Track Notes

Shadows & Light
Strangely for the first time I’ve put the title track as the opener. This is where it all began with the riff pattern I came up with at Richard & Lorraine’s. Lyrically, this is a song about loss. It’s looking at the loss of Bruce, the loss of Dad, the loss of Mum… But also the loss of Fiona – I live in the shadows, you live in the light.

Gypsy
Gypsy was an exploration and development of the idea of a really cool kind of hippy-ish gypsy girl I started on my first album “It Can’t Rain All The Time”. A kind of exploration of a relationship with this mystical free spirit.

Dead World
This is one I didn’t think would ever see the light of day. I wrote it in a cold, frozen January many years ago, thinking about how after all the pizzaz of Christmas the world seems to go to sleep. Kind of goes dead. The garden is all dormant and the world is frozen. Difficult one as it’s 3 verses with no chorus. But I made it work with guitar breaks between the verses.

You, Me & The Truth
The concept of this song is just so accurate. Everyone has an opinion and a view – the truth is somewhere in the middle. As always, I made this a kind of domestic strife relationship song.
It turned out pretty cool as from the outset I decided to give it a completely unconventional bass line – drawing on a John Entwistle influence, the bass flies all over the place. So it grew from there. Initially I thought it was a bit bleh – but then I started experimenting with my Novation synth (which set the tone for everything) and it has become a total 80’s homage, with some pretty violent lyrics.

The One
The obligatory love song…. I actually wrote this for Fiona back in about 2009 while sitting in the departure lounge of Gatwick airport after being in London for a meeting. It is an unadulterated love song about how much I loved and appreciated my wife. So why bring it back out now and give it life? Well, because it’s a good, strong, honest lyric. And it was a lot of fun to play around with – wholly electronic with synth bass, 808 drum machine, strings etc. And a smattering of mandolin chucked in.

Rock & Roll World
Another older lyric which I tore apart and put back together. The whole concept of this (which lyrically is from the perspective of an imaginary band) was for my best mate Robert to play on – and then developing to have his son Martin play bass.
Experimentally, I played around with stop / start drum programming (a new challenge) to give it a kind of Creedence Clearwater Revival feel. Just a great fun rocker…

Departure Unknown
This track started off life as an observation in an airport departure lounge of all those beautiful people flying off to destinations unknown. Again, I pulled it apart and gave it a bit of a stalker-ish vibe, just for the hell of it. This track needed a kind of Marillion vibe so nice guitar and keyboard patterns were woven in.
Most importantly, I wanted an 808 drum machine beat for the verses but full live drums for the bridges and choruses – so more experimenting. I programmed 2 drum tracks, one with 808 and the other with full kit drums. The trick was to line up the tracks precisely, worked out well.

The Bubble Burst
This was another of my “I’ll never be able to use this” tracks as it’s so unconventional. It’s my rant at how fucked up the world is at this point in my existence. But none of the lines rhyme. Then I listened to a Genesis track and discovered that they don’t need to. So I made it a kind of news headline kind of rant with the only rhyming parts being in the bridge and choruses. Oh, and ends with a nuclear explosion.

Temple Of Janus
The legend of the Roman god Janus has always intrigued me – one face facing forward, another facing back. So I dug into the legend a bit and discovered Janus was revered in times of war, the temple only being open in times of war. So I wrote an instrumental in 3 parts, peace before the build up to war with gentle synth (including a piano line I nicked from Tchaikovsky) and sound clips recorded on my wanders. Then into the war section with full band, Moog Taurus, bodhran etc – and finally back into a peaceful theme with more gentle synth.

White Lies
This one is written from a kind of creative but autobiographical point of view about the duplicity I felt in being fooled as Fiona was having an affair before our break up. By no means is it a vindictive song, merely me expressing how I remember my emotions – cathartic really.
It’s actually really sweet and has a total Eagles vibe with some nice (shock horror) CLEAN Fender guitars.

Journey Home
Journey Home started as a kind of fictional, folklore lyric ages ago. But then I decided the title was pretty good but the lyrics were wank – so I scrapped everything and re-wrote it from scratch. It then became an observation of standing on a station platform waiting for your train home to the one you love – and observing all the different people passing through a station. Slightly on the same theme as Departure Unknown but much more Scottish grounded.
Again a beautiful feel as I experimented more with keyboards, piano and some reverby guitar.

Let The Lights Shine
So, on “I Am Legend” I wrote my own funeral song, on this album I thought “I’ve never written a Christmas song” – so I did. Bit of a problem child in trying to keep it really light, but with a really catchy bridge and chorus.
But such fun chucking everything – including the kitchen sink – at it.

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