'. I've turned it into a song. It's played on guitarlele, harmonium and has lots of whistling on it. 
The recording is very inspired by the album 'Ram' by Paul McCartney.

We The Wild Ones

This track is based on the recent Doctor Who episode 'Boom'. I was moved by the idea in the programme of an army fighting a completely imaginary enemy. There was 'no enemy outside'.
This is the first version I recorded and it's halfway between the 'big' version and 'small version you can hear on this playlist:)

No Enemy (medium version)

I threw a box of primary school instruments at The Waterboys' This is the Sea!
This is one of my favourite songfs in the world- it's been with me since teenage years. There's no point trying to get the epic majesty of the original so did something different with it- a little bit funky with a touch of early Floyd psych perhaps.

This is the Sea

This song is about a polar bear wandering around the streets of my town.

Polar Bear

This is a really playful instrumental version of my song/poem 'Fly with the Day like a Runaway Kite'. The original poem is from my book 'We the Wild Ones'.
I began recording this in a tent at Into the Trees Festival where I was storytelling. It started with the sound of water sloshing around in a camping saucepan.

Fly with Day like a Runaway Kite instrumental

This is my version of ‘Spirit’ by the Waterboys.
I was asked to perform it at a storytelling event last week. A storyteller was planning to read the words as part of his performance but asked me to perform it as a song. So I learnt it over lunch- which wasn’t too hard as only two chords! The Waterboys do magnificent two chord songs. I’ve loved this song for about 40 years. I had a lot of fun making it my own with harmonium and slowed down guitar.

Spirit

I wrote this song in Summer 2023. It's a joyful get-up-the-morning and enjoy the day song.
I recorded most of the instruments in a tent at a festival on a very very hot day, where I was storytelling.

Fly with the Day like a runaway Kite

Mr Tambourine Man is my favourite Bob Dylan song. It's hard to imagine a world without this wonderful song in it...it feels lke it's existed forever. 
Mr Tambourine Man is one of the very first songs I learnt to play on guitar when I was about 14. I was inspired to play it again after seeing 'A Complete Unknown'. I've been playing it at gigs and people really love to hear it.
 

Mr. Tambourine Man

It's a song about those moments when the world amazes me- when the beauty and mystery of the world around me knocks me over.
Specifically, wandering back from the Old Town in Hastings after a couple of drinks on a lovely Summer night. The picture is one of my lino prints and shows Tackleway in Hastings, along with one of the badgers we see all the time round here, and are mentioned in the song.

Wonders and Sighs

This is a song about someone losing themselves to obsessive anger. It's a  sad song- someone doesn't notice the good things around them in their life because they've been seduced by simplistic cultish thinking. It's definitely a response to lots going on today with 'culture wars' but it could be about a lot of different things- perhaps political or religious extremes, or 'manosphere' nonsense. It's about how those things might affect an individual.
But most importantly, it has a really nice groove.
And it ends on a positive note, saying how change is always possible.

The Fight

This song got the following glowing review from someone at a gig: 
“I don't usually like your stuff but that one's actually quite good”
It's a song about someone who spent years full of hate. When the hate fades they feel empty, because all that hating had kept them entertained. But, in the song the scary emptiness the person feels is beautiful and full of possibilities.
This 'big' version has layered harmoniums, guitars, harmonicas, layered vocals, drums and digital stuff. 
The other 'small' version is just two guitars, vocals, slapped knees, and a blackbird singing.

No Enemy (big version)

This is my 'small' gentle version of my song 'No Enemy'. It's got just two guitars, vocals, slapped knees, and a blackbird singing.

It's a peaceful song about someone who spent years full of hate. When the hate fades they feel empty, because all that hating had kept them entertained. But, in the song the scary emptiness the person feels is beautiful and full of possibilities.

No Enemy (small version)

This is the first version I recorded of this song, on the day I wrote it.
It's  gentler than the final version, and has a sound collage of voices instead of a first verse. It's a song about someone losing themselves to obsessive anger. It's a sad song- someone doesn't notice the good things around them in their life because they've been seduced by simplistic cultish thinking. It's definitely a response to lots going on today with 'culture wars' but it could be about a lot of different things- perhaps political or religious extremes, or 'manosphere' nonsense. It's about how those things might affect an individual

The Fight (gentle version)

I stumbled across an uninhabited white mansion when I was out for a run in the countryside. I got chatting to the security guard looking after it, who let me look round the grounds. He told me a ballet dancer once lived there. I made up a song about the ballet dancer. 
I ended up pouring a lot of my anxieties into the story of poor dancer- they have ended up being a horrendous mix of my personal and political fears. 
I think this song is kind of fantastically ridiculous- an OTT 10 minute epic, with a whole horror-theme 2 minute instrumental at the end. I love it.

Castle of light

This song is about someone being worried and stressed by work, but who connects with something bigger, something wonderful beyond themselves, that provides some solace and gives them perspective on their situation. 
They find this perspective on an insomniac walk, in the beauty of the town at night. Hence my linocut of the fox at night :)

The High Far Fields of Home

Stop The Train

A song in celebration of curiosity...especially scientific curiosity. 

Starlight Gardener

I think this might be my best track - best song, best performance. 
It's about coming home to safety, but in the song I'm actually visualising getting to a campsite with my friends and making pizza...but that cosy picture becomes more of a spiritual homecoming. 
I wrote it around an Indian Raga- the music came from playing an Indian Raga badly but it turned into something else.

Where We Belong

This is the lullaby I made up for my children when they were little.

Hush Town

This is a song about sitting down with someone you disagree with, and finding common ground, even though it’s hard.

Because there’s Hope

The cure for all problems.
First section- song based on my clumsy fingered attempts at an Indian raga 
Second section- anxious discordant instrumental  
Third section-  shifting focus to mindful enjoyment of the world around me, which in this case was the view out of the window of a Greggs in North Kent.

GFH (extended version)

GFH: The cure for all problems, the addiction of the age.
Another song based on my clumsy fingered attempts at an Indian raga

GFH (edit)

This track is inspired by CS Lewis' Narnian Series. It's about a particular image that stays with me from those books- of Narnians gathering in celebration, banners waving, sun shining, wind blowing. 
It's about much more than that too...things that are hard to put into word that music communicates much better.

The Lion is Alive

"Soaring melancholy and  powerful wistfulness...a fab song"
David Quantick

The song is all about someone who can’t sleep because of all the worries racing around their head. But it’s a positive song- the person finds a deep connection with something beyond themselves that lifts them out of the horrible moment.

Buy on Bandcamp

A song for my wife- glimpses of our story, from Hull (the town where we met) to the back of the moon (and back). 
With the recording, I tried to answer the most important and useful question in music "What would Paul McCartney do?"

Hull to the Back of the Moon

This is my cover of Rufus Wainwright’s magnificent track. I’ve simplified the complicated bit in the middle, but I hope I’ve still got the spirit of the song.

I Don’t Know What it is (Rufus Wainwright cover)

This is my cover of a beautiful, sad, honest song by The Lilac Time.

Come Home Everyone (Lilac Time Cover)

"Curious explorers
 in the mud and leaves,
Starlight Gardeners
planting seeds

We need
they dream
Starlight Gardeners
planting seeds"

Starlight Gardeners

I am an artist, writer and musician from Hastings, UK.  I make slightly wonky acoustic folk-pop, often with unusual guitar tunings, along with instrumentals that mix acoustic and electronic textures. 

Musically my current obsession is Judee Sill.
But it always comes back to the music of my childhood- The Cocteau Twins, The Waterboys, ABBA, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush.

Ed Boxall

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