Friday, April 05, 2013

Songwriting with Gina

I headed to the heart of Bayswater this morning; a few weeks ago Gina sent me a backing track to have idea about, and today I recorded the top line and some harmonies on to it, holding a home-made pop-shield like a mis-shapen Japanese fan in front of my mouth and a lyric-book in the other hand.
We have been trying to collaborate musically for years but we have never been able to work out how to do it and I have to say we were both quite pleased with the result, which was fairly basic because I'm not the world's best reggae singer but I can carry a tune or two. Years ago a band called Shriekback invited me to sing over a groove they had made and I was too lacking in confidence to do it; this time around I had a clear idea about what the song was about and writing a melody and words came easily. I even pretend to be an offended Daily Mail reader halfway through it.
I was going to play some mad guitar on it too but we couldn't find the amplifier (she is moving house shortly and half her stuff is in the garage).
By the time Gina has applied her dubfinger mixing approach I think the track will be very listenable.

Meanwhile, yesterday Martin sent me a rough version of what I think is his best track in years (and that is saying something).
It has a very European black-and-white-film feel to it and he has asked Veronique, our photographer friend who did the Covent Garden photo shoot for me earlier this year, to translate and speak some poetry in the middle part of the song. It is going to be utterly lovely and I can't wait to hear the finished version.
Now, I have some writing to do (I always seem to have some writing to do!) but I'm actually going to eat half a bar of chocolate and watch The One Show apart from when Chris Evans is shouting, when I'll find minor chores to do.
That's about three-quarters of it, then.

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