First Published in VOICES 2024

tagelharpa (digital)
frame drum (digital)
mouth harp (digital)
synthesizers (digital)
voices (digital)
wooden lur (digital)
Native American Flute in A (bass)
Native American Flute in A (alto)
seljeflote

Hymn For A Dog Sacrificed In A Burial Mound near Uppsala

This Remix I put together of the shanty Roll Northumbria has to be the most enjoyable thing I have done in a while.

Northumbria Remix

Hudson

'Blow the Wind Southerly' is a traditional English folk song from Northumbria. It tells of a woman desperately hoping for a southerly wind to blow her lover back home over the sea to her.

The chorus first appeared in print in the 1834 publication 'The Bishoprick Garland' by Cuthbert Sharp. The 1882 book 'Northumbrian Minstrelsy' published an arrangement by John Collingwood Bruce and John Stokoe of the chorus in D major and a 6/8 time signature. In the 1892 book 'Songs and Ballads of Northern England', Stokoe added three new verses written by John Stobbs, and it's this version of the lyrics that I've used here.

Blow the wind, Southerly Southerly Southerly blow
The wind, South o'er the bonnie blue sea
Blow the wind, Southerly Southerly Southerly blow
Bonnie breeze, my lover to me

They told me last night there were ships in the offing
And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea
But my eye could not see it
Wherever might be it
The bark that is bearing my lover to me

Blow the wind, Southerly Southerly Southerly blow
The wind, South o'er the bonnie blue sea
Blow the wind, Southerly Southerly Southerly blow
Bonnie breeze, my lover to me.

The ships there were many a blowin' and bowin'
And bending right o'er in the salty sea foam
Til my eye did behold it
As many had told it
The great bonnie ship of my lover come home

Blow the wind, Southerly Southerly Southerly blow
The wind, South o'er the bonnie blue sea
Blow the wind, Southerly Southerly Southerly blow
Bonnie breeze, my lover to me

My sweetheart had fared through the winter unfriendly
His ship came along in the early spring tide
Now my heartache is ended
All rifts now are mended
My lover will soon be right here by my side

Blow the wind, Southerly Southerly Southerly blow
The wind, South o'er the bonnie blue sea
Blow the wind, Southerly Southerly Southerly blow
Bonnie breeze, my lover to me
Bonnie breeze, my lover to me
Bonnie breeze, my lover to me

Blow the Wind Southerly

In Malmesbury I found the tomb of Athelstan - the least well known first king of England. He was a lover of toast and hot air ballooning.

Malmesbury

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One hot summer’s day in the early 1980s, a troubled young schoolkid was being supervised alone in the music room for some forgotten misdemeanor. He spent the period playing a drum kit for the first time in his life, and when he was ready to go, the student teacher who had been supervising signed off his report card with the fateful words: “excellent drummer!”

Throughout the ’90s and ’00s, I played drums in “happy-clappy” churches up and down the country, as well as in college, where I toured with a band named Kurios. I’ve always had music in me. I never properly learned to play a “real” instrument — but why would an undiagnosed autistic kid with ADD want to pluck strings or blow through reeds when he can just hit things?!

These days, as I’m getting older (55) and increasingly disabled (I can no longer manage a full drum kit), I’ve finally found ways to get the music out of my head and into yours through the wonders of technology. I record everything in my home studio using a humble Arturia Minilab 3, a PC running Reaper, and a whole range of tools and plugins.

Now, on the use of AI, let me be absolutely clear:

I do not support the swamping of streaming platforms with “AI slop.” However, as an IT professional with fairly extensive knowledge and experience of AI, I also do not support the indiscriminate dismissal and castigation of any and all use of AI in music production — or any of the arts, for that matter. And as a drummer, I suppose I got over it years ago, back when we were being replaced in studios by computers from the late ’80s onward..!

For me, AI is just another tool in the artist’s toolbox — one that helps me massively shorten and simplify my workflows, and one that’s helped to elevate my craft to something much closer to professionally produced work. I don’t sing (very well), but with AI tools such as Ace Studio, Audime, or Suno Studio, I can turn my own voice — or even simple musical notation — into just about any vocal I can imagine.

I don’t play guitar (at all — I’ve got tiny sausage fingers), but with AI I can turn any melody hammered out on my MIDI controller into a lead guitar, bass riff, or just about any other instrument. I’m a musician, but I’m also an engineer, and I hope those skills — along with my hard work and passion — come through in my music and set it apart from the AI slop which is becoming so prevalent . 🙏🙏🙏 (And yes, I did have ChatGPT proof read this Bio, which is why it's full of em-dash symbols 😅)

As for the lyrics in my songs — the stories they tell — those are all me. They come from my life experiences, and from the obsessive scribbling of the angsty autistic teenager who still lives in my head and believes his poetry is so deeply profound. 😅

Psychic Investigations:
exploring the weird British Isles

New tracks tagged #northumbria