"Anna (Go to Him)", or simply "Anna", is a song written and originally recorded by Arthur Alexander. His version was released as a single by Dot Records on September 17, 1962. A cover version was performed by The Beatles and included on their 1963 debut album Please Please Me."

Included this as I play professionally at private functions as well as teach the guitar and write songs for Sweeney Astray. 

Anna (Go With Him)COVER

Here's the free streaming online access to the version of "When The Whistle Blows" recorded by Rob Kentell, of the Susie Jones Band last year at Sunnybank Studios. It features our friend and highly talented vocalist/musician Katie Ritson on piano and second vocals.Katie plays folk festivals and plenty of gigs of her own and is presently an undergraduate at the Royal Northern College of Music Manchester.

It was commissioned by South Ribble Borough Council and Lancashire County Council to be used as part of a World War One historical and educational film (along with three other songwriters) and I took the opportunity to play it live on BBC Radio and at a live performance of the film

When The Whistle Blows

Mike Kneafsey (vocals/guitar) Marta Canellas (cello) Elliott Dryden (bass). Recorded and engineered by Elliott Dryden in 2015. Written by Mike Kneafsey. 

History

Everything You Ever Said

Written by MIke Kneafsey of Sweeney Astray and recorded at the Grand in Clitheroe October 2018

Everything You've Ever Said

Catalunya Hotel recorded live on October 2018 at the Grand Clitheroe. Written by Mike Kneafsey of Sweeney Astray, mixed by Elliott Dryden.
It's the blues basically.

Catalunya Hotel

Mike BUTTERFLY

Recorded this a couple of years ago and put it back up so that I can rework it with a fiddle player. Lyrically it's a real statement on every day life in the north of England wishing you were back up on the west coast of Scotland where you feel magic and alive again. Mountains and ocean, sunshine and sweet fresh air - that's what makes us feel alive. Keeps calling you back home.

The Wild Irish Sea

Solo taster of a famous Gershwin showtune. This month June 2019 I will be bringing out a new song - A Boat Beneath The Stars - with a live video on YouTube and on the Mike Kneafsey Guitar page on Facebook as well as my website. I'll be playing and singing my songs with Sweeney Astray at Cloudspotting Festival 2019 on Friday June 21st and doing an intimate cafe gig at the end of the month, June 29th, the Green Jersey Cafe Clitheroe.

Summertime (taster) George Gershwin

A Boat Beneath the Stars 
Recorded live at Eaves Hall, West Bradford in May 2019. Film by Sam Fittock of Gypsy Carrot Productions. Sound by Elliott Dryden. Written and performed live by Mike Kneafsey. 
I wrote this song about the magic of travelling in the UK and Europe. That feeling of being off the islands and getting with something of the beauty of the world out there, in nature. The many times that I’ve set off on adventures on ferries to foreign shores, across oceans, looking for love, stories to live out and new experiences and places. 

It’s got a small piece of all sorts in the song. Picking fruit on a farm in West Sussex with a group of friends, busking round Cornwall with a girlfriend for a couple of months, drinking with musicians in Athens, camping in France year after year. Travelling out on a boat from Brindisi in Italy to Corfu with friends from Brighton, on the top deck with pizza and wine beneath the heat of starlit night sky while everybody around you parties and chatters. Wondering what awaits you on the other side. 
Fantastic times. 

A Boat Beneath The Stars
Picking from the orchard and the apples were free
Working through the summer, you were good company
Music in my head and the light between the trees

We got the money to trip off to France
In railways through Europe and I lead the dance
Budapest reminds me of the evening in the warm breeze

CHROUS: 
We were chasing the holy myths
Through the cafes and bars
Took a boat out from Brindisi…
…a boat beneath the stars

We hit the coastlines of the seas we could reach
Waking in the morning with you rolling by me
What it is to be alive with all that fine fizzing energy

Now you’re in a city with another young man
Making your babies in a foreign land
And I have no feelings but feelings that never subside

CHORUS:
We were chasing the holy myths
Through the cafes and bars
Took a boat out from Brindisi…
…a boat beneath the stars
A boat beneath the stars
A boat beneath the stars

Copyright Mike Kneafsey 2019

A Boat Beneath the Stars - Audio taken from live performance video

Broken In was recorded in a cabin aboard the Grand Princess cruise liner somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I was working there as a musician from Nov 19 to March 20. My room mate Trevor Lund provided the sax, engineered the sound  and edited the footage. A big thanks to Trev. 

Broken In

I remember you dancing 
In the half light of a club night
Your golden hair upon my skin
I coud get it wrong I could get it right

And it's a lonely, lonely life we're in
And everything you've ever wanted brings you suffering
And we try so hard to find a way to get ahead
And I remember hanging onto everything you've ever done and said

The rain it soaked into my skin
But you get used to it, you get broken in
I'm playing a game I cannot win
And it's wearing me out and it's wearing me thin

It's a lonely, lonely universe and it gets worse
And I won't be the last and I won't be the first
And we try so hard to find a way to get ahead
And I remember hanging onto everything you've ever done and said

And I still want you
As sure as the sun keeps shining
As long as there'sa silver lining
As long as there's life left in this heart

Broken In

Songwriter and singer with Sweeney Astray

Mike Kneafsey Songwriter