A ska styled number this time!
For those who follow the Hobo - Coventry music site - this was one of the last songs I wrote before leaving Coventry in 1980. Two Tone was raging in the city and many of the other Cov bands followed through with their own brand of Ska. Ya couldn't stand still at a gig - ya had to dance. Tony (Mojo) Morgan and I met up at the Dog and Trumpet (Coventry's Cavern ) late 1979 and back at his pad he told me about a new band he was forming EMF. His idea was to blend ska and blues (perhaps ska with blues bass lines and sax). He hadn't honed the line up then and asked if I could come up with a couple of songs. I did two - Saturday Night (written in the Dog And Trumpet) which had a 12 bar verse and ska chorus and this one With Someone Nice Like you. I'm not sure I ever played them to  Him as very soon Tony (Mojo as he's now known) brought in two girl singers who had their own material. I became a big fan of EMF and was often called upon to get everyone dancing (something I still do at the Writers Cafe as some will know!) and also Hot Snacks were another fave band at the time. This was written around that time - early 1980. The recording was me on acoustic guitar on a cassette plaeyer so the sound quality wasn't great - just a draft really. I've added a bit of reverb and delay to enhance it a little but couldn't get rid of a few buzzes - still it gives an idea. (Have added a photo of the EMF at the Dog and Trumpet in Coventry and an audio of their final sound - the single Anti Bellum (it's a gudun!) written by the two girl singers.

With Someone Nice Like You

 

by Trev Teasdel

I torture myself, with pent up fears

I brood a lot

I brew tea for one

I ask myself “how come”

How come I just can’t face the pots

I tie myself right up in knots

Chorus

And I long to spend my time

And I long to spend my time

Yes I long to spend my time

With someone nice like you.

I smashed a cup washing up

I burnt the toast

I missed the post

And I ask myself “Whyfore”

Whyfore I haven’t fixed the drafty door

I’m frozen right through to the core

Chorus

And I long to spend my time

And I long to spend my time

Yes I long to spend my time

With someone nice like you.

Oh the nights are cold

Oh the nights are long

All I do, it comes out wrong

I wash my clothes but still they pong

How come I just can’t get it right?

Sadness got me in his long-range sights

To chorus..

Bridge

When I see a lover by your side

I turn my love lights low

Take my part in a melancholy show

Oh I just don’t know

Don’t know how to show I just don’t care

When my feeling set fire to my hair.

To Chorus.

By Trev Teasdel – 1980

A LOTTA RAIN IS FALLIN’

Written June 1970 by Trev Teasdel (Originally the music to this was written by Pete Waterman long before he was world famous!) - Story below. These audio versions are set to my own music much later though - I don't have a copy of Pete's Version - not sure if has even  - it was so long ago!)

 

A lotta rain is fallin’, but the earth has moved aside

There’s a lotta bullets flying but the victim’s found somewhere to hide 

There’s a lotta rivers flowin’ but the seas learned how to fly.

There’s a lotta clouds a wondering which rockets knicked the sky

‘cos the roads are moving fast but the cars are standing still

and so much is happening yet nothing’s ever done

Oh we want to see the light but we’re dazzled by the sun.

 

(Bridge)

And some people's only sunshine

Is their Cornflakes in the morning time

And the age of instant sunshine

In packets of bright display

I know will be dawning,

In some future day.

 

There’s a lotta tears a fallin’, and more are being cried

There’s a lotta people trampled on as man takes another stride

There’s a lotta smoke a rising but the sky’s learned how to swim

There’s a lotta faces smiling but their hearts are feeling grim

Cos a lotta tension’s forming and the bags about to burst

There’s gotta be an answer cos the world is getting worse.

A lotta help is needed to get that truck back on the road

Cos too many people are pullin’ too heavier a load.

 

(BACK TO BRIDGE)

The story behind the song - I was about 18 / 19 when I wrote this - working in the Telecommunications dept. of the GEC Stoke works in Cov. At weekends I was organising bands at the Coventry Arts Umbrella and writing song lyrics (I didn't play guitar until a year later - beyond some preliminary chords). I was an Electrical inspector - testing huge telephone racks - somewhat mind-numbing - so often used to have a 'write break' when everyone else was having a 'smoke break' in the factory - shutting myself in a cubicle and sketching out lyrical ideas or even whole lyrics. One day the boss was out and I sat at my telephone rack writing a song idea that occured to me on the way to work (in the rain!). My work mates had no idea that I wrote and one of them came up and said "What are you doing?" "Writing a song" I replied. "You should have a word with Pete (Waterman)" he said. "Pete who?" I said. Next thing I knew - the guy I recognised as the loud shop steward on the next section was standing over me.Incredible as it may seem now, I had no idea who he was but was quickly informed by my mate that Pete was the top DJ at the Coventry Locarno and a leading light on the Coventry music scene. Pete's Soul Hole Article . Pete like the lyric - I had only completed the first verse and bridge). He took the song away to write some music to it and asked me to complete the lyric. He liked the line "There's a lotta Rivers flowin' but the sea's learned how to fly" so much that he repeated that line in his version and I wrote the mirror image in the second verse "There's a lotta smoke arising but the sky's learned how to swim' - I was about that feeling when a lot of things are happening but you somehow feel nothing is coming to fruition in a positive way in both in a personal way (in the first verse) and in a gobal way in the second verse. I liked having fun using personification in my lyrics at this time. Musically I'd been listening to Epitaph by King Crimson and of course there's will be a Dylan influence in there too. Pete's version, on acoustic guitar, sounded vocally to me like a cross between McCartney with the R & B grit of Dylan. Follow the link to Hobo site read more

Background to the lyric and Pete's version

Notes on the audio - The audio versions here are not Pete's music - I don't have a copy of his version. These are versions I did later on Teesside with my own music. Pete's version was better I think  - I would probably vary the chords more now. My version is in minors - Pete used 7ths. I changed the word 'gay' to 'bright display' later on. I'm surprised I used such a cliche in what is a very imagistic lyric but 'gay' didn't have the sexual connotations it later gained back then! The word occurs in the audio version but not the lyric version here.

First is a version recorded on in 1984 before we had more advanced keyboards with Steve Gillgallon on bass guitar and acoustic lead, Ian Digby on keyboards and myself on vocals and acoustic.

The second audio is an earlier acoustic practice run with Steve Gillgallon playing acoustic lead.

Twentieth Century Inertia (Cut up lyric by Trev Teasdel Coventry 1975)

In Romania the divorce rate dropped

Nijinsky only lived when he danced
Marriage still in vogue with the young
Boxing tonight - Freud versus Jung.

If you don't push then you'll get shoved
Having fun in the tunnel of love
One is one's own enemy and friend
Van Gough cried "Misery will never end"

Bridge 1
Today someone started another new trend
Cos some of the old ones, they came to an end
Mankind your slaves are rising against you now.
You treat your women like skivvies
and your workers like slaves.
Now your coloureds and colonies
won't bless your myths with Kow Tow.

Everything you see could be a clue
To some unsolved mystery
Newsmen in Trinidad said they'd hung Malcolm X
Have the prophets really had a glimpse of the text?

Abandon baby found in a litter bin
In the backstreets someone threatened to do me in
Football team didn't win; goal disallowed.
But then we're all part of that football crowd.

The censors gave life a certificate X
Supermarkets sell their beans with sex
The sheer violence that assaults your head
Whatever would have Chaucer's pilgrims have said.

Bridge 2

Can u imagine Shakespeare's three weird sister
Shopping for Tampax in Marks and Blisters.
Ruthless Macbeth and an American Senator.
Bow down to the latest Charismatic Kings
Tourists tell us that 'England Swings
Can't afford to oil the pendulum swings.

She mixes cold intellectuality
with red-hot sexuality
You should have seen her body move
Still made sure her mind improved.

Pondering Weber's theories of Beaurocracy
Wondering what life would have been like under the Chinese literatti
Don't mind me I'm just expounding ideas
that caused some 20th Century tears.

**********************************************************

This song is a sort of Da da cut up. Bowie spoke of using the technique with songs like Drive in Saturday / Life on Mars. In Coventry Kevin Harrison of Zoastra / Whistler and later Urge - was experimenting with the technique when I interviewed them in Coventry 1974.

William Burroughs said that all art was 'Cut up'  - we all take bits from here and there and weave it into a creative whole - a work of fiction. Cut up is just a more concsious way of doing it.

I tried not to do it in the same way as the Da daists - I tried to let all the different things that compete for one's attention during the day come through rather than simply cut up various texts.

I was revising for my A Levels at the time - Sociology and literature and had all my notes out - hence lines like  - Divorce rate dropped / Marriage still in vogue / Weber's theories of Bearuocracy / Chinese Literatti etc. I had also been reading the Outsider and Beyond the Outsider by Colin Wilson - lines about Nijinsky / Van Gough / came from that. The radio was on - lines about abandon babies / Malcolm X / football came from overheard news bulletins / other things came from people passing by  - fragments of conversations / literature revision notes  - Chaucer etc.

Instead of creating a linear lyric  - I wanted something that reflected the moment and the state of the century. A collage effect. it is one of two songe I wrote at the time experimenting with a form of cut-up. Nothing To Add will be added after this!

Audio wise the vocal version was recorded on mono cassette player in 1975 in Coventry and the more punkish version was recorded on a portastudio in Saltburn by the Sea in 1989. On that version - the backing track - I play electric guitar - keyboard bass and lead and synth effects. While recording a a friend - John McGowan came by - he used to be a punk guitarist offered to do lead guitar - turned the sound volumes up full. Half way through whe was throwing my guitar around, bouncing it off the floor, using it as percussion and generally smashing hell out of it!! he said it was a joke and would do it again properly! No way - that was brilliant - just the sort of musical sound collage I wanted behind  it! However we never finished the track.

Sonny Boy (Sure  Rolls  'em Drums) by Trev Teasdel - Coventry 1973

 

Sonny  left school to join a Rock n Roll band

Sonny  left school to join a Rock n Roll band

His dad did not agree

His dad did not agree

 

His daddy said he was fool - ool

To join a Rock n Roll band

His daddy said he was fool - ool

To join a Rock n Roll band

But his son did not agree

But his son did not agree

 

His daddy said take your A levels

Stead of playing in a Rock and Roll band

His daddy said take your A levels

Stead of playing in a Rock and Roll band

But his son did not agree

But his son did not agree

 

 

Sonny boy sure rolls ‘em drums

He ain’t all fingers and thumbs

Sonny boy sure rolls ‘em drums

He ain’t all fingers and thumbs

Sonny boy gotta be free

Sonny boy gotta be free

This is not the most sophisticated lyric but it was aimed at more of a rock audience at the time.

For dedicated followers of the Hobo Coventry music history - it was written early 1973 at the Cheylesmore Community Centre. I was hanging out at the time with the Cov band Fission - Johnny Adams, Al Varney, Ant Callaghan and Simone Lovegrove (the drummer). I sometimes used to play in the breaks at their gigs - sometimes Simon would play bongos behind me and Johnny Adams a bit of acoustic lead -some times Ant would join in on percussion for the fun.

Not sure why we were at the Community - it was a disco - probably Silk - not sure if the band were playing there or we'd just gone there for a night out! I seem to think they were checking it out for a possible gig.

Most of the music waI ws chart stuff - we were into more LP stuff - the real stuff! While we were talking / listening / drinking Simon the drummer explained his dilemma - his dad wanted him to concentrate on gaining qualifications and his career and Simon wanted to continue with his Rock career. Eventually Simon left and concentrated on his career. He recently got back in contact and is indeed a very sucessful Business consultant. Fission split up in 1974.

This will be a familiar situation for a lot of musicians past and present and certainly was a problem for a lot of Cov bands. You could never tell if you were going to 'make it'. Should one take the safe choice or risk on a possible rock career.

I wrote the lyric while we chatted - I think I showed it to Simon. Johnny and I often had our Eko Jumbo's strapped to our backs wherever we went around then - I think I went outside on the lawn to work out the chords - mostly with Johnny Adams. It was more of a rock thing.

I recorded later on a borrowed mono cassette player - 70's style so the song quality is not so good and the tape now very old is full of drop outs and a bit of phasing. In someways I like the drop outs as the sound swings from channel to channel - as if I'd done deliberately! The recording obviously wasn't meant for mass consumption - just a record of the song for possible use with a band at some stage - but it gives a flavour and is one of my earliest recordings from days of youth.

Another early lyric from March1969 - when I was about 18. Some of the influences are transparent to me now - the Beatles White Album - Happiness is a Warm Gun / Paul Simon (the bit about Human Rockery - a reference to I Am A Rock syndrome and 'communicates with a silent tongue - ref to Sound of Silence) - Tanks and guns - a nob to Masters of War. Maybe a bit of Mr Business Man by Ray Stevens in there too. Something in the air and Hurdy Gurdy man are influencing it too I think. All these were played on Radio One at the time. Concieved as a kind of psychedelic sort of sound although I didn't play an instrument when this was written so no audio - music was just in my head.

MAN SUPREME THE PERFECT BEING by Trev Teasdel - March 1969 Coventry

Man supreme the perfect being
Through perfect eyes the world he's seeing.
He thrives on mockery
and lives in a human rockery.
He's the all-electric, egocentric
busy-bodied business man.
Victim of anxiety,
Member of a stale society.
He's the all instinctive, aggresive beast,
repressed by day, by night released.
He communicates with a silent tongue
The perfect man can do no wrong.

Man supreme the perfect being
Through perfect eyes the world he's seeing.
He preaches love but really hates
He pulls the ground from below his mates.
He's a playful thing with his tanks and guns
Sometimes from his conscious runs.
Red disturbing jealousy
trembles throughout his tranquility.
He's the narrow minded navigator,
The inadvertant instigator.
He sings a silent song,
The perfect man can do no wrong.

Man supreme the perfect being
Through perfect eyes the world he's seeing.
He's toiling all the boiling day
then plodding home for rest and play.
Making love and tenderness,
sinking in a warm caress.
Mass producing countless kids, hope they're thin like paint-can lids,
Ambition haunts his tiny mind
If greed is free, then greed you'll find.
Angry words that penetrate
whilst you're down he'll dominate.
Why do they build their castles strong
If the perfect man can do no wrong.

Much has been made on the Hobo site about Coventry's post war traffic free shopping centre. This was an early song when I was 18 intended to have a psychedelic feel with keyboard phasing al la Small Faces Itchycoo Park. It was a concept song which had various changes of pace. Never really worked it out musically althugh there was an attempt to work the music as I heard it out on guitar - the audio of which is included here - very much at the composing stage with false starts and tryouts - so don't expect a polished performance - this is 'process' stuff - bootleg album stuff! It wasn't written entirely about the Coventry shopping precinct - we had one (now knocked down) in Willenhall too - I think the church there was St. Mary's and it had a very anti-consumerism theme! Although the audio doens't reflect that - the opening verse (as I heard it at the time) would start slow with sustained Hammond organ chords and echoed voice - sort of God Only Knows by the Beach Boys is the nearest I can describe it. A bit juvenile now maybe but an early lyric.

THE PRECINCT OF ST MARY’S

(The Modern Traffic Free Shopping Centre)

by Trev Teasdel Coventry Feb 1969

On a windy Saturday Afternoon

They sky isn’t grey but it’s getting that way.

Housewives are rushing by

They all have groceries to buy.

The shops all display their full range of goods

Dairy butter to raincoat hoods

Marmalade to Appleade

Pints of milk to wool and silk

Magazine and window leans

Budgie seed – in fact all you need.

Chorus

In the Precinct of Mary’s

In the Precinct of Mary’s

The Modern traffic free shopping centre.

There’s a barber in the end row, you know

A recommended place to go

An adjacent hardware store is far superior

To their central branch.

Signs that con you and cast spells upon you

Appealing to emotions

In aid of commercial promotions.

Pricy sales and pan scales

Mind arresting windows

People treading on your toes

Passing through anxious crowds

Minds full of household clouds

Emptying purses and worried curses.

Neon displays always pays

In the midst of a commercial haze

Over-burdened shopping bags

Eye straining price tags

St. Mary’s bells are ringing

Children run around singing

 

To chorus……….

Written in Middlesbrough 1981 but influenced by Coventry. Two female friends from the Dog and Trumpet gigs in Coventry wrote to me in my new home in Middlesbrough - they promised to knit me a scarf to fend off the cold North East Winds. I used that to write the song which isn't about any one person - more a cut up of different Coventry escapades linked by the Scarf theme. Audio features Steve Gillgallon on bass and lead and me on vocals and guitar. Recorded 1984 on a double cassette player.

SCARF

 

That night we were drunk in a downtown bar

And you were careful no to let me go too far

I said I’d take you home and you thought I had a car

Oh I tried so hard just to make you laugh

And you said that you’d Knit me a scarf.

 

Outside on the street, walking you home

We confided to each other, tired of being alone

I complained that my neck was getting cold

And you put your arms around me in a loving hold

And you tried so hard just to make me laugh

And you cuddled me in your arms like a scarf.

 

You told me you were training and I said “What for”

“to be a mechanic” – you hoped it would opens some doors

And you were so surprised when I thought it was good

Then you tripped me up and rolled me in the mud

And like a scarf you smothered me in love.

 

Half an hour later, worn out and wet

You told me how of late you had been up set

And invited me in when we got back to your flat

And I tripped over and I swore at your cat

And I made the cocoa and you fixed the stereo

And you tried so hard just to make me laugh

And if you knit me a scarf, then I’ll knit you one back

 

Song By Trev Teasdel Coventry / Middlesbrough 1981

I DIG ROCK N ROLL AND SHAKESPEARE

(by Trev Teasdel - Coventry 1971)

I dig Rock n Roll and Shakespeare.

I’m a heavy cat Mama!

I’m a Jew’s Harp blower

Dole receiver; not a work believer.

My poems are my medals

And I’m shooting for peace with the pellets of love.

I’m a piano person; guitar strummer

People call me a bummer but I don’t care

I know my road and my road knows me!

I dig doin’ what I dare not.

I’m a hustler by nature, Kazoo Kruncher

Stray cat seeker; Hi Heeled Sneaker.

My blisters are my passport

I’m running for election,

Wanna catch it for a souvenir!

I’m a cream cracker character,

A bread and Jam junkie

You only dig this cos it’s funky

But I don’t care, I washed my socks this morning Pa!

I dig, digging what I dig to dig

Even if no one else digs to dig it too!

I’m an indivdualistical baby.

You can’t classify me cousin

I’m too big for categories, too small to see.

Better watch what you are saying brother.

These words have ears

And anything you may say will be taken down

And used to toss bombs at Terrapins.

I dig Chinky water music, Indian Ragas

Forsyth Sagas.

I dig to read the bible when I feel like!

I don’t care if you may say

I must act in your hip, turned-on freaked out way

I don’t care if you may say

I must act in your straight and narrow way conventional way.

I really dig to act in my intergalactic way.

I’m a waterbearer wanderer

Poppin’ in and outta lifetimes.

I dig medieval minstrels,

You know the joculators and the jesters.

I’m a ruthless recorder shrieker,

A chuddy gum chewer, give donations to the local brewer.

I’m pleasant poster pincher,

Don’t bust me cos I’m contagious.

Call me the corduroy kid

Cos it’s a groovy kinda name.

I’m a flame throwing fire eater,

Go round burning castles in the air.

But it’s alright if I promise to wash my Hair Ma!

............................................

I wrote this in my youth in 1971, in Coventry on the music scene. I heard a song by Peter Paul and Mary on the juke box in the Golden Cross called  I Dig Rock n Roll Music  - I wrote a Coventry version - it was part tongue-in-cheek part serious but was popular around the cross when people read it in my Communication Book (a communal (and paper blog) that I carried around with me and people wrote poems in or their favourite song etc.)

The lyric was jotted down walking around Broadgate in Coventry as the lines came but I wrote a good portion of it in Golden Cross and typed it at Lyndie's pad where we were organising a music Marathon for the Arts Umbrella - I had use of a typewriter there.

The line about 'Shooting for peace with the pellets of love'  came walking down by the new Cov Cathedral, where the Lennon's had planted Acorns for peace in the Cathedral grounds in 1969. There was a bit of a Come Together feel in the music but obviously not the same - I don't a recorded version but used to do it as a performance poems at the Hobo Workshop later in the 70's.

LIKE THE LAKES OF SERBONIA

Notes -

Written 1971 for me to do in my Marc Bolan voice. Influenced by Bolan but the images are symbolic of feelings. The vocabulary in it may need some guidance -

‘Ruth’ means melancholy or sorrow and not the name of the female protagonist.

Serbonian Bog or Serbonis - A mess from which there is no way of extricating oneself. The Serbonian bog was between  and . Strabo calls it a lake, and says it’s 200 stadia long and 50 broad; Pliny makes it 150 miles in length. Hume says that whole armies have been lost therein. It received its name from Sebaket-Bardoil, a King of Jerusalem, who died there on his return  from an expedition into .

“A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog,   

betwixt Damiata and old.

Where armies whole have sunk”

: Lost ii, 592

How Perseus Came to the Æthiops

Myrtle is symbol of evergreen love. Sateless means insatiable. Junk - as in Chinese boat not rubbish. Nova - shooting star. Verdant - Green with vegetation. Sable - Dark. Wasserman -Water Monster in Germany . Clique - in this instance meaning hand in hand. Blue Ground - The strata where diamonds are found in South Africa (In this instance the Blue Ground of her heart is symbolic of richness).

Although using an archaic but unusal vocablulary it's just a lost-love song. She leaves him - he sad - bewitched by a shooting star guy - she a chameleon in his view - he hopes for a return (phoenix) but no chance - is sad.It was written in the days of Ride a White Swan!

LIKE THE LAKES OF SERBONIA

Like the Lakes of  Serbonia

“Where armies whole have sunk”

Myrtle hath withered and died

Now rides the stormy seas on a sateless junk

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lah

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lah

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lahla la….

Turtle dove bewitched by a nova

Verdant pastures doth seek

I, now bewept in a sable cloud

To espy her with her Wassermann coming clique

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lah

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lah

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lahla la….

Night prowler prowled the blue ground

Of your heart

Delighted by the lustre of what he found

Truly chameleon thou art.

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lah

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lah

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lahla la….

Deeply dreaming dreams of the phoenix

As the pigs fly by

High lone and betwixt the pits

And the snarling sky.

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lah

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lah

Oh my ruth. Lala la la lahla la….

By Trev Teasdel - Coventry 1971