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

THE ISOLATE by Trev Teasdel (1st verses written Coventry 1979 / rest of lyric and music Middlesbrough 1985)

Under lock and key
In a room where no one goes

He sheds the tears
no one else will see.

In the recess of his mind
where troubles often hide
He feels the sorrow
felt by him alone.

Bridge 1
His eyes do not betray
the hurt that rots his soul
and his lips are sworn to secrecy
(his lips are sworn to secrecy).

Chorus - but he says it's alright
Daylight follows night
He knows to hold on tight
One day it will come right.

In a folder 'neath the floor boards

in a room where no one goes
are the words he wrote
to songs he never sings.

In the silence of his solitude
so void and unbenign
we witness how
his dreams are growing wings.

Bridge 2
One day his key will turn
One day his door will open
You'll see his dreams take shape
in the world outside his mind
And when his heart is sure
When his vision's clear
You'll see his dreams take flight
in the room outside his mind...(To Chorus)

And his dreams are howling wolves
in the hopelessness of night
that beckon to
and herald in the light.

And his sorrow and his searching
are craftsmen of his dreams
chiselled in that ri n shred of life.

Bridge 3
His heart is pure and clear
like a stream that wanders free
He sees things as they ought to be.
And he climbs the stairs of life
with his visions running wild
and guides them as they grow
like a parent would a child.
..........

Before leaving Coventry in 1980 - I worked at Cashes (name tapes - textile firm) labouring while doing a couple of A levels in the evening. Two Tone had broken in Coventry and the music scene was lively again there. The workers in the factory took a fag break in between the official breaks in the toilets. I don't smoke but used to have a 'write'  break instead. I locked my self in the cubicle and sketch out some words - on this occasion I imagined myself to be imprisoned in some godforsaken cell (it was an old factory) and probably reflected my state of mind working in this place and hoping to get out of it. Hence the first two verses. Later that year I moved to Teesside to begin a degree course, so yes I did escape! In 1985 working with my musician friends Steve Gillgallon and Stephen Ingledew, I finished the song. We tried several versions - acoustic   and the versions here over dubbed on a double cassette (so the quality is not too hot. The final version (although no vocal on it) occurred a year later in 1986 when we had bought better keyboards and an electric guitar. The top version is also on my My Space - Trev and Collective Unconscious.

Songs feature Trev Teasdel - acoustic or electric flanged guitar, keyboards / vocals
Steve Gillgallon bass guitar and keyboards / synth and arrangements
Stephen Ingledew on keyboards, bass synth and recordings.

I wrote this in 1968 at 17 but rewrote it 1978 after reading feminist writers

 like Juliet Mitchell, Sheila Rowbothem and more. Being a single parent, it comes close to home now!  I did this briefly with a Coventry band in 1980 - a Pentangle influenced band. The bassist was Selecter's roadie and we worked on a ska version of this although all of the musicians had gone folk rock. The band never got off the ground as Andy left to do Phd and I moved to Teesside to do a BA. I don't have any recordings of that version - this is just me and an acoustic guitar with the original draft of the song. This lyric was published in my 2nd collection of poems and lyrics - Poet Reprobate 1985

                                 

MRS STRESS AND STRAIN

When the sun’s out shining

Are you always ironing?

Does Steven need new shoes?

And Mary have the lover’s blues?

As life all around gets tense

Do you ask yourself

‘where is the sense?’

Now the milkman hasn’t been

And the rooms aren’t very clean.

There’s bills to be paid

On your mind they’re all weighed

Prices rising higher

Your state is getting higher.

Chorus –

Mrs Stress and Strain, To the kitchen sink you’re chained.

Worry haunts your life, And I can see you are the wife

Of Mr Toil and Strife.

“A women’s works is never done”

and the housework isn’t fun

Who else would work as hard as you

Such long hours, no rest due.

The stresses and the strains you bear,

The children and the mothercare!

And the beat goes on, day by day,

The isolation wears your soul away.

There’s nothing to show for all your work

You can’t stop a room from gathering dirt!

You feel you’ve got no life left of your own,

A permanent fixture, a doorpost in your home.

And though you’ll never make ends meet,

The adverts entice you to compete

With the image of an all-mod-con

Trendy space age super mom.

Should profiteers always hold the trump cards?

You’ve been dealt a hand of jokers –

What a façade!

Who’s the one they fall back upon.

Sometimes slave means the same as mom.

They never see the other side of you

Only what they expect of you.

Pinned down in a domestic situation

With little pills to ease your aggravation.

Sit down, sit back, light up and sigh,

Does your position in society make you cry?

“How hard’s the fortune of all women kind,                  

they’re always in fetters, always confined.

Bound down by parents until made wives

Slaves to their husbands the rest of their lives.”

Chorus

 

BBC News Report on Victor Jara

This is not one of my own songs but one of the most powerful protest songs ever written and probably not as well known as it deserves. It began as a poem by one of the top British poets - Adrian Mitchell and Arlo Guthrie was inspired to set the poem to music to great effect in my opinion. I first heard the song ion a Live BBC Radio one concert by Peter Seeger who performed the song on Banjo. Later that month I heard it sung in a Coventry folk club and knew I had to learn it. On my move to study at Teesside Poly in 1980, the Chilean society had a stall in the Student's Union and I bought a book of Victor Jara's songs and in the back were the chords to this song. The version here was performed by myself on acoustic guitar and vocals and Steve Gillgallon on bass guitar in  1983. Strangly, shortly after recording this version on a double cassette player, I performed the song solo at a Middlebrough Folk club along with my own song Political Asylum (on this site - see index). It went down a storm - more so than I expected. Talking at the bar - I discovered that it was the 10th aniversary of  Victor Jara's death and the TV had shown a documentary of it the night before - being a poor student - I didn't have a TV then so didn't know about it. This strange synchronicity got me invited to perform the two songs at a special concert for Victor Jara in Middlesbrough with Teesside's folk family  - The Wilsons. The hall was packed. I performed it just on my own with a acoustic guitar but here's an electric version with Steve Gillgallon.

VICTOR JARA
words by Adrian Mitchell, music by Arlo Guthrie

Victor Jara of Chile
Lived like a shooting star
He fought for the people of Chile
With his songs and his guitar
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

Victor Jara was a peasant
He worked from a few years old
He sat upon his father's plow
And watched the earth unfold
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

Now when the neighbors had a wedding
Or one of their children died
His mother sang all night for them
With Victor by her side
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

He grew up to be a fighter
Against the people's wrongs
He listened to their grief and joy
And turned them into songs
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

He sang about the copper miners
And those who worked the land
He sang about the factory workers
And they knew he was their man
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong             Here's another version not buy me this time but Christy Moore

He campaigned for Allende
Working night and day
He sang "Take hold of your brothers hand
You know the future begins today"
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

Then the generals seized Chile
They arrested Victor then
They caged him in a stadium
With five-thousand frightened men
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

Victor stood in the stadium
His voice was brave and strong
And he sang for his fellow prisoners
Till the guards cut short his song
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

They broke the bones in both his hands
They beat him on the head
They tore him with electric shocks
And then they shot him dead
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

Now the Generals they rule Chile
and the British have their thanks
For they rule with Hawker Hunters
And they rule with Chieftain tanks
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong

Repeat first verse

Lyric was written in 1970 - when Coventry drummer Steve Harrison asked for some blues lyrics for a band that I think included Mojo Morgan - it was a traditional blues but a bluesy feel in the emotions. It's about, I think, procrastination - wishing for something and then being 'dazzled' or overwhelmed when the opportunity comes and blowing it, near as I can remember.  I was going to do it with our little band in 1986 and recorded it as a basic idea playing acoustic guitar,  analog synth bass and a very early little casio keyboard and multi tracked vocals and put through a digital delay more recently. We never did the track and the Cov band split up before anything could be used. So this is it's first wider hearing. Just an old demo track. The title was influenced by a Joni Mitchell song on Ladies of the Canyon which was current back then - "Morning Morgan Town". - Broadgate Gnome's comment reminded me that Leonard Cohen's Winter Lady was also an influence and the line Child of the Snow is a literary reference to Cohen - we used jam on Winter Lady in Coventry on the grass outside the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery back in the early 70's.

BELOW - NEW VIDEO PRODUCED BY THE GNOME LABEL OF BACK IN WINTER TOWN - THE SONG NOW FEATURES ON TREV'S NEW  ALBUM - SONGS FROM THE COVENTRY UNDERGROUND ON THE GNOME LABEL

BACK IN WINTER TOWN

I persevered through

Persistent rain

Believing that the sun must shine.

Through the thunder clouds,

I kept my head

Wishing that the sun would shine.

I was isolated

by deep frozen snow

Believing that the sun would shine.

And the sun did shine,

and it shone so bright

that it dazzled me.

Chorus

And the rain came down

Now I’m back in

And the rain came down

Now I’m back in

(Bridge)

I'm a "child of the snow".  I'm a "child of the snow".  I'm a "Child of the snow"

I dug my way through fields of hurt

Believing I would find the key.

Through the gates of pain,

I kept my head

Believing I would find the key.

I was left alone,

In that nowhere zone

Believing that the key I'd find

And the key did shine

and it shone so bright

that it dazzled me.

Chorus

And the rain came down

Now I’m back in

And the rain came down

Now I’m back in .

(Bridge repeat)

Words 1970 Music 1986

By Trev Teasdel.

­

A SONG FROM PLAY CALLED MOCKTON
This song is a more recent one. In 2005 I was working on playlet written by June and Sarah from the Writers Cafe in Stockton on Tees called Mockton. Up until then June and Sarah had written and performed poetry - moved to writing  songs and doing the Cafe reviews. We met up every Sunday to play music and sometimes perform at local venues, with various other people from the cafe getting involved. it was a lot of fun. Then they read that there was an idea floating around to merge Middlesbrough and Stockton and we speculated what they might call it! It was Sarah's name that won the prize - Mockton!! This spawned a play in which there was rivalry between Stockton and Middlesbrough epitomised by perceived competition between the potery and music scene in Stockton - led by Vonn Sturudle (myself) and Middlesbrough led by Bob Beagrie called Gobber in the play. A caricature of  many Writers Cafe members and other local literary figures are in the play under invented names. It was a comedy and we began rehearsing it involving local actors and actresses. I wrote the oem Sin City for it and this song - Wanna Come back To My Place - loosly based on Lou Reed's Wild Side (The Velvet Underground was a favouite band in the group.) I performed it at the Writers Cafe to much amusement. I will try and record it soon and add it here. It makes more sense if you know the people but others in the audience enjoyed it on  another level even though they wern't privy to all the background. The play was never finished or performed but this song from the play and the poem were featured at the cafe. Mudfog is the ancient name for Middlebrough and also the name of a local poetry publishing venture that was part of the literary development here. knitware is Sarah and June's group.

Wanna Come Back to My Place?   (by Trev Teasdel 2005)

> Onid  checked into to the Rainbow hotel, Stockton
> Told us of the horrendous plans for Mockton
> Nimrod in his leathers
> Left his pants back at Heather's
>
> Chorus
> Hey Babe - wanna come back to my place
> I look rough but I'm not a nutcase
> Hey Cutie wanna come back to my place
> I look tough but I've got a bookcase!
>
> Randy Slim rattled like a snake
> Hera and Onid tried to feed him cake
> but he slithered through the mud
> believing that the mud was good.
>
> (To chorus)
>
> Onix came pouting like a fox
> It was her duty to rewind all the clocks
> She never could tell the time
> covered up in all that slime.
>
> Dandy Hillbilly hit the guitar
> Claimed he'd had the daughter of the Tsar
> When his poems hit the charts
> He united broken hearts
>
> Marnie had it hot for Gobber
> When she saw him in all that Viking clobber
> but when he lashed out with his chops
> she sent him running from the cops

Now knitwear were hunting thimbles without a stitch
When Vonn came he said 'Yo! U gals can be my bitch'
but they had him in a trance
spiked his drink and made him dance.

Now the clone of Lou Reed was nowhere to be seen
He was down in the Velvet underground being obscene
Everyone thought it was a pity
He was raised down in Sin City.

Now capitalism's on the streets with bald hair
where some down and outs offered it a chair
but it was past its best
limping blind with sagging breasts.

but the Rainbow knew of a better way live
If love rules people learn how to give
if the system don't serve the hearts of people
throw it out without repeatal..

And Vonn  sings- doda do da do...

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.

THROW DOWN MY PACK

Written by Trev Teasdel June 1973 Coventry - inspired by Hobo - story below and notes on the 3 audios.

Give me my pack; I’ll be on my way 

The lakes of this land are now dry

It’s been a good soldier in its day

But its eyes have no water to cry.

The sun looks bright but the land is in shadow

Like madmen we tried to swim a tideless sea.

A sky full of planes but nowhere to land them

A head full of ideas that cried to be free.

Instrumental Break…

Throw down my pack; I’m bound for to stay

I think we can turn on the tap.

Turning the tap is like tugging Excalibur

We need all hands at the tap.

The sun looks bright; we’ll invite it to stay

Once we find a place to land our planes.

A hand full of ideas; a jug full of water

Reap the fruit of our aims.

Where has the love gone; we’re empty and aching

Where has the fun gone; it’s turned into violence.

Where are the people with words and no action?

Let’s have the action and less of the words.

 

By Trev Teasdel June 1973 (Coventry)

NOTES ON THE AUDIO

Several audios No1 is later version recorded on a Fostex 4 track in 1993. I play all the instruments on this version (for better or worse!!) including flanged electric guitar / Bass guitar / Keyboards and vocals. The drums are played by the keyboard! I was hoping to do a new mix straight onto the computer (for better sound quality) but the four tack has a tape stuck in it and none of the cassette controls work so I've worked with an earlier none computer mix.

Audio no 2 was recorded c 1982 on Teesside with me on acoustic guitar and Steve Gillgallon on acoustic lead. Just a home recording but I liked Steve's melodic chromatic style lead. Later he progressed to playing his melodies on keyboards and synth and also played bass on a lot of tracks. I learnt a lot from his playing and it enabled me to play all the parts on the song later.

Audio No 3 was the original version -one of the earliest recordings from 1973 on a mono cassette player ( a bit rough therefore - but here to show the process) - which has the original bridge in and a different arrangement. He arrangement got simplified when I worked with Steve.

TONIGHT LONELINESS SURROUNDS ME LIKE THE DARK OF NIGHT
(Piano song written by Trev Teasdel Feb 1982 Middlesbrough)

NOTHING TO ADD  by Trev Teasdel Coventry March 1975 (Cut -up lyric)

 

The murder squad are on the hunt again

Time to look up to the man who cleans the drain                                                Synth version (Draft)

Mystics learn how to conquer pain

My thoughts are restricted by my brain.

A question mark dangles from the chain of a crane.

 

Chorus

But I’ve got Nothing to Add

Does life really have to be that bad?

I’ve got Nothing to add

Does life really have to be that bad?

 

If you’ve got kids then you can’t go out

My teapot’s got an upside down spout

Even the wise are plagued with doubt

People read books to see what life’s about.                                                Acoustic original

Some only live when they twist and shout.

 

Today a million lovers tears will be shed

Saturday will see so many get wed

The funny things that people do in a bed

While half the world is under fed.

I feed my mind, become well read.

 

Everywhere you look’s there’s a tug O war

Susie says Jamie’s such a bore

Today I pulled the handle off my door

As  rich men do survey’s on the poor.

 

All our actions we feel must be justified

Superior decisions that must override

A mother in the street tanned a child’s hide

Hey life! Who are your official guides?

 

Every film has a car that explodes with fire

Each town’s linked with telegraph wire

Days roll by like a wayward tyre

Projecting images / reaching spiritually higher

We’re both the seller and the buyer.

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

Another cut up lyric from 1975 - written around the same time as Twentieth Centure Inertia below.

As with 20th Cent - the sources were my A level sociology / literature notes and handouts - overheard bits from the radio or TV in the next room (The first line comes from a TV news report. Colin Wilson's Outsider / Phil Knapper coming popping in - talking about some of his explorations of religious ideas, overheard conversation of people passing by, bits form magazines and books. The lyric was reworked a few times through different versions over the years. The idea of the lyric was to try and capture NOW through the sense - all the media etc that the senses take in at anytime.

For the acoustic version I chose the 1981 versions with Steve Gillgallon on improvised acoustic lead (I was showing him the song with a view to us playing the song so his lead isn't honed on this. The original 1975 version is more enregtic but the sound quality is poorer.

The electric version was done in Middlesbrough in 1985 with Steve Gillgallon on Bass guitar and synth and Me on vocals and keyboards and (I think Steve ingledew may have been on keyboards too - not sure if he'd joined us quite then! This version was a rough working on the portastudio tyring to find a sound and an arrangement. It cooks up a bit towards the end but we abandoned it in favour of other songs so no final and better version emerged.