21 posts tagged “songs”
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
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.
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...
Written on on Teesside - I was working some songs out with fellow student Steve Gillgallon and need a new song. Opening the Observer supplement I saw a full page ad for an American credit card which showed an executive on a Jet, handing his credit card to the hostess with a caption to the effect of "There's limit to how far yu can go with the particular credit card being advertised. It was asking to have the rise taken out of it. The first audio has me on acoustic and vocals and Steve Gillgallon on acoustic lead. A later 1984 version has Steve also on bass guitar as well as lead. I had also developed words for the bridge in which the protagonist gets his cum-uppance!!
NO LIMIT (TO HOW FAR YOU CAN GO) by Trev Teasdel Feb 81
I met her on the Trans-Atlantic jet from New York
She was playing hostess to business diplomats.
She said "where do you come from?" I said "Mexico "
She said "There's no limit, to how far you can go,
Absolutely no limit to how far you can go "
I pulled out my credit card, a smile hit her lips
She had a spare folder, the card it did fit.
The plane it took off, flying high in the sky.
She said "There's no limit, to how high you can fly,
Absolutely no limit to how high you can fly"
BRIDGE
And then she walked in, wearing only her body.
She led him down the corridor and into the cock-pit.
Then she opened her folder, his eyes they bulged
And as she slid his card inside, she discovered
His credit limit had been exceeded.
And after we landed, with ground 'neath out feet
She followed my down the steps and into the street.
I said "Why do you follow?" She said "don't you know"
I said "There's a limit, to how far we can go,
And this is the limit to how far we can go"
Feb 1981 Middlesbrough
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PORT OF LOVE By Trev Teasdel 1985
Calling that little lost ship
anchored off the River Me,
Wave tossed and unsure
in the sea's vast void.
Signal
and I will send my pilot cutter
to guide you in
through the rocks of uncertainty.
In my harbours
you'll find shelter from
the sea's whip-roaring waves
and a mooring
in the deep cut channels of
my river soul.
And to the sailors
of your wide-eyed senses
I grant
the freedom of the city
of my loving careingness
looking to all your needs
through the eye-glass of intuition.
You may stay forever
or leave when you choose.
Calling that little lost ship
coming closer to the lips of the river me.
I am the port of love
and I call to you to come in on the next tide.
This Poem was published in Trev's Book Poet Reprobate (Poetic Licence Collective) 1985
......
We Talked for Ages..
We talked for ages
I fondled your mind
till your thoughts became firm.
That night
I unzipped all your secrets -
the ones you show to no-one.
I penetrated
your emotional virginity.
You bled a little
I held your hand
I was trying hard
not to fall in love.
You had told me
you were not ready
for-love-again-so-soon.
I discovered a thousand trips ropes
strung around your body and your mind.
It was inevitable
that I would fall
eventually
headlong into that well of love.
Helpless
I hit the bottom -
found no water there to soften the blow
when your eyes
Told me NO!
.......................
This poem was published in Trev's book Poet Reprobate 1985 and also the magazines Folio / Streetclean / Outlet
A TEAR DROP IN THE TEES
Little Cleveland Kathy grew up in the slums (Solo version 1981)
The rain leaked through the roof
and the paint flaked off the walls.
At night, in bed, in winter
her feet grew cold and numb
In a house that wasn't weather-proof
she'd shiver till morning come.
Kathy's parents quarreled, all the time they could, (version with Colin Walker on Violin)
Always short on money
Always flush for tears.
Her mother claimed her father was a lazy ne're do good
cos he could never find employment
and drank his dole down in the pub.
Chorus.
And Kathy's voice was lost
like a teardrop in the Tees
Like wood that can't be seen for trees (Version with Ann Wainwright on Flute / Colin on Violin)
A teardrop in the Tees.
Kathy she resided, in a home divided
Like muck that clogs the kitchen sink
she was always in the way.
Never knowing where to turn
to clear confusion from her head.
In the land of ‘do-without’, with tears she wet her bed.
Kathy took a walk down by
where the Tees flows deep and wide.
Feeling quite at home amongst
the rust and the bitter waves.
She saw the beaten path between the dole and the factory yard.
She felt just like the can she kicked
crushed and beaten on all sides.
By Trev Teasdel 1981
In 1981 I was an undergraduate on Teesside and my singer songwriter friend Dave Wood alerted me to a Folk songwriting competition being fielded by Radio Tees (at that stage Dave Cousins of the Strawbs was programme controller). I had upcoming exams and so reformulated an early song I'd written in Coventry called Mary Annabella and orientated it towards Teesside. The inspiration had come from working on Adventure Playground in Wood End Coventry as summer playleader while on vacation from a Social Studies course c1975. Coventry had long been a boom town but the bubble had burst and the car factories were shedding labour, moving plants abroad and the effects of unemployment and poverty grew dramtically through the late 70's.
Mr Opulent V Mary Annabella Nov 68
Mary Annabelle wears a face she does not own
And her teeth are in a jar on the table in her home
She walks the dog around the street
Hoping she might meet – Mr Perfect and his family called ‘Elite’
All mod cons are incorporated in the kitchen that she admires
And in the living room are several two-bar fires
An oriental tapestry conceals some tattered walls
And photographs of Fred Astair and Englebert are suspended in the halls.
She contemplates her Mr Opulent, a car manufacturer’s Director
Who used to be married to Mary Annabella
A Betterware salesman knocks upon the wooden door
And nervously departed when she phoned for the law.
Mr O’s in the boozer playing his life away at poker
Everybody knows that he’s a proverbial loser
Mary she invites all her would-be-courting-knights
To a round table meeting full of feasting and eating.
(Drink up your merry wine, if you drive you’ll get a fine)
Bridge
It makes one wonder who are the primates of the earth
Money, cars or humans, funny but there you are!
Gazing in the window of a cosmetic shop
What will she do if she becomes a flop
Mr O’s unprolific life, is supported by an unwanted skeleton of strife.
His adulterous misdoings led to legal suings
Now he’s looking for the promised land with a vapid compass in his hand.
Just like a bacterised loaf of bread
A sour milk container for his so called head.
Three pining children he left behind
Their distress is underlined
With an alcoholic father
And a prostituted mother
Look out kids - you better take cover.
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
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)
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Sat at the table we sat last night Looking at the chair from where you looked at me- Last night. Wishing I could see you there now, Loving eyes. Lovely hair. It all serves to remind me how much – I need someone nice like you to care.
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Sat at the window where I watched for you. Looking at the people looking at me looking for you. Wishing I could see you there now, Heart that loves. Soul that cares. It all serves to remind me how much – I need someone nice like you to care.
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Chorus Last night it was the wine that was flowing Tonight it's the tears that are flowin' Tonight loneliness surrounds me like the dark of night
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Sat on the edge of love awaiting your return Looking inside my soul as my feelings burn Wishing I could see you there now, Words so tender, lips that heal It all serves to remind me how much, I need someone nice like you to care.
Bridge |
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Just a tender word in my ear would ease my fear. People say such ugly things and in my mind it rings and rings But just a tender word from you can make loneliness stand up and sing. |
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Ann has now been a long a standing friend since then of 25 years standing although she now lives down south. We were involved with initiating many literary projects on Teesside and she played flute on a track to be uploaded - Teardrop in the Tees and keyboards on some other tracks.