It was the first time ever I'd done eight straight takes in a row and kept the last two after my voice had warmed up. And it was the first time I'd been completely happy with a vocal since recording with a duo called Kaikoura in 1997.
Meeting Marta Canellas in Preston, the cellist from Cataluyna, who plays on the track History was a real blessing for me. Not only did I find her playing sensitive and sometimes enjoyably delicate but she was a truly pleasant person to spend time with. I was sad when she went back to Barcelona in January.
She has been the one musician in my life who has come round to my flat reliably week after week, over two years, until we worked out the arrangements for a mere four or five tracks. We played a few gigs to some half interested audiences, along with some enthusaistic friends, and that was that. Most people talked through us without even listening, without even giving the music a chance.
Though we did play History together at the Sweeney Astray single launch in December and at a support gig for the Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band (backed by Trembling Bells). It didn't feel like enough.
It proved to be a unique experience which involved Marta taking me on a grand tour of Barcelona and meeting her family and staying in her family home. Again, to people living there it might seem ordinary, for me it was a once in a lifetime experience of a different culture - Montserrat mountain and monastery, the arictect Gaudi's famous adn awe inspiring cathedrale familia segrada, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
It's easy for you to say 'cos it's not you
It's easy for you to lie, but it's not true
Woah I, I need you to know
I'm not the kind of man to let things go
The cold north wind will blow through both our bones
It's easy for me to drink 'cos I am me
Easy for me to buy that trick as liberty
Early morning and we're leaving our home
You're not the kind of person to be owned
So step outside into the deep unknown
CHORUS:
The trouble with me is I still believe
in something much bigger than us...
and here we are...
upon our separate roads
going where it goes
but between you and me, there's history
It's easy for you to smile, 'cos it's not you
And here we are in the wreckage of a truce
Oh and I'm rolling the boulder up and down the hillside
Sailing the seas of concrete with an understanding
Until we fade into the distance without warning
SECOND CHORUS
The trouble with me is I still believe
in something much bigger than us
and here we are...
upon our separate roads
going where it goes
but between you and me there's history
between you and me there's history
between you and me is there love?
