The rather large Welsh chef at Kay Court thought i couldn't fail to be a hit.  He had the idea that you made demos and then were automatically famous.  He paid for me to do a few 24 track demos and this is my favourite because it kept the feel of the original.  When i didn't become famous in fact nothing changed ..he cooked the meals at Kay Court, i managed the surgery at Kay Court . no change there...so he took me to a legal court to get his money back.   He lost!!  Thanks to John Ravenhall for his excellent arrangement/production

BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS 24track

1992.   Time is moving on faster and faster.......

Today just slipped away

1983  one of the first songs.....upon discovering there are men out there who are compulsive liars...i am sure there are women but i have yet to meet one....

JUST A RUMOUR

ALL YOUR DREAMS IN THE NIGHT

Backing excellent but far too posh for me.  All concerned were pleased but my voice didn't gel in parts.  At  home i could get it in one take.....despite the lack of emotional empathy for the song..big thanks to John Horrill and Stever Wright  for believing in me.   .  One weeks notice never gave me anought time to decided what i i wanted..that the tunes should be almost bare, the guitar special and not much else...i am swamped by the backing i think..

Never want to be in love - Posh 24 track 1984

Perfect feelings...fleeting jewels of emotional treasurexxxx

PERFECT FEELINGS

Written in 10 minutes, straight on the 4 track...first vocal always the best .... this is about being in love with someone you only meet in your dreams.....a long story....

BRIDGE ACROSS FOREVER

Ah to be a child forever...... Thanks to Johnny Bivouac for his excellent reggae take on this song....

Neverneverland

One of the first songs I wrote produced by Steve Wright at Studio 1 Chester...shortly after i sang it at my first ever solo gig..and never sang it since???  It's about finding out somebody is a compulsive liar..ie one of them says anything that comes into their heads that'll make them look good.  Being a compulsively truthful girl, to realise  there are people like this took me a long time to learn...

SUNDANCER

This is a version of one of my songs arranged by David Vorhaus.  I am singing with whales which is what i wanted....His claim to fame is the 1970 album White Noise .  One of his trax was a synthetic orgy.  He gleefully told me about the real orgy he had recorded to mix in for makin  the track more believable - yea right....  I wasn't impressed and that affected how i gelled with this version of my song...it's about falling in love with someone in a different dimension who is actually a whale....i like it better more these days than then......

Harry#1

I won a songwriting competition with this.  I sang it somewhere in West London on a big stage but can't remember where it was c 1990 recorded with John Ravenhall at Yard Studios

END OF AN ILLUSION

In 1969 i was expelled from school and my parents,  in despair of trying to cope with a child who had 

a problem with authority, sent me to live with family in America.  I was 15 and it was the year of 

Woodstock.   I went to school there and joined the chorale class ..i had to sing 'home on the range' 

to audition...then singing 'Oh Happy Day' with the choir complete with Hammond Organ and Electric 

bass.   Coming from a British school with choir repertoire of 'Nymphs and Shepherds' this was a true 

revelation to me singing in a gospel choir and being part of the post-Woodstock feeling that love can 

make anything possible..  I have always thought looking back that the world missed a real 

opportunity to embrace peace at that time...but things didn't quite work out as hoped for,...as we 

now know..  Luckily in my uncles wardrobe gathering dust was a classical guitar along with  a 'play in 

a day' book..and it was true.  In a day i was playing 'Blowing In the Wind...soon followed by House of 

the Rising Sun...i was back in UK  6 months later gathering more tunes to play from Joni Mitchell, S & 

G Leonard Cohen and others.  There was not shortage of excellent tunes to play and sing back then.  

I was left handed and played a right handed guitar...out of sheer ignorance that i could have done it 

differently.  But my right hand played well in counterpoint rhythmic picking and certain styles of  

strumming so that's what i made do with .. Soon I  found i had a talent in recognising chord patterns 

from music  and could strum along with music playing  on the radio....  Maybe it's because there 

were already so many good songs i wanted to sing that i already loved, but i was never drawn to 

writing songs then, it never occurred to me to even try.   Back then a 'box' was almost a fashion 

accessory.   To be able to play the right songs got you into parties.   My first guitar was a Suzuki 

Classical..and then a Yamaha jumbo acoustic.   I carried on playing until i was 20.  

The 'day the music died' was the day i got married.  Nine years later and in a very dark place i came 

across a guitar for sale.  It was a white US Fender Strat...cheap because the paintwork got  gouged 

on the way to the shop.  Produced later but the same design as the guitar Jimi Hendrix played at 

Woodstock -(1968.. last sold for $2 million).    It was like i woke up from a dream.  Where had i been 

all these years that i had completely lost my music?  Never mind that this beautiful instrument was 

totally wasted on someone who played like me.  I WANTED IT.  I got the scratched paintwork 

stripped off..and  I bought  a twin reverb amp. to go with it.  Nothing less would have done.  And so 

began a secret life.  
  When i came home from my night nursey work and my husband had left for his job i wouldn't go to 

bed, i was picking around with this wonderful instrument and wrapped myself up which was a joy to 

play despite being handled like a folk guitar.   I was suffering from mega stress at the time and this 

was the light in my dark.  I found myself for hours picking rhythms in an almost meditative state.  

Then, one day i found myself writing a song...a flow of lyrics and melody just came into my head.  In 

fact holding the tune in my head, quickly writing down the lyrics and then picking the guitar back up 

and singing the song...this became the way i would always write songs.    My only conscious part of 

the process was to tidy up the lyrics afterwards and writing chord symbols over the top so i'd 

remember the tune... soon i got my first 4 tracker to keep them on.  There was never any agenda of 

getting a band, gigging , being famous..i had no confidence to even think stuff like that.  I did some 

solo  gigs because other people expected me to do it.  But i was never comfortable singing my own 

tunes in public.  It felt like the songs were always 'channelled' from somewhere else..that i was a 

fraud and it wasn't me writing them.  But there wasn't anybody else in the room.  
Always the  common factor was the combination of rhythm and words, spontaneous pattterns  

created by a chaotic brain trying to create order  - is a theory it has taken me many years to figure 

out. - . and of course all the lovely songs i played when i was young were still inside somewhere as a 

subliminal influence..   

1983 the year i left my husband, the world was full of electronic pop.  'People' would say 'we love you 

but we don't know where to put you'.  But i never wanted to be 'put ' anywhere.   People just 

presumed if you played them a track that  it was your dream.  Sure i would want people to get 

something out of my art.  To know they have resonated with others is a wonderful thing.  But to sing 

in public i have much preferred being a backing singer.  I just like to be a part of an excellent sound. 

 Is all.  These songs spouted forth on many occasions over the following 10 years.  Altho i sang with 

some great bands, i just never could see these songs beyond their creative process.   A few got to 8 

track stage.  A few got to 24 track stage.  But the more production the more input from others, the 

less i connected  with them.  I had no 'apprenticeship' stage, in fact the older songs are far more 

complicated than the later ones.  When i managed a nursing home, 1986/91 ..i lived in 'the potting 

shed' and being bored with strumming i decided to have a creative partner..a crappy Yamaha PSS 

basic model with 'in-built sounds'....i would just find a rhythm that fitted and play the chords... i only 

ask that on those tunes you just keep your ear to the voice and words.. it worked for me at the 

time:-)   The last piece I produced in 1993 was an instrumental piece.  I was tuned into open E and 

the little tune i called 'Dreamtime Journey' appeared.  I played it for the first time like i always knew 

it...even tho i had hardly ever played in open tuning...and somehow i knew as it came out that it 

would be the last. 
To everything a season..and mine was 1983- 1993.  'Legend in my own lunchtime' springs to mind...I 

hope you enjoy some of my little tunes.   Since 1993 altho i have never produced another song, i 

have still been spouting words in rhythm  and rhyme...but they now come as funny poems.   To 

those who have so far only known my spontaneous poetic combustions, you will all be mighty 

surprised at these songs.  To all those who knew me back then and haven't seen/heard the 

poems...boy are YOU  in for a surprise.    

When i first came across Anthony Peakes work 'The Daemon'  i felt he had supplied me with a logical 

answer to the question as to who was in my head doing all the composition.  I have always felt i have 

a secret self with it's own agenda what i do with my life,  a life full of wonderful creative surprises that 

i'm never expecting    I  do hope you enjoy my song sketches.  Please leave comments..my songs 

haven't left home before in such a fashion.  Peace, love  music and laughter...always...XXX  nb please contact me if you want copies of anything not downloadeable...

Phillipa's Daemon

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