Day 27 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that you wish you could play...

Song 27 – A song that you wish you could play...’Beeswing’ – Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson is a huge cult hero to many people, although he’s someone I came to late, only getting hold of any of his stuff in the last few years.  I fell in love with this song in particular although he is a great songwriter and for those who know (and I’m not in a position to judge) a great guitar player.  I would love to be able to play this as it’s just lovely and if I was good enough to be able to play this then the sky’d be the limit!

Richard Thompson - Beeswing (live, solo)

This song has got the most beautiful melody and his playing of it is divine. It’s simple and understated but with the most luminous passages imaginable.  There’s something medieval or baroque about elements of the tune, but the fiddle and Northumbrian pipes give it a nice folky air too.  I really love the lyric, a love ballad in a traditional style that deals with a real person although not a real relationship.

Richard Thompson - Beeswing (album version - extra instruments!)

Richard Thompson’s had a couple of folk singers from the 1960’s in mind when he wrote this.  Vashti Bunyan and Anne Briggs.  I wanted to talk about Anne Briggs a little more as she was more steeped in the traditional folk scene and the revival, rather than Vashti Bunyan who was more of a pastoral folk player.  You’ll probably have heard Vashti Bunyan as one of her songs was used heavily on a mobile phone advert a couple of years ago.

Vashti Bunyan - Diamond Day

Anne Briggs was born in Beeston, near Nottingham, and raised in nearby Toton by her aunt and uncle.  She cycled with a friend to Edinburgh when she was a teenager and there met the young Bert Jansch who it’s likely first turned her onto Folk Music.  When Ewan MacColl (father of Kirsty and Scottish folk stalwart) was touring England with A.L ‘Bert’ Lloyd (another key figure in the revival) on a TUC sponsored trip, he heard the 16 year old Briggs sing and immediately asked her to sing on stage and then join them on tour.  At 17 she left home and went to London to pursue a music career.  She’s a wonderful primal simple singing style, very different from anything you’d hear now.

Briggs met various people, fell into various relationships and made a number of records.  She spent a number of summers travelling around Ireland in a horse drawn cart, spending the winters in Britain, gigging to raise enough money to make a living.  In Ireland she was heavily influenced by an Irish singing style, ‘sean-nos’ which she applied to traditional English songs and her own compositions.

Briggs was notoriously wild, Richard Thompson himself recalling that he only met her twice and both times she was drunk and unconscious.  It was said that she only turned up to five gigs she’d been booked to play between 1965 and 1967.

She has not returned to a recording studio since 1973 when she was living in the Hebrides.  She still lives in a remote part of Scotland and despite the urging of pretty much anyone who is anyone in the folk scene, where her style and songs were hugely influential, will not return to the recording studio.  She should be a Nottingham music legend (the competition is not strong!) but not many people will have heard her.

Anne Briggs - She Moved Through the Fair

I really like this version of ‘She Moves Through the Fair’, an Irish folk song first collected in 1909.  Anyone who remembers the 1980’s and Simple Minds No.1 hit ‘Belfast Child’ will see that they used this melody.  It’s inspired me to write something too, although more on that another time.

I’ve never heard this song played by Richard Thompson, but almost a year ago to the week I did hear a couple of young Scottish folk musicians play a very fine cover of it in ‘The Ceilidh Place’ (a brilliant bar/restaurant/gallery/bookshop) in Ullapool in the North West of Scotland.  It was one of the highlights of the year, although that was probably to do with the company.  It was a long way down from that moment.  A fantastic place to go, take some good walking gear and a book of Norman McCaig.  It’s another country in so many ways and one you should visit.

Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats (orig. The Knife)

I’d better get back vaguely on track.  My second choice for songs to be able to play would be this.  It’s got the most amazing video too.  I saw this at the cinema as an advert but it was probably as pleasurable a 3 minutes as I’ve ever spent in front of the silver screen.

David Millington

27^th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 1 - The 30 Day Song Challenge - My Favourite Song...

Song 1 - My Favorite Song - 'Waiting for my real life to begin' - Colin Hay

Colin Hay

This is a tough one to pick of course, but I first heard it just over a year ago and I’m yet to get tired of it.  I’ve put it on every compilation CD I’ve made since then and so I think it deserves this place.  It’s as good as anything else I might pick anyway.  Fans of ‘Scrubs’ might recognise this song from that programme. Zach Braff seems to be a huge fan and Colin Hay’s even made a couple of cameos in the show.  Colin Hay, by the way, is the songwriter from ‘Men at Work’, the 1980’s Australian band.  I don’t think you’d guess this from the song.  I don’t really have much else of his, though his song ‘I just don’t think I’ll get over you’ is also a huge favourite of mine.  Oh – and Johnny Vegas picked this as a ‘desert island disc’ last year too.

I suppose I love everything about this song and performance.   It’s a lovely, clear, resonant, and strong guitar sound, a simple accompaniment but with enough going on to keep you interested.  His voice sounds great, husky and warm with that hint of vulnerability.  The melody is just gorgeous and I think it’s lyrically wonderful.  It just sums up that feeling that I sometimes get of life not having really started and that you’re just waiting for the pieces to fall into place and then you’ll start heading in the right direction.  I’ve not heard a song catch this feeling before.  Oh – and I can also just about sing along and play a very simplified version on my guitar.

That’s how it sounds to me anyway.  Your ears may hear something quite different and if they do that’s fine by me J

I’ve always loved acoustic songs, just one singer and a guitar.  Maybe it’s because my dad’s played for as long as I can remember and so it’s some of the earliest music I heard.  Whatever the reason I think there’s something about a song sung straight that’s very affecting and touching.  Even a pretty average song can be given an honesty and resonance that a more polished and buffed up production can never manage.  I’d cite the Jose Gonzalez cover of the 80’s Kylie Minogue/SAW song ‘Put your Hand on your Heart’ as an example of this.  Here are both versions...

The Kylie version’s fun for dancing to on a Saturday night but the Jose Gonzalez version carries much more emotional weight.  With Kylie’s version, you sort of know that the guy will tell her he loves her, he’s just bad at saying how he feels.  Jose’s sounds like the plea of a man who knows a relationship’s ending.  Desperate.

I remember one night at University, a few of us had walked the long walk from ’Cuths’,  my bailey college, all the way up the hill to ‘Van Mildert’, the most outlying of the Durham Colleges, to watch our friend Marcus conduct the University Symphony Orchestra.  Marcus had been unsuccessful in his attempt to become the conductor for his final year and so this was his conducting swansong.  We sat though an excellent evening’s music, all of which escapes me now, except for a new piece by a student called ‘The Timing of an Egg’ which I’m afraid to say left us somewhat baffled,  played by a very accomplished orchestra.  Afterwards we made our way back down the hill through the dusk to drink Saturday night beers in the College garden and someone (Max I think) got out his guitar.  Max’s jazz stylings were as accomplished as ever but then someone (a visiting friend of James) played John Lennon’s ‘Working Class Hero’.  I don’t know that everyone fell silent but the chatter seemed to fade and then there was suddenly an audience listening in.  It caught the mood of the people there in a way that the orchestra just couldn’t.  I’ve always found this to be the way of things ever since.  One person with a guitar can whisper in your ear but a large group can only shout at you.

Funnily enough it’s only just occurred to me, all these years later, that he was trying to mock us Durham University posh kids.  Or thought he was.  We were a more mixed bunch than he gave us credit for.  And Lennon was hardly from the rough side of Liverpool.

And as a footnote, ‘Waiting for my real life to begin’ was a song a girl I had very strong feelings for played me as her favourite.  I think I gave her a lot in the time I knew her and would probably have given her everything, had she wanted it.  This is all she gave me.  Not a bad gift though.  I’ll keep it close.

On a clear day, I can see a very long way.

David Millington

1^st April 2011

Nottingham