Self Belief

Something

A strange song title, with an unusual inspiration. The biggest bang on Dean and Jackie's honeymoon (OK the second biggest) was one morning in Las Vegas, Nevada when they were both woken by a Nuclear bomb test out in the desert. This was the first epic to be written by Steve and shows as a different style from the other studio songs on Head First.

Head First (Remastered)

The Flame Of Life And Death

This was another song brought to Headstrong "ready made". The majority of the song and music was written by Dean between Stella and Predator, and never used. The song got the Headstrong treatment and became a firm favourite. It did get a rewrite though after it was in the set. The original last verse went "Well my Angel she was full of joy, as she met me with my baby boy". The song, being about unexpected pregnancies, was always dedicated to Russ, however, once Tina give birth to Rebecca, the last verse was wrong and had to be rewritten.

Angel On The Run

A slightly alternative take on dealing with famine, The Hunger set out to be an ear crunching Mosher's Favourite, and judging by the reaction it received, it hit the spot. The studio version suffered from a bit of poor mixing, the second portion of the introduction is supposed to be be lead by a "big church organ sound", the guitars cut back to a rhythm only part to allow it through but it's so far back in the mix you only really hear it when everything stops.  

In the 2016 remaster the keyboard part was rerecorded and put back into the mix.

The Hunger

Probably the lightest song in the set, traditionally the point for the punters to go to the bar, Too Good For Lovin is the only song to feature keyboards and vocals at the same time throughout the entire song. The song was inspired by a comment from Tammy but the song is NOT about her. There is a difference from a songwriting perspective, especially from a married songwriters perspective ;-)

Too Good For Loving

When the World Fell Down is about the San Francisco earthquake of 1989. Dean was in the City on the first anniversary of the disaster and was quite surprised to find that most of the area of the city that collapsed, the Marina District, was built on reclaimed land and that "red tape in City Hall" allowed a lot of the City to be built without following strict Californian quake building codes. The most surprising thing though was that the rescuers, not the surviving victims, were the ones with most psychological trauma to overcome following the quake, as some of the sights they had seen, they can never forget.

This song is dedicated to Joann Purcell, Dean's friend in San Pedro, California. The only person he knows who can sleep through an Earthquake

When The World Fell Down

From almost the very beginning Lady Big Dreamer was the set opener up until Bring Them Back Alive arrived on the scene. It's opening chord sequence lent itself quite well to following an intro tape. It regularly followed Headstrong instrumentals Afraid of the Dark and Prelude to a Dream, and once even followed "Tammy's in Love" just to embarrass our roadie.

Lady Big Dreamer

Prelude to a Dream was actually part of a much bigger musical piece Dean had been working on since 1983 called Raining in Heaven. It was a set of variations around the main intro to the song. The song had an almost classical feel which didn't really suit Headstrong, but the portion used in Prelude to a Dream was used as a gig intro and always preceeded Lady Big Dreamer (hence the title of the piece). Raining in Heaven finally was performed, without any keyboards at all, by Freakzone.

Prelude To A Dream

Written about the fall of the Berlin Wall this song was virtually written as it happened. The first verse was written when people were trying to leave Eastern Europe by any means possible, and the song was going to be about the injustice of being forced to live in Eastern Europe, with no right to leave. The next week the protests started, and another verse was added, then amazingly the wall came down, and the song was finished that week. With unusual foresight the middle eight was left blank, no lyrics, no guitar lick, when the song entered the studio the hole was plugged with the news clip that once we'd found were amazed fitted absolutely perfectly into the song with no timing problems at all.

Stand Your Ground

Though not quite as popular as Love Em and Leave Em, Headstrong Girl was another very popular song that found it's way into every set once it was written. Effectively the band's title song it was always introduced as "This song describes our taste in women" - and that's the honest truth !!! 

Headstrong Girl

From the moment this song was written it was destined to be an opener, every gig since it was written started with the song and it was the opener to the Head First album. The song was written during the time of the Gulf War, the last verse highlighting the fact that this was probably the first real "Prime Time TV" war. The chorus is a parody of the saying "If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound if there's nobody there to hear it", to bring home the fact that the conditions out there were so bad that, if you believe in God, there was no point praying, because nobody was in such a God forsaken place to be listening.

The original idea for the studio version of this song was that the "Bring them back alive" leading into the solo would be dropped to a really low pitch electronically. However the technology at the time in the studio couldn't deliver what we wanted. These days it's low tech stuff for the humble home PC, so the remastered version of the song has the solo intro as originally intended.

Bring Them Back Alive

Freakzone were formed in 1993 from the remains of Shock Split and additions from Geneva and Headstrong.  Though the initial line up only survived for a year they toured extensively and recorded 3 songs in the studio.  Here they are for posterity.

Freakzone were Rich Ashford (Guitar), Alan Ellis (Drums), Dean Harrison (Vocals), Rob Young (Bass)

Something

Freakzone

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