The Life album 

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It’s not ok

This song was partly a fun nod to our eternal search for ‘that song’, but at the time it was more about trying to lift Martin out of the despondency I knew he was feeling as his illnesses began to wear him down. 

He reminded me about the song some time later, said he liked it, so I knew it had struck a chord with him. Probably that funny G chord shape he did, he was always trying different voices round it.😑🙄 I guess the the song is really a rallying call to my old mate

And as ever, any excuse for me to do a screechy Pepper Pot on tape.🤗🙄

 

Family Honour

I was unsure if he was going to, but Mart really liked this one when he heard it. Our nod to Squeeze, I guess, we’d always liked their stuff. This is a pretty dark lyric, especially for us, but I liked the idea of doing an epic ‘Sarf London’ tale of retribution,

betrayal and villainy, with a hint of music hall and old silent film melodrama and some good old fashioned menace thrown in too!

It’s my probably my favourite lyric on here.

 

Heaven sent

This is probably the last song we really worked on in a truly collaborative way. Martin had some chords for the verse, and I think he may have had the verse melody, as I seem to recall he was unusually specific about it! Anyway, I had sort of forgotten this one, but when I heard it again in compiling this, I thought it should be included here. I think the lyrics actually reflect Martin’s sense that he might not be too long for this world, and that it might in fact be a release for him to be free from his various medical conditions. I might be wrong about that but I know there was an element of that in my mind as I added my parts to make it a full song.

 

Special Offer ( she’s going shopping)

I don’t think Martin particularly liked this one, so I’ve included it here mainly just to annoy him!😁 this is a mostly autobiographical tale based on an event back in my yoof 🙄and I was pleased with the story telling element of this one. Also shortly after Martin died, I sadly lost another very good friend, Ian. He really liked this song, as we both worked at the Co-op where this took place, so it’s nice to have this here as a reminder of him as well. This one’s for you, Ian👍🏻And stop rolling your eyes like that, Mart, it’s making you look really odd! 😑🙂

 

Best Band In The World

Martin never heard this because it was written as I started to work on this album to try to come to terms with his loss. But he is all through this track, it’s basically a reminisce of our old band, and our early days of first writing songs and playing our guitars. I wanted to try to make it an affectionate account of those times because there were some really happy and funny memories in there, as well as a few inevitable moments of sadness.

When I listen to this track, I am whisked straight back to those days, with Paul and Steve as well as Martin.🙂 And where’s my plectrum Martin, I know you’ve bloody got it!🙂

 

JEM 

This song is about my mum, who spent her last years in a nursing home after a serious road accident. She was a kind and gentle soul, who looked after her family above all else.

Martin was always on his best behaviour round my mum which must have required some effort on his behalf! 🤣 and although she did really like him she always thought he was a bit of a bad influence on me. 😑Which you were, Mart, you complete bastard! 🙂🤣

The song says what I wanted it to say, particularly the last 2 lines, it and was played at her funeral, so it is included here as a tribute to her. She was great. 👍🏻❤️

 

You’n’me

This song is really just about Martin and I, and the sense of freedom we somehow gave each other. I’m not sure we even knew that we did that, but our song writing partnership became a special relationship of trust and creativity between us.

Martin heard this one and suggested a shorter intro, and when I changed the chorus from this one to something else, he told me to pack it in and just put the original one back in again!

One very fond memory I have of Mart, is our exchange about the opening line. It was originally ‘ Let’s go hire a car.’

Martin said, ‘ Well, that’s not very rock’n’roll, is it, Jon, let’s steal the car instead!’👍🏻🙂🤣  

This then prompted a load of standard messing about, as always happened, as I finally wondered whether we needed a tent as well for our ‘escape from it all’.

In the end, Martin said ‘ Oh forget the car, let’s just steal the tent!’ 😉 how we laughed! 😑🤣🙄🙄….well, you probably had to be there.😑🤗🙄

 

Handbags at 3 o’clock

This is me doing one of my ‘football terrace singalong’ ideas, based partly on our previous efforts writing tracks used by a couple of well known football teams, and partly just me in Monty Python/ Eric Idle mode.

Martin never heard this, but I’m sure after tutting about the whole thing, he would have eventually added his bits to this. Martin could not stay sensible for that long, I could normally wear him down after about 20 minutes!👍🏻

 

Heavenly Calling

This is me trying to end the album on a light hearted note and enabling Martin’s actual voice to be heard somewhere on this collection of our stuff. I do a couple of impersonations of the big lad on the song Best Band, but it’s nice to hear his real voice  here being ‘typical Martin’🙂