Copyright Nemo James
I Met Her on a Monday
This song is based on the old saying “It is better to have loved and lost etc” with a bit of an adapted Chinese proverb “a short love affair is the same as a long one, they are both just moments in time”. Also a hint of an adapted catch 22 quote,
“It was a long love affair”
“What do you mean long? It was only five days”
“It’s over. You don’t get any longer than that.
A Song of Sixpence
Anyone who was a child around the time of the humble sixpence will know what a magical coin it was.
To ask mum for a shilling or half a crown was pushing it but there was always a chance that she might cough up “a tanner” (sixpence). On the rare occasion I stood in a sweet shop with a “bob” (a shilling, worth twice as much as a tanner) I felt uncomfortable at having such a huge sum to spend but sixpence was just enough to keep my feet on the ground. When the line “sing a song of sixpence” popped into my head it was a short jump onto the train of thought that took me down memory lane although I have to say nostalgia is not what it used to be.
It Started With a Riff
Nothing too deep about this song but it does surprise me when I pick up a guitar and start fiddling around with no intention of writing anything and then a nice little riff or intro appears from nowhere. It surprises me even more when the riff generally leads effortlessly to a verse even if there is no connection to the riff melody.
Ski With Me Tonight
Skiing used to be one of my favourite things in the world until the sad day when the message from my brain to my legs started to suffer from time lapse syndrome which is not great when sliding down a mountain at high or even slow speeds. I could still ski but lost that effortless coordination so essential for safe skiing. Of all my skiing memories the best are those nights when I met up with a group of friends at a mountain café and skied down in the moonlight. Heaven knows how we managed that in one piece although the swiss have a saying, “the skis know their way home”
The Workhouse Child
This is one of my best songs and probably my biggest disappointment. It was 1991 and I had just landed my first record deal with a small label. The record company took this song to the head of the major music publisher "Acuff Rose" and he loved it describing it as "a future classic". I was on my way. A few days later I received a phone call asking me to travel to London to sign over the publishing rights to The Workhouse Child with the urgency being that Cliff Richards was going to record it as his Christmas song that year. A few days later Cliff decided not to release this meaningful and social aware song in place of the usual trite love song which bombed.
No problem. The record company would release the song as a single and Acuff Rose had been touting it around the BBC so now four of the top producers including Terry Wogan's producer loved the song and would play it on their shows. There was even talk of it being "record of the week" on Radio 2. But as luck would have it, there was a big change at the BBC at that time and it was decided producers were no longer allowed to choose their own songs to play. There would be a central database of songs and producers could only pick from that list. When the meeting came to agree what songs went on that list The Workhouse Child was rejected by the one man in charge on the grounds that being about a workhouse "it was not relevant to today's world". In other words, the 200 million child slaves that still exist are no longer relevant. Take a look at the video I made and decide for yourself.
I Wonder
For me, one of the greatest joys in life is simply sitting in an open air café and watching the world go by. In my defence a lot of my songs were written and conceived in cafes and the one time in my life I had to do any serious studying was also done in a café in George street, Hove.
Sing For Your Child
We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up and my father had to do a lot of overtime so I didn’t see that much of him but when I did we used to do a lot of things together, particularly when we went camping every week in the summer. I have the fondest memories of us playing cricket together in the day and sitting by a gas lamp playing whist or shove halfpenny at night. I have to say the last thing I would have wanted was for him to sing to us as I have never met anyone so utterly tone-deaf as he was but my parents were always up for anything we suggested. My mother grew up in Italy and the only present she ever received was a second-hand pair of roller skates which was probably the greatest joy of her childhood. She wore them out constantly but my grandfather being a very skilled welder always managed to repair them.
So when Christmas comes around this year and you are given orders to buy the latest expensive gadget for you children bear in mind that maybe the thing they need more than anything is your time.
In The Garden
The terraced house where I grew up in London had a very small back yard with a border for flower which was no more than a foot wide. What earth that was there was very poor so growing flowers was not very successful. It was a shame because both my parents loved the countryside and would have loved a garden but we made up for it by going camping every week in the summer. When they retired and moved to a semi-detached house in West Sussex they finally had a large garden with a pond and even a little shed, everything my father had ever dreamed of. For years they worked on the garden from morning till night and my mother had a real knack for flowers so during the summer the garden was spectacular. I used to love watching my mother working in her garden and so it was a great pleasure to write and play this song dedicated to her.
Smooth Talking
This was supposed to be a about a cool dude walking down a cool street but as always, the song took over and decided it had to be about a rich and powerful businessman and the strange thing is I found myself defending him.
My father was a passionate socialist all his life voting labour until the day the labour party effectively ceased to exist. He despised capitalism with Rupert Murdoch being on top of his hit list, but his love of cricket was greater than his hatred of Murdoch and the only way he could watch cricket through the long depressing winter months was by subscribing to Murdoch’s SKY sports. He subscribed and the quality of life was dramatically improved.
My views on all this is like most of my views, very mixed up with my determination to see both sides and although I hate corrupt businessmen and bankers as much as the next person, in the words of this song “all that glitters is not bad.” It might be hard for hardened socialists to stomach but there are plenty of benevolent capitalists with a social conscience and those who think that self-interest is the prerogative of a particular political party are deluding themselves.
Weave a Life of Love
There are few achievements more worthwhile that bringing up a family, but it is an achievement so often undervalued. The same can be said of a person’s role in the workplace and how many of us are aware of how many people benefit from our work even if they never know we exist.
Thank You James
They say you should never meet your heroes and I am sad to say that in my case that seems to be true, not that I have ever met the great man himself. In my musical career, the only two artists I can say were my heroes was James Taylor and George Benson. Of course there are many artists that I liked a lot but those are the only two I give hero status to although Elton John comes pretty close.
The year was 1976 and I was so much in demand as a session musician that I got to know a lot of record company bosses so when I finished my first few songs it was very easy to arrange appointments with record companies who were actually keen to hear what I had to offer. Being a big James Taylor fan I was writing in that style. They liked the songs but told me not to waste my time writing that kind of music. “Disco is the big thing now. If you want to get anywhere you have to write disco music” I was told with great authority. I pointed out that James Taylor was very successful writing in that style but I was told his market was very small and not likely to last. I listened to them and proceeded to write some very naff songs in styles I had no feeling for. To this day James Taylor is as popular as ever and it is difficult to find someone who doesn’t like his music except of course for the music moguls whose job it is to create lucrative new trends.
30 years later I went back to an acoustic-based style where I found myself most comfortable and a few weeks before Christmas 2017 I finished a song called “Thank You James” in which I pay tribute to the great man. I was particularly pleased with the song and had managed to incorporate lines from all my favourite Taylor songs within the three choruses. Everyone loved it and I knew it was a good song.
I was desperate to get it to James Taylor and although it wasn’t easy as he ignores any message sent directly through his website I finally managed to track down his manager and send him a link. The manager replied “I will forward the link to James but he might not reply as he gets so many songs written for him” or in other words “bugger off Nemo Nobody, James Taylor is a star who has no time for the likes of you. I ask you… does PR get much shittier than that?
I always try and think the best of people and hope that James never got to listen to my song but after posting it to all the facebook James Taylor groups which included members of his family I find it hard to believe it never got back to him.
In a lifetime of rejections and disappointments they are now water off a duck’s back and they don’t usually bother me any more but I must admit the idea that my song is not even worry of a short email from the man I wrote it for is one rejection too many.
Sugar
I always try and write a song around the first line that comes into my head. Unfortunately, on this occasion the line was “sugar for my baby” and it came through strong and powerful. Having an aversion to the word “baby” in songs, combined with a desire to have some kind of meaning to my lyrics the only solution was to write about cooking despite the fact I am to cooking what Joe Frazier is to flower arranging. Having read somewhere that sugar makes everything taste good I have come up with some unique recipes that are sugar-based and although they might not win any prizes no one can deny their originality. I also combined my love of puppets with my dependence on sugar to produce a video with the message “sugar… we don’t like it, then we like it, then we crave it”.
Somebody Stole My Hole
I was walking down to the beach one day not thinking about anything even remotely connected to music when this title popped into my head and it was love at first insight. Anyone doubting that songs write and produce themselves should consider that despite me not being a big fan of rap music I was forced to hire a rap singer for one of the parts. What a great job he did.
In The Garden
The terraced house where I grew up in London had a very small back yard with a border for flower which was no more than a foot wide. What earth that was there was very poor so growing flowers was not very successful. It was a shame because both my parents loved the countryside and would have loved a garden but we made up for it by going camping every week in the summer. When they retired and moved to a semi-detached house in West Sussex they finally had a large garden with a pond and even a little shed, everything my father had ever dreamed of. For years they worked on the garden from morning till night and my mother had a real knack for flowers so during the summer the garden was spectacular. I used to love watching my mother working in her garden and so it was a great pleasure to write and play this song dedicated to her.
I Used To Be
I spent my life dreaming and can’t ever remember taking up a hobby without wanting to become a professional at it. Being passionate about sport in my youth I was going to be the first person ever to represent his country in football, cricket, boxing and fishing. These weren’t just idle dreams but passionate ambitions for a while.
Needless to say when I went into music I dreamt of being a rock star but through all those years if you asked me what would I like the outcome of a dream to be it would be to live in a sleepy little Mediterranean village which by an extraordinary twist of fate is exactly where I am now. I still write and dream that one-day people will hear my music even though if I did become successful and start touring it would take me away from a life I love. So why do it? In the words of the not so wise scorpion “it is in my nature.”
Flora's Holiday
Of all the weird first lines that came into my head, this is up amongst the top of them. “Nymphs and Shepherds come away”. I knew it was from an old English folk song we learnt at school but you don’t see a lot of nymphs or shepherds around these days. I tried hard but couldn’t find any way to turn that line into a song but thanks to google I found out it the original was about an ancient spring festival known as “Flora’s Holiday.” That was much easier to write about.
Cat Attack
Living in a village in Croatia you don’t get much choice as to whether you want to be a cat owner or not. There are lots of strays and as soon as word gets around that there is a vacancy in your house, they have a secret meeting where they decide amongst themselves who is going to do you the honour of living with you. For a while, some cats living in the centre of the village declared a no-go zone for dogs and so any poor dog walking past would be attacked from all sides. With that in mind, I was walking to the beach one day when the title “Cat Attack” popped into my head. It wasn’t long before the song was finished and all the cats and dogs I ever knew made an appearance.
They Won't Come Round Again
Most of my songs come from nowhere and are not written about anyone in particular but this is about an old friend whose existence seemed to get stuck in the 60’s or to quote the song “his life is like a waterfall that flows the wrong way round”.
The Fields of France
I was 10 years old when we stopped on our last night in France after a lovely four week holiday visiting my relatives in Italy. It was late evening when I went for a walk with my father and we came across fields of white crosses that seem to stretch out to the horizon. Of course, I had heard about both world wars but it didn’t really mean anything to me until I saw those fields of war graves and it has stuck in my mind ever since. I have a special relationship with the cathedral in Arundel, West Sussex and every time I go to visit I stand by a plaque of a father and three sons all killed in the great war. It never ceases to bring a tear to my eyes.
The Dancer
During my years as a session musician in London I did a lot of gigs in a wide variety of shows and it was at one of those gigs that I got talking to a dancer that said in her youth she had been regarded as a very gifted ballet dancer but she was pushed too hard. There came a day when it was too painful for her to dance ballet so she made a living dancing in shows. She was never short of work but the next time I saw her I was sad to hear that she was going to have to give up dancing completely or risk ending up in a wheelchair.
Over and Over
To quote the renowned smartypants, Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”
We all make mistakes. Most of us make the same mistake at least twice but some people turn it into an art form. They go from one disastrous relationship to another as if their life’s mission is to find a partner with the exact same character flaws as their last partner.
Or to quote the not so smarty pants George Bush “fool me once, shame on……….shame on you. Fool me………you can't get fooled again.”
Fame WIthout Talent
In 1990 I did a season in a holiday camp and the cabaret artist was a musician who had been very famous in the sixties. The audience lapped him up and were oblivious to the fact that most first-year music students could play just as well. It occurred to me how hard it must be when the world acclaims you as a brilliant musician and yet every time you turn on the radio you hear someone playing far better than you. You walk past street buskers wishing that you could play like them. No wonder so many turn to drink and drugs.
One Day You're in Paradise
So what do you do as a parent when your daughter has her heartbroken and is convinced she will never find love again? It goes without saying that you should hide your delight considering her ex was a waste of space and pretend you are very sad. Also, it is probably best not to mention that the last time her heart was broken she managed to find love a week later. If you are not sure what to say then try playing them this song.
Marie (Where Are You Now)
We start by meeting the right person at what we assume is the right time but it generally turns out that they were the wrong person at the right time. Later we meet the right person but by now it is the wrong time. So maybe we leave the wrong person to be with the new right person only to find out that the wrong person was the right person after all but you met them at the wrong time.
Life can be so confusing.
The Wheels Go Round
What is it about train journeys (or at least the thought of them) that is fascinating although I have to say that is speaking as someone who doesn’t have to commute on one. On the rare occasion when I do travel by train I like to look around and guess what each person does when I am not looking into people’s lives via their back garden.
The Minstrel
When returning to music in 1989 I found myself writing in an acoustic style so it seemed a good idea to see if I could make a name in folk clubs. I knew there would be very little money in it but it meant I could play my own songs with just me and a guitar, my favourite combination.
I put together a nice little set and was delighted when this song popped out which was perfect to end a concert. It asks the question, is it right for people to make a good living in the arts doing what they love doing when so many people work in jobs they hate for minimum wage or even less. So the minstrel (me) asks the king (the audience) that very question. The audience answers “your words won’t change the world but they make our pain much easier to bear”, which leads to the final chorus that is sung by the king (the audience) to me:
“Yes we like the songs that you have sung
and we like the friends that we’ve become
we like your music
and the words or your songs”
People love to sing along in folk clubs so it could have been a magical finale once the audience got to know the song. It was the perfect plan but in the immortal words of the great Blackadder “it was bollocks”
No one wanted to book an unknown singer-songwriter in folk clubs unless they were prepared to make a name for themselves by travelling the country several times competing with local singers for a 10-minute floor spot.
Rosemary and Time
I have very rarely met someone who has ended a relationship and regretted it but what I have heard consistently are those who wish they had ended it much earlier. Like the women I knew who on her wedding day found her husband kissing another man in the car park but still went on to have three children with him before splitting up. Then there was the woman who wasn’t sure about getting married but everyone convinced her to go ahead as it would all work out in time. She knew in the first year it was a mistake but got pregnant and stayed for the sake of the child and had another with her husband. Years later she fell in love for the first time but once again stayed for the sake of her children. So many of us lead our lives as if time would be with us forever.
Pride
One of favourite films ever was “Dangerous Liaisons” and a line that really struck me was “Pride is stronger than love” which may sound strange but I think there is a lot of truth in it.
It reminded me of a short story called “The Back of Beyond” by Somerset Maughan in which one man confides to his boss that he is going to leave his wife because she had an affair. To his surprise, his boss said the same thing happened to him and he refused his wife’s pleas to stay with her. He ended up living alone and miserable while the man she had the affair with was living happily in his place. He had always loved his wife and left her purely because his pride was hurt. It ends with the quote: “What a fool I was to throw away what I wanted more than anything in the world because I couldn’t enjoy exclusive possession of it.”
Little Tin Box
Tin boxes used to be great for organising your finances back in the days when you could actually touch money. I only ever remember budgeting once in my life and I had several boxes with the idea that each month when a bill came, I could go to the relevant box and take out the money to pay it. It was a great plan with the only flaw being you have to actually put money in a box before you can take it out.
I Hated What i Found
It generally makes me laugh when I hear someone saying they are going to abandon the rat race and even their loved one because they want to “find themselves”. People who say this always imagine they will find a great writer, painter or philosopher, it never occurs to them for a minute that what they might actually find is an arsehole.
Forbidden Fruit
The general opinion (particularly amongst agony aunts) is that if someone is unfaithful it must be because something is wrong with the relationship but I don’t believe that for a minute. This song is written about a woman I knew who had a good, kind husband and loving family but still went astray. She simply wanted some excitement in her life and until she started the affair, she was perfectly content. Of course, it ended in disaster and she wondered how she could have ever been so stupid risking so much for such little gain but it is the oldest story in the book.
Dreamer on the Run
I expect it is the same with all kinds of fiction that friends will look at a character and think you have written about them. This song was on my first album released in 1992 and it wasn’t long before someone I knew made an irate phone call to me saying how dare I write such a disparaging song about him. OK as it happens the song did fit him like a glove but I had written it two years before I ever knew him. The fact is, anyone who has worked in a bar any length of time will know this kind of character only too well.
A Simple Love Song
I wrote this for my wife Federika when we first met. In most songs, I try and say something new and although I am well aware that someone somewhere has probably said it before I can honestly say I am not aware of ever having copied anything. With that in mind, considering half the songs ever written are about love how on earth do you find a new angle. How can you write the words “I love you” knowing that you have said the same thing to other women? So this song is about how hard it is to write loves songs without “words that you’ve used before.”
Many years later I sang it at a televised concert at the Kaboga Palace Dubrovnik and Federika was sitting in the front row. At first, the camera managed to zoom in on the wrong woman but when it finally found the correct target It was touching to see Federika looking at the ceiling in an effort not to burst into tears. Undoubtedly the most touching moment of my career.
Vanity Fair
Most of us love period dramas with “Downton Abbey” being on top of the list although I always felt the more modest “Upstairs Downstairs” might be a more realistic portrayal of life back then. I suppose it was perfectly normal at the time, but it seems extraordinary now that domestic staff had virtually no life of their own while they catered for their master’s every whim. It must have been hard enough for staff that had fair masters as seen in most period dramas but I can’t imagine how hard it must have been working for those who were cruel.
The Tree
A friend of mine told me about a film he saw where a soldier was informing a farmer that he was from one glorious army or another. The farmer replied, “I suppose you want my chickens then”. It turned out that armies came, and armies went but the only effect it ever had on the farmer’s life was that they wanted his chickens. It reminded me of my Italian grandmother telling me that when Mussolini wanted to invade Abyssinia he called on married women to give up their wedding rings to help pay for the war. It seems the ordinary person in the street (or farm) always ends up paying for what they don’t want.
The Serach
I must say I find myself getting irritated by people who spend their lives searching for one enlightenment or another. One minute they claim the special kind of meditation they discovered is the best and look down us because we don’t do it and the next time we see them it is something else. Why would you spend your life searching if you are not lost?
The Gate
The year was 1989. I had given up on music five years earlier and I was riding high. I owned a successful squash club and restaurant when out of the blue I separated from my first wife. Everything went down the pan and during a particularly dark period I took out my guitar from its case and started playing for the first time in years. No songs or melodies, just improvising in a slow bluesy meandering kind of way. It sounds like an old cliché which I always try and avoid but I swear I could feel the guitar talking to me. I found myself slipping back into music and surprisingly happy to say goodbye to my businesses. What was most surprising was that in the past I had no trouble writing music and was hopeless with lyrics but from that day onwards my lyrics practically wrote themselves and they were lyrics that actually meant something.
So the moral of the song is if we find ourselves on a dark road maybe it is the things we left behind that can light the way.
Going to the Factory
This one goes out to all those parents who did as little as humanly possible when they were young only to be dismayed at seeing their children do exactly the same. They forget that when you’re young the idea of working in a factory doesn’t seem so bad compared to the horror of getting out of bed or turning the TV off. If shouting or bribery doesn’t work, try piping this song into their bedroom at full volume until they do something constructive.
Different Paths
This is one of the first songs I wrote after splitting up with my first wife and starting a new life. It surprised me how two people can live in each other’s pockets for so long and then suddenly go their own ways.
Can You See Light
I lived in Los Angeles for a year in the late 80’s and I don’t think I ever met as many people who claimed to possess the secret of life. Always proclaiming what is good or bad and telling others how to lead their lives. Crystals, tarot cards, astrology, life coaches, therapies of all shapes and sizes and the one thing they most of them had in common was their own lives were a disaster. Most of them were aware of this but claimed their lives would be so much worse without whatever it was they were promoting.
A Good Man
During my schooldays, unless lessons involved dreaming or sport I had very little interest in them. The only book I ever read was “The old man and the sea” and only because it had my two essential requirements, it was very short, and it was about fishing. It wasn’t until I was 19 that I started to read and I don’t know if it was my impressionable age or the quality of the writing but the one book that had the most influence on my life was Volume 3 of a book of short stories by Somerset Maughan. 45 years later I can still remember most of those stories or at least the morals behind them. One of those stories was called “Salvatore” about a fisherboy from Naples. He had a particularly hard life and was too poor to be allowed to marry the women he loved deeply. He ended up marrying the only woman in the village who was prepared to have him but despite all that life threw at him he and his family were always happy. In Maughan’s words “he possessed a quality which is the rarest, the most precious and the loveliest that anyone can have. Goodness, Just pure goodness.
Ironically Maughan starts the story by wondering it if was possible to write about a simple man and keep the reader’s attention. Well if you’re up there listening Mr Maughan, not only did that story keep my attention, I have thought about it many times over the years and have even written a song in its honour.
The Crest of a Wave
I wrote this song in 1989 about a woman I met while living in Los Angeles. It is a city associated with wannabes searching for fame and fortune, but I also met a lot of women who were there searching for rich husbands.
After returning to the UK I put together a home studio and for the first time had access to sampled instruments so went to town on this piece which combined folk, classical and rock music.
Presenting the music industry with anything other than what is “happening” is hard at the best of times but a 35-minute song in a nonstandard genre by an unknown artist has as much chance as England winning the world cup. Even Bohemian Rhapsody, a truly great song by a world-famous band running at only eight minutes was fiercely rejected by the music industry “experts”.
I was happy with the result but knowing there was no point in pushing it I forgot about it until recently when one of my fans insisted I send him everything I have ever written. To my surprise, he singled this out as by far his favourite and he was amazed that I had forgotten all about it.
What's So Good About Your Town
In 1975 I spent nine months working in Madeira and must say it was one of the most impressive places I have been to. Not just the scenery and the way of life but the people who despite earning very little were always happy and intensely proud of their country. I asked one girl who was a waitress in the hotel I was working at if she had travelled anywhere else and she looked at me as if I were crazy. “Why on earth would I want to go anywhere else when I live here?” she asked.
Two Eyes Are Not Enough
My father liked to travel above all else so I asked him when I was very young what he would do if my mother died first and in my inexperience I asked him if he would go on a world cruise. “Definitely not,” he said, “these things have no value if you are not sharing them with someone”. Being so young it didn’t mean much to me a the time but many years later having travelled extensively with my wife I understand exactly what he meant. A trouble shared is a trouble halved but a wonder shared is a wonder quadrupled.
Silly Old Man
I have a soft spot for the eccentric with my father and grandfather falling firmly into this category. My grandfather used to start his day by walking down the garden path making chicken noises and flapping his imaginary wings. It was more a satire aimed at machismo rather than a sign of insanity. Dad used to watch TV with a cushion on his head whilst reading a book which used to incense my older brother who wanted to watch another channel. Dad insisted he could do both and although we tested him now and then to check if it was true he always passed the test. I have to say in later life I did find something comforting about sitting with a cushion on my head and I suggest not knocking it until you try it.
I couldn’t help thinking of dear old dad while writing this song although I can’t say it is specifically about him. I did have in mind some of the characters I saw at Venice Beach in Los Angeles, and in particular the elderly “Skateboard Mama”, an 80-year-old grandmother dressed in her best hippy gear whilst skateboarding.
Looking for you
For a short period in 1989, I found myself single but being a romantic the only thing I could think about was meeting someone and settling down with them as I have always been a one-woman man. It wasn’t until then that it struck me how crazy is the way we go about one of the most important things in our lives which is finding a partner. If we are looking for a house or a car, we wouldn’t dream of just walking around and hoping we pass one we like but that is exactly what we do when looking for someone to spend the rest of our lives with. So being in a particularly romantic mood at the time I fantasised about all the possible ways I would meet someone.
As it turned out I met the woman of my dreams in a Quaker house of all places though neither of us are Quakers. I was playing background music for a street theatre play she was acting in. Not quite “a small café on a warm Parisian night” but close enough for me.
Like Crystal
This song was written about my parents. My father was stationed in Milan at the end of the war after the liberation of Italy, a time he spoke of as the happiest of his life. He was a chronically shy man so when he and his friend saw two young girls walking through a park I don’t know how he managed to pluck up the courage to speak to them but he did and six months later they were married. The marriage lasted for 67 years until my dear father passed away aged 93.
A warm night in may
In 1971 I worked for a couple of winter seasons at the Palace Hotel in the skiing village of Gstaad Switzerland. It was literally like being picked up in London and dropped in heaven. A huge salary with all expenses paid and a multitude of girls finishing schools all hypnotised by my “cute” English accent. I was working for a Jet Set Bandleader called “Renato Sambo,” one of the most likeable men I ever met which was the main reason for his success. I was 19 and when told us one day he was celebrating his 40th birthday I was flabbergasted that anyone could be so old and still sing, let alone have so many women of all ages falling at his feet.
Fast forward 20 years and I was standing over a bridge in Southern Spain when looking down at a dry riverbed the line “Look at the river it’s starting to flow” came to me. Ok, it was late summer so it wasn’t actually flowing but the rest of the song certainly did. I immediately thought of Renato and of his many years in the limelight and whether he would now be anything like the man in the song.
Walk On
How sad it must be when a couple splits up for no other reason than that they are too young only to find out too that they were made for each other
These Walls
There is no doubt that the biggest break of my life was meeting my wife Federika which led me to where I am now, living in the paradise village of Mlini just a few kilometres from Dubrovnik.
Like most young musicians, I dreamt of fame and fortune but never saw that as a goal, more the means to a goal and if during those years you asked me what my actual goal was it would have been to live comfortably in a tiny Mediterranean village by the sea. Well here I am having bypassed the whole alluring but troublesome fame and fortune thing.
I love Croatia, its people, food, weather and just about everything else except maybe the language. It has been a bane in my life that although I am interested in languages and do try and learn them I had never stayed anywhere long enough to speak a foreign language fluently. Finally, I settled down here in Croatia only to find the language impossibly difficult. I can speak Croatian ok but understand very little because they have the annoying custom of changing the endings of words so sometimes I don’t even recognise my own name.
I also love the music and in particular “Klapa” which is an acapella choir singing traditional songs. It is wonderful, always perfectly in tune and the tourists love it. My only criticism is that tourists will listen to an entire Klapa concert and not understand a single word. It occurred to me that it would be nice to have a song in English which welcomed tourists and said how proud Croatians are of their city of Dubrovnik. With that purpose in mind I wrote “These Walls” in the hope that at least one Klapa choir would sing it. It turned out these choirs are very conservative in their choice of repertoire and only want Croatian songs so this song is dusting away on one of my many shelves. It is a shame because I am sure tourists would love it as did all the locals that played it from the Dubrovnik web portal DUNET.
The world is full of heroes
I wrote and performed this song for my father’s funeral in 2013. He was not only a 2nd world war hero for his part of the liberation of Italy but also for getting through the rest of his life bearing the mental scars of the battles he fought in. He still woke up screaming in the middle of the night in his mid 60’s. He was a wonderful role model, always insisting that his children behaved honourably and with social awareness but at the same time rarely did he judge us.
I have to say there were times when I thought he was as nutty as a fruitcake which had nothing to do with the war but was more likely inherited from his eccentric but lovable father, Nemo. Looking back I see those idiosyncrasies for what they were, a charming part of his character which I am certain helped me to find my creative path.
He met my mother in Milan at the end of the war and as far as I am concerned she is also a hero for getting through such a difficult post-war period with the attitude “we just had to get on with it”. In the words of the song:
“The world is full of heroes but few of them are known”
The Eagle and the Dove
Having written and performed live the song “Remember This Day” for my stepdaughter Siobhan’s wedding day I was under strict instructions that I had to write a song just as good for my stepson Danny. Having only recently returned to music after a 12-year hiatus I had my doubts I could write to order like that but to my surprise the song popped out like a pearl from an oyster although to be honest the story behind their romance helped the lyrics to write themselves.
Danny was on a three-month tour of South East Asia when on a New Year’s Eve, much the worst for wear he literally jumped onto an open taxi. He was hanging off the end when a young girl grabbed his arm and dragged him into the taxi. After a short, long-distance relationship, they married in Maddie’s home town of Seattle and the rest is history. Maddie is known to all her friends as “the dove”, hence the title of the song.
Remember this day
I wrote and performed this song for the wedding of my stepdaughter Siobhan. It was here in the tiny village of Mlini near Dubrovnik where she would come every summer for six weeks since childhood. Walking down the steps with her father and bridesmaids from her grandmother’s house the whole village turned out along with tourists to watch the procession stroll across the small port to board “The Karaka” a replica of a 16th century ship. I played the wedding march on guitar as they walked.
We sailed slowly and anchored just off the old town of Dubrovnik where the wedding ceremony took place and at one point I sang this song. I don’t know if it is normal but the older I get the more emotional I become and feeling so tearful while I wrote this song I knew performing it might be a problem. While I was singing I staring at a spot directly in the sea as I knew if I looked up and saw anyone crying I would burst into tears and be unable to continue. When I strummed the final chord and looked up the bridegroom along with half the audience were in tears. It was a very special moment.
Moj prijatelj (My Friend)
One of the most popular songs in Croatian history is “Moj Galabe” sung by the equally popular “Oliver Dragojevic”. It is a song about an old man sitting on the rocks talking to a seagull. I thought I would turn the table around and write a song about a seagull talking to an old man. I sang this at a concert at the Kaboga palace in Dubrovnik with the help of an excellent Klapa choir and the applause must have lasted well over a minute. I would have loved to have heard Oliver sing this song but sadly he died in 2018.
I met her on the M25
The M25 is London’s ring road which opened in 1986 at a cost of nearly 1 billion pounds and that was in the days when a billion pounds was a lot of money. Needless to say, the government got it massively wrong when estimating the amount of traffic it would carry so it spent the next couple of decades making it the size it should have been in the first place which of course caused massive disruption.
Despite all the improvements, anyone who travels on the M25 regularly will know that the slightest hiccup and it all grinds to a halt. If you think this song is a bit far fetched remember Murphy’s law, “if something can happen, it will happen.”