Twilight barking echoes through the porticos 
As the swallows dance in group hysteria 
Maybe they can feel what’s going on in here
Everywhere beauty. Beauty by design. Beauty for its own sake.
Beauty for permanence & power.
& I’m telling myself
‘Surely beauty has its place. 
Feeling worth it. surely that’s pride without pride
& I long to deserve that dress. 
Could I ever, would it ever be seen on this badly tied bundle Imported from a colder place

Everything is fine
You know your place but where is mine 
Everything is fine, fine, fine
But not when you’re marked down by design

In the Piazza Majore stands a balladeer 
Offering with blind passion
Something I would only throw away
Such solid satisfaction
That his sentiment is worthy
But in my land his song’s just a comodity
Honey you’re selling something
It gets cheaper when you dress it up
I told you,
yes I told you I come from a colder place.

Everything is fine
You know your place but where is mine 
Everything is fine
I’m in the dirt and you’re divine 
Everything is fine, fine, fine
But not when you’re marked down by design

Every day I tell myself
‘You’re worth it girl, you’re worth it girl’ Everyday I’m throwing it away

BY DESIGN
TRACK 1 - THE ROAD TO PAYSANDU by JOANNA EDEN
RECORDED by Gerardo Alonso at his studio in Montevideo 
MIXED by Steve Stewart at Waves Studio, Cambridge
VOICE Joanna Eden 
BASS Andrés Lafone 
PIANO Hugo Fattoruso 
DRUMS Albana Barrocas 
GUITAR Guillermo Hill

If I met Joni Mitchell - and dared to speak to her (I find her simultaneously inspirational and terrifying) - I would ask her if I was right in my suspicion that she writes her lyrics first, as poems, then sets them to music.

The result is a lyric which has to be pushed and pulled by Joni, to scan. And that explains her incredible singing style to me. Exploring, surprising, ducking and diving, rushing then languishing. Liberated!
I haven’t written many poems but I wrote one as soon as I got home from Bologna. A catharsis. It didn’t feel like a song. It was too depressing, too deep. But then I remembered my hunch about Joni. I’d always started songs whilst noodling at the piano and then a lyric would pop into my head and I’d be off. Songs would decide what they were about as we went along!
Sitting at the piano though, a noodle wouldn’t come! But I’d longed to try a poem song. Maybe this one could be the first. I had the poem but would need a musical prompt. I googled ‘music written in Bologna’ and up popped Mozart’s Quaerite primum regnum Dei in D minor with it’s beautiful opening melody. Teenage Mozart’s masterpiece gave me just the prompt I needed to capture the majesty of Bologna and contrast it with the ‘car-park at the back of Sainsbury’s’ vista of my body dysmorphia.

By Design

This is a lost gem of 21 year old Bonnie Raitt singing an unplugged cut of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock".  Recorded in March 1971 at the Jabberwocky Club in the basement of the cafeteria at Syracuse University. The gig was recorded by WAER radio but was never released on her albums.  Its considered a bootleg and hard to find.  Many current music stars like James Taylor played here because WAER would do these broadcasts "live" to the New York area.

Woodstock, B Raitt

My daughter asked me to make my version of one of her current favourite songs.  Had a ball creating this at home with expert assistance from Andrés Lafone on bass and Charlie Price on drums.

Still Feel

UK Singer-songwriter, mentor to Sam Smith

By Design

Joanna Eden

Related tracks