It was stottin' doon with rain on the motorway down to the south-east coast. I'd had food poisoning the day before thanks (we think) to dodgy burritos, and was still a little woozy, but the drive down was actually fine.
After taking a risk with some fantastic chips from Torbay fish'n'chip shop, we wandered back to the venue,upstairs at Remedies, where Lorraine Lucas, who has organised the entire Folkestone Songwriting Festival, kicked off the night with two songs, one by Lucinda Williams and one of her own compositions. She is a fantastic host ,and the evening picked up on her bonhomie from the start.
Catherine Hiesiger was the first songwriter to play. Her songs examine setbacks in her life, disappointments and difficulties which she articulates with intensity and skilful melodies and guitar picking. I'd been chatting to a chap earlier on who had been describing his difficulties in finding the chords to underpin the meaning of his lyrics, and I suppose that particularly alerted my senses to hwo well that works with Catherine's songs. Luckily she has fallen in love and she sang a very beautiful tribute to her wife Jo, who was sitting in the audience.
She'd also sung songs about her family, so it felt natural to begin my set with Three Maple Men, my tribute to my Gran who gives me strength still. I'd chosen a set that I would enjoy playing completely solo- and also one that reflected the fact that this was a night that celebrated women songwriters. So I played The Song of the Unsung Heroine; it also felt like the sort of night that people would join in with At The Bathing Pond, and join in they did, harmonies and all. I finished with Women of the World, and people joined in with that one as well.
Isobel Kimberley completed the bill, her deep voice filling the room with songs of sex and death, although her song about her father, written for her mother to fill the gap, was much broader lyrically than that. Isobel uses a small South Asian bellow-organ that provides a drone for a lot of her songs, and also has a looper which she uses sparingly to create delicate guitar harmonies for her picking. Altogether, she has a unique sound.
It was a pleasure to be part of a night where the audience concentrated intently on the lyrics. Lyrics are so precise and unique to the person writing them, and when they are really listened to it makes a song writer feel that they are communicating properly with people. That was a really important part of the evening. There was no background talking, and a member of the audience even made sure the door didn't slam when people entered and left the room. Now that's next-level respect.
It was also a real laugh to talk to Lorraine, who also comes from a big family. We swapped tales of horrendous holidays in Scotland in the rain, and midge-clouds with chaos of children and pecking-orders, and all that comes from lifelong stereotyping in family positions. Ha!
The journey back was just as rainy. Why doesn't my car look clean? Well, motorways are bloody dirty, that's why. But it was well worth the journey. I'm re-living the night in my head: it was one of those special sorts of nights.
