Before You Came started out as an exercise set by Findlay Napier via his Patreon page. It was an exercise I had done with him and Karine Polwart during a wonderful week of song writing at Moniack Mohr near Inverness. I enjoyed it that time so thought I would give it a crack again.
The task is to write a song using no more than 30 different words - each word can be used more than once, but there can only be 30 different words.
This was in the middle of Lockdown 1.0 (remember that? Box set binges, toilet paper scarcity and the emergence of Zoom as the saviour of live performances.) Covid, and how it would change us (ok, me), was on my mind and I was thinking that some good had to come out of this; maybe I might become better and seeing what I have and living in the moment. Whatever, it was a good thought to seed a lyric - a kind of love song to a virus.
Part of the deal was that Findlay offered to set the lyric to music - which he duly did, making his usual cracking job of it and choosing to play it on a high strung guitar - and why not. While I have learned to play it, he does a much better job of it than me so it is Fin that you hear on guitar in this studio demo, my vocals and Chris Pepper casting fairy dust over everything with additional harmonium and stuff.
Hope you enjoy.

Before You Came

Lo-Fi Electronica, Post Punk, Krautrock and Synthpop – recorded on Kareoke machine, 4-Track, Nintendo DS, DAW – anything.

Singer-Songwriter from Hampshire, UK. Also performs as Me and the Koala

Hampshire based singer songwriter - plays South Central UK. 
Celia Barrett Music is on Facebook

Before You Came

Mike Rawlins - aka Me and the Koala