The great colony decays, destroys, & rebuilds like it always did
In a steady line we dance, like ants, with great petals on our backs
We are building a home
From which to gaze upon the waves Of the River Plate

Mother Nature has a way to state her case, she makes us listen
Her gentle roots can lift the curb,
Yielding new soil for the storm to disturb
& carry it away, to freedom
Upon the waves of the River Plate

We’re all carrying the load
You carry mine I’ll carry yours 
Even though we may not know 
You carry mine I’ll carry yours 
We’re all carrying the load
You carry mine I’ll carry yours 
We’re all on a muddy road

From deep space we ebb and flow kaleidoscope
The city breathes against the water
Holding back the greedy dog they let the dunes grow
They’re holding on to freedom
As they gaze upon the waves of the River Plate

RECORDED by Gustavo de Leon at Sondor studios, Montevideo 
MIXED by Rich Breen in Los Angeles
VOICE & PIANO Joanna Eden
BASS Andrés Lafone
SYNTH Hugo Fattoruso
DRUMS & PERCUSSION Albana Barrocas

Andrés’ thoughts
ON THE RIVER PLATE
I think this was the first tune we recorded with Hugo and Albana. I had played with Hugo before and had seen him play with Albana. 

Their project is called HA duo and they play regularly throughout South America. 

Albana is a master percussionist and has a beautiful voice - together with Hugo they create a unique experience with songs and tunes performed with great virtuosity but never reaching an out of reach ethereal sphere that is beyond the understanding of anyone who loves music. They are rooted to the Uruguayan earth. 

I consider Hugo to be probably the best musician I have ever played with but I had no qualms about asking him to play and accompany Joanna. She herself is an outstanding musician and in her own way is also ‘rooted’ to the earth.

After sending Hugo and Albana some demos we were able to book the legendary Sondor Studios in Montevideo, where some of Uruguay’s greatest musicians have been recording since the fifties or Before!?

Hugo was so generous to offer Joanna the loan of a keyboard to practice and also let us rehearse at his house. 

Even before we started recording at Sondor it was clear that Hugo and Albana had studied the demos we had sent and had devised their own parts and arrangements. Albana knew every phrase that she wanted to emphasise on the kit and Hugo had composed phrases that linked the different phases of the song. - to lift, to soften - to create ambience.

On The River Plate

El Gigante strolls along
The sunny streets of old Cordón 
Pausing to shade the veteranas from the midday sun

El Hornero bird can spy
El Gigante’s friendly eye
As he passes up crumbs discarded by the passers by
To her home of clay in the blue sky Of Uruguay

Muestra una sonrisa (He shows a smile) Para darté vida
(To give you life)
Luce un cielo azul
He lights up the blue sky Con su andar
Su caminar por el Cordón
(With his walk, his stroll through El Cordón)

Escaramuza’s highest shelf 
El Gigante helps himself 
Passing down books to the customers below
Reciting Ibarbourou

Many, many moons ago
When they built the newest home 
The door was a regular size
Then Gigante arrived
That’s why they build them so high In Uruguay

Muestra una sonrisa...

Las puertas d’el Cordón (The doors of Cordón) 
Asi tan grandes son (Are so big there)
Para que puede entrar por ellas El Gigante
(In order for the giant to enter through them)

Vamos a cantar, Todos a cantar (Let’s all sing)
Le queremos dar (We’d all like to give)
Las gracias al Gigante (Thanks to El Gigante)


My favourite stroll is up to El Cordón. As you ascend from the modernity and daintiness of middle class Pocitos with its beach front apartments, dog walkers and delicious bakeries you leave behind the glamorous 1930s-2000s ‘edificios’ and embrace something far older and more colonial. The ornate and often crumbling 19th century Spanish buildings of El Cordón are a colourful and romantic feast for the eyes.

The most extraordinary feature of these often graffiti covered homes is the door. Doorframes are as tall as the building and boast beautifully crafted and ornate wooden doors and shutters and iron-work window bars and door handles.

Inside one of the finest buildings is Escaramuza, the most beautiful bookshop I’ve ever seen. It’s always full of people like me who just come to smell the books, wonder at the height of the highest shelf and the stained glass ceiling and have a coffee in the café out-back (which I’m sure saves them from bankruptcy if customers really are like me and rarely buy more than a postcard.)

Sipping my coffee one day I found myself thinking about those doors. Why make them so big? Is it a ventilation thing? Maybe it was a way of showing off wealth?

In the absence of any sensible explanation I decided that a ten foot giant ‘El Gigante’ had once lived in El Cordón and was well known to everyone for his kindly acts. In order to be able to welcome him into their homes, residents all decided to add enormous doors to their properties.

Despite having figured out a completely logical explanation, I was thrilled when virtuoso guitarist Juan Pablo Chapital ‘Chapa’ who performed with us in in Montevideo’s ‘El Mingus’ jazz club revealed that in 19th Century Cordón it was normal for people to enter their houses on horseback, hence the supersized doorways! 

How wonderful!

El Gigante is the kind of song you only write on holiday when you have few cares and too much time on your hands.

A celebration of El Cordón, of stories, and of day dreaming.

El Gigante

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

From libertad to San José
We drove the roads they paved the way 
From Trinidad cross the Rio Negro
We wondered how they made those places home
Pulling together and just about holding on

A mile or two from Trinidad
A camel stopped us in our tracks
Another stranger in this brave new land 
Swapped sweet cattle grass for desert sand
Rolling with the punches 
And just about holding on

Cinchando juntos, la van llevando
(Pulling together, they’re just about holding on)
Cuatro por cuatro acelera pasando camiones cargados, lentos largando calor en la plaza independencia botijas jugando, banderas flameando! Atraviesa la tierra, es una arteria, alimenta las calles del vecindario.
El ganado se junta bajo un árbol cualquiera buscando la sombra porqué los rayos te queman
(Four wheel drives speed up overtaking loaded trucks that give off heat
its hot in the Independence plaza
kids are playing and flags are swaying (the road) cuts through the land like an artery
nourishing the streets of the neighbourhoods
the cattle gather under any tree they can find
looking for shade because the rays burn)

The city swells in harmony
(Ahí viene la llamada)
A dog & traffic symphony
And people flock from wide & far 
Applaud the sunset from the busy Rambla
Rubbing together
& Just about holding on
Cinchando juntos, la van llevando 
(Pulling together, they’re just about holding on)

JUST ABOUT HOLDING ON
RECORDED by Gerardo Alonso at his studio in Montevideo MIXED by Steve Stewart at Waves Studio, Cambridge
VOICE & SYNTH Joanna Eden
BASS & BACKING VOCALS Andrés Lafone 
ACCORDION Hugo Fattoruso
DRUMS Albana Barrocas
GUITAR & BACKING VOCALS Guillermo Hill

Just About Holding On is a journey song. But while On the River Plate zooms out to all cities, maybe this zooms back in time; when was the first journey along this road, or the land that now forms the road? How did it feel to be the first. How did you know you’d reached your destination, your home, your new land. A place to ‘settle’.

Coming from a place like England with its long and well documented history where people always just ‘were’, the experience of settling a place feels like something which never happened here. The people and the land just seemed to evolve together. Of course they didn’t but maybe we just have so much history that we don’t dwell on the first humans to move here.

So driving from Montevideo to Paysandu on the north-west Uruguayan border with Argentina to see keyboard legend Hugo Fattoruso and his partner drummer Albana Barrocas in concert with Japanese percussionist Tomohiro Yahiro, I had 5 hours to think, drive, look, sleep, muse on first journeys.

Just about holding on

Got a Friend who told me she was angry Another friend who told me he was sad
He’s got a friend who told him he was stupid
For sharing something making her look bad
And the singers sing and the dancers dance The cats all play the fool
And the gurus pray we can find a way
To Stop
And the gods weep
Cos we built a machine, it’s doing us in and we can’t make it stop
And the black sheep
Took a ride in a rocker, machine in his pocket, he thinks he’s a god
And the big sleep goes on and on and on
Come inside my movie watch me shining Come and watch me walking by the sea Come inside my head while I’m declining Block me with your compassion fatigue
While the singers sing and the dancers dance
The cats still play the fool
And the gurus cry cos they don’t know why
And the sellers sell and the fighters fight The wolves all poor the fuel
And the gurus pray we can find a way To stop
And the gods weep
Cos we built a machine, it’s doing us in and we cant make it stop
And the black sheep
Took a ride on a rocket machine in his pocket, he thinks he’s a god
And the mission creep
We’re fighting for freedom, freedom to borrow, freedom to shop
And the big sleep goes on and on and on..
 THE BIG SLEEP
TRACK 3
RECORDED by Gerardo Alonso at his studio in Montevideo MIXED by Steve Stewart at Waves Studio, Cambridge
VOICE & PIANO Joanna Eden
BASS & BACKING VOCALS Andrés Lafone SYNTH Hugo Fattoruso
DRUMS Albana Barrocas

 THE BIG SLEEP
TRACK 3
Written in Montevideo, February ‘23, Andrés came up with the chord sequence and melody for the verse - which sounded wonderfully childlike to me over the cool, funky groove.
It made me think of children telling tales or saying ‘na, na, na, na, na!!’ And that started the first verse lyrics for me.... a kind of childish ‘she said that, he said this’ thing!
And then I knew it was gonna be about social media.
If television was the ‘drug of the nation’ what does that make social media? Stronger than any conceivable drug. And those who deal it know exactly how to get us hooked whilst we’re busy ‘having fun’.
I think I started with Facebook thinking ‘I wonder whatever happened to so and so from school/college, then later I climbed on the bandwagon of belief that it could market my music. The jury’s still out on that one; my music is out there, I have no control over it, and it’s available for free so my earnings have gone down.... hmm ... scratches head and feels a bit silly).

 THE BIG SLEEP
TRACK 3
And now - well now I hardly see my friends’ posts. They just don’t come up in my feed. And the ‘discussions’ I used to join in, debating increasingly contentious matters, with an ever- widening circle of ‘friends’? Well they just became too ugly. I don’t really get involved these days.
I do spend a lot of time and throw too much money at the wall trying to play poker with algorithms to get my music ‘out there’.
Meanwhile the algorithms play me, for hours per day.
I’m ashamed to say, my psychological weak-spot is airplane disasters. Meta knows. The longer I’m on a break from it, the more lurid, morbid and tempting the airplane clips they send me... and I’m hooked again. Just enough cute and funny cat clips to give the appearance of balance. It’s all just healthy fun.
Meanwhile, my kindle lies gathering dust whilst every day I promise myself this is the day I start that novel.

THE BIG SLEEP
TRACK 3
It’s good to write this down.
To acknowledge that I have been consumed by a kind of madness. I can’t dwell too long on the subject as sooner or later my thoughts will come to my kid and the tragedy that they grew up at a time when we adults collectively let down our guard and let the lunatics take over the nursery.
To my beautiful kid:
Terrible things happened in front of you online during your childhood.
On my watch.
I’m so sorry for my part in the collective neglect.
The Big Sleep is our collective blindness to all this.
The Black Sheep is one of silicon valley’s monsters - you choose which one!

The Big Sleep

 Blue
Blue, songs are like tatoos
You know I’ve been to sea before Crown and anchor me
Or le me sail away
Blue, here is a song for you Ink on a pin
Underneath the skin
An empty place to fill in
There’s so many sinking now You gotta keep thinking
Gotta make it through the waves Acid, booze and ass
Needles, guns and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs
Blue, I love you.

Everybody’s saying
That hell’s the hippest way to go
Well I don’t think so But I’m gonna take though
Blue I love you
Blue
Here is a shell for you Inside you’ll hear a sigh A foggy lullabye
a look around it
There is your song from me.

RECORDED & MIXED by Steve Stewart at Waves Studio, Cambridge
VOICE & PIANO Joanna Eden DOUBLE BASS Andrés Lafone GUITAR Guillermo Hill DRUMS George Double

 Picture this:
Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell. A pop/folk prince and princess. In love, in Joni’s beautiful Laurel Canyon home. He sings her a song he’s written. Just for her.
And he’s wondering when, if, she might write a song for him. They are living in paradise after all.
This may or may not have happened. I need to have a little story playing in my head to get inside someone else’s song, to see it from the inside so that it becomes mine.
Their romance is a music fairytale. But for Joni the fairytale became a nightmare. The prince and princess didn’t live happily ever after. Soon after they separated and Joni started to spin the blue thread of her misery into the stunning album ‘Blue’.


So did Joni write that song for Graham.
At the end of Blue’s title track is the line
‘there is your song from me’
Be careful what you wish for Graham.
Your domestic paradise gave Joni the heebie jeebies!
Joni spoke of her two loving grandmothers. Both frustrated musicians, frustrated humans. Both had taught her the importance of fulfilling your destiny. And marriage had been the road block on both their roads of self discovery.
So there it was. Relationships. Joni’s journey. Or voyage. And the seas were wild in the early ‘70s - not easy for a tattooed, blue painted sailor with granny-baggage!

Andres’ thoughts;
This track was recorded with the live band that accompanies Joanna. I have known Guille for many years - although he is Uruguayan we met in Cambridge a few days after he arrived. He was telling someone..’I’m from Uruguay’ and they replied ‘There is a Uruguayan band playing at ‘The Boathouse’ in Cambridge. !!?? So he came along to the gig and there we were with Negrocan hammering away at some Candombe standards as best we could. And so he came into our circle. We were lucky. He is a brilliant guitarist covering any style from James Taylor to Hermeto Pascoal, perfect for Joanna.
I met George Double through Joanna. They have been playing together in various lineups for many years. Like myself, he has a great respect for Joanna’s talent and has put a lot of time and effort into her original recordings, striving to make her sound as good as possible, and by doing that, he makes all of us sound good. Never overplays, always sees the big picture - if you listen to ‘Blue’ and ‘Kindness of a Friend’ you will hear that his contribution adds just the right amount of fire when needed, a perfect fit for the songs in every way. It is great to work with George and Guille.

Blue

I didn’t know what to get you To spoil you but I bet you
Never had a song
So you can sing along right now
From the very first day I met you
You’ve been giving and you know I let you Together we’re stronger than before Sometimes you gotta lean upon the kindness of a friend
We’ll make it the end
If only life will lend
The kindness of a friend
The holiday can really send ya
Especially when you’re feeling tender From blowing in the cold and winter rain Watching money pouring down the drain
Then somebody comes along to show you That to love you is to know you
Never have a penny to your name
But they can really love you just the same from start to end
We’ll make it in the end If only life will lend
The kindness of a friend
Behold, fear not I bring you tidings of great joy
That could be for all people
For all people
Be just, be kind and walk humbly with your god
Because never know, you never know
You never know what’s gonna hit ya
Cos life is gonna paint your picture
& it don’t always draw a sunny day
You don’t know what’s in store along the way, around the bend
But I can recommend That life is gonna lend The kindness of a friend
Behold, fear not I bring you tidings of great joy
That could be for all people
For all people
Be just, be kind and walk humbly with your god and show
The kindness of a friend


RECORDED & MIXED by Steve Stewart at Waves Studio, Cambridge
VOICE & ELECTRIC PIANO Joanna Eden
DOUBLE BASS & BACKING VOCALS Andrés Lafone 
GUITAR Guillermo Hill
DRUMS & PERCUSSION George Double

Christmas hangs heavy on me. There is so much management and housewifery involved; neither are my strong points. I carry the neurotic weight that I can’t do it well and the subsequent guilt ensures that I’m so self-consumed that I usually do drop numerous balls (baubles) and so spins a self-feeding vortex of self persecution, distraction, forgetfulness, guilt, yada yada, on we go.
A friend who is the polar opposite in their Christmas husbandry dropped in with their card and pressie (it’s in the car!). To say we weren’t prepared is an understatement. Mid-December and there were no perceivable signs of the season. Not a decoration, no wreath, only a few hastily arranged cards on the mantle piece.
Another of my guilty Christmas secrets is my ‘re-gifting’ cupboard. I made a dash for it and found a pre-wrapped box of chocolates which I checked for any identifying features as I put the kettle on and hastily scribbled out a card.
Our guest sipped tea and what a relief when he pronounced that Celebrations were his favourite chocs.

Then out we trooped to the car. He would need a hand bringing in the Fortnum & Mason hamper.
He saw my shock and did his best to ease the situation with - we get so many of these delivered at work so I like to share them.
Fast forward 6 months. This friend’s birthday loomed and I really wanted to make amends. I’m not sure if I did it out of kindness or out of a kind of oneupmanship. I wrote him a song. A song about giving. About being a bit more poor than your friends. But them loving you anyway and how much that meant.
I don’t know if it was right to blame it on financial considerations. But being a muso you can sometimes feel a bit like a teenager at grown-up gatherings, zoning out when conversation turns to ISAs and loft conversions.
We really, really enjoyed the hamper and re-gifted very little of it!

Kindness of a Friend

And I am born each day with you
The moon tries to hide
Behind the sun but I know she is there Smiling softly
Just as she did inside your eyes
The sun glides
And I can see your body yearns for mine She exposes
All of the love, the ecstacy
We’re born, you and me
(Translated indirectly from original lyrics by Brazilian songwriter Flavio Hugo Venturini)
Clareia, manhã
O sol vai esconder a clara estrela Ardente
Pérola do céu refletindo teus olhos
A luz do dia a contemplar teu corpo Sedento
Louco de prazer e desejos
Ardentes
 
RECORDED by Gustavo de Leon at Sondor studios, Montevideo 
MIXED by Rich Breen in Los Angeles
VOICE & PIANO Joanna Eden BASS Andrés Lafone

Nascente is probably the most romantic song I’ve ever heard. I felt this before I even attempted to understand the portuguese lyrics.
Flavio Hugo Venturini’s soaring melody, a gentle cushion of harmony, an opening of the beautiful heart and voice of Milton Nascimento - they were enough. They told me all my heart needed to know of sensuous longing.
As Andrés and I attempted a translation of the lyrics (he had previously encouraged me to desist from my phonetically learned, flawed and phoney renditions of Brazil’s exquisite canon of songs), I blushed on more than one occasion. I think Brazilians maybe can speak of physical love in a way that sends most Brits into embarrassed nose snorts and sniggers and end of the pier jokes!
Somehow, we managed to complete a translation. But honestly without the words this beautiful song says it all.
Milton Nascimento, who’s stunning rendition of this song is featured on his album Clube da Esquina 2, has an innocent honestly to his voice that breaks my heart. I’m so glad to have discovered more of this incredibly rich musical culture; beyond the Bossanova, beyond Rio, there is so much beauty to be heard!

Nascente

UK Singer-songwriter, mentor to Sam Smith

New tracks tagged #AndresLafone