I Threw Away My Lyrics Book

I had a big clear-out of papers and things before Christmas to make some space, and I think I threw away a lyrics book. This could be a disaster, but I've done stuff like leaving one on the tube after a long day at work, so it's not such a terrible thing. I think of these things a life's natural edits.

I have been listening through to my three-quarters-finished album today at the kitchen table. Offsprog One has her friend round so I listened quietly. Two things happened: firstly, through listening after weeks away from it, stuff that I thought was not very good seems much better. Secondly, listening at such a low volume meant that it was really obvious what I have to redo. For instance, a song where I thought the guitar rhythms were off-kilter, it was actually the vocal feel that wasn't right.

I have entirely lost the Logic file of one of the songs, but it's not such a hard one to start again with. It was heartening to listen through the album, actually: listening re-booted the bit of me that gets all used up by teaching. All I need is a clear day to sing on, a sunny day and a bird-throat mood, and I can do both the vocals that are missing and replace the dodgy ones. I have a guitar part that finishes a couple of bars before then end for no apparent reason, but that's just a pure guitar'n'vocal song so that will be a case of supple fingers and determination. I am thinking about guest musicians and what they might do. I feel motivated, dude.

(As I walked up from the tube station today, a very posh mummy was saying to her son 'I do wish you would stop using that word dude, darling'.