The Love album 

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Don’t wanna break up

This is Jon and Martin in ‘Boyband Mode’ back in the 1990s when we had begun to present ourselves as writers rather than performers.

It is also included as one of the few songs on here where Martin features somewhere in there on backing vocals.

Written in 2 stages. Martin came up with the backing originally, and a few months later I wrote the melody and words.

Parlophone showed a quite a lot interest in this one for a while and it was pencilled in for an album by Sean McGuire. But it never happened in the end. 

But hey, here it is and it’s a chance to celebrate 1994 all over again. 🙂

 

Here Comes The Rain

Though Martin and I never worked on this one together, he had heard and liked it, so I have included it. And largely because although it was not originally anything about him, the chorus now refers to the feelings of sadness I get when I know he’s not around any more to share some time with. 

It is that feeling that descends on you….

 

Don’t fall in love with me

Don’t think Martin ever heard this song completed, but it was a sort of unwritten law between us that we had to do a reggae based track every so often, or else there would be a fight🙂and Martin could always do a decent reggae bass so in that tradition here’s this year’s one for this album.😉👍🏻

 

 I don’t want nobody else

Another effort aiming at the boy band market, which also generated some interest at the time.  

Included also because Martin is definitely on backing vocals on this one and definitely came up with some of them 

I remember Martin and I writing the middle 8 for this as we had some rather ‘interesting and alternative’ lyrics for that bit. 🙂😉

 

Happy Never After

This one has quite a bittersweet story to it for me.

A couple of months before he died, Mart and I were chatting on the phone, and he suddenly said ‘By the way, I’ve got an idea for a new song.’

This surprised me as his illness and CTS meant that he really hadn’t been up to playing guitar or really composing anything for quite some time.

‘ Ok,’ I said , ‘What have you got so far?’

‘ Well, I’ve only got the title.’ he replied ‘But it’s a good one!’

‘ Oh.’ I said. ‘ Well, what is it?’

‘ Happy Never After. ‘ he said. ‘ And you have to do the rest of it.’

Armed with that, I had a brief attempt at it, but got nothing. But he kept asking me about it over several weeks, and finally, partly to shut him up, I worked on it and came up with the song pretty much as it is here. A few weeks before he died, I sent it to him, and he came back to me and said he was ‘pleasantly surprised’ and ‘it was the best song I’d written for ages.’

So it is here for that sentimental reason, and because, simply, there is no way it would have been written without him. 👍🏻

 

Screwed

I’m not sure if Martin heard this version, as the song was originally a little different. The lyric is somewhat mean and bitter, and it is included here as it is just a little variety to what we often tried to do with our love songs.

Light and shade, love and life, as Martin might say. Or else, soppy and moany, as I would.😁

 

I still love you

A proper collaborative effort from somewhere in the late 1990’s that I had forgotten all about!

I have included it because Martin really liked this song but I never really rated it much at the time. Martin was going through a ‘Let’s do some country songs’  phase, and I was not particularly a country fan, but went along with it just to keep him quiet! And also to see if we could do it. A guy called John sang it. Hearing it back now, he did a good job on it. Yes, all right, it’s in, Martin, stop going on about it, I’m putting it on the album, aren’t I! And that’s why I’ve put Special Offer on it too!

 

The fun of affair 

I know Martin really liked this when I first played it to him, and we both thought it had potential.

It got left for a couple of years, but now here it is. I’m not sure who it is about, ( it’s probably you, Martin 😑🙄) but I liked the play on the idea of an affair being like a fun fair ride, and went with that. Ok, maybe it’s about me a bit too, no saints here🙄😔 but like most of us, I was also on the receiving end of that sort of thing as well, so it’s a general theme (park) idea really.🙄

 

Time spent with you 

Mart and I would write stuff quite separately sometimes and this is just a personal one from me about being happy with the person and the family you are with.👍🏻🙂

 

Hey Stupid

Martin heard this one and we actually discussed and worked on this together a little bit. It was not completed till much later, but Mart suggested putting in the word ‘Stupid’ on repeat backing vocal in one of the choruses. So he went in and recorded that part. And this is in fact one of the few times his voice appears on any of these songs which is a real regret. But at least he got to say ‘Stupid!’ on one of the songs🙂He would probably have liked that, found that quite funny and would have said, ‘Actually, I was just talking about you, Jon!’🤣😑