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.

­

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...

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

 

After the ravages of war and conflict in the posts below - a nice love poem! Port of Love was written first as a poem in 1985 ish inspired by a close female friend I met at the Teesside Poly. I was working as a researcher in local history for the Guisborough Teachers' Centre - out on field research at South Gare - Redcar - by the mouth of the Tees. There oil tankers line up waiting for the pilot cutter to guide them in  around the sand bars - that in the past wrecked many a ship. Below is Port of Love is another from the around the same time. In 1986 we set Port of Love to music. The song was never finished and this is an instrumental first draft with me playing keyboards (chords) based on a piano piece I'd had fromthe Coventry days but taken a lot slower and with either Steve Ingledew or Steve Gillgallon on melody keyboards (can't remember which one played on this. Had we finished it both would have been on the track and it would have been more developed but it gives a flavour. The vocals were spoken.

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.

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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.

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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

Although the final version was written on Teesside in 1981, the song began in Coventry through a number of re-writes as  described below.  I included a number of  audio versions here mainly for Ann Waiwright who played flute on one of the versions. It includes a solo version - myself on vocals and clawpicked guitar, one with Colin Walker on Violin, another with Colin on violin and Ann Wainwright on flute and a later keyboard version in which I played all the instruments myself for better or worse!

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.

In 1968 I'd written song called Mr Opulent V Mary Annabella (lyric below). I was about 17 then and influenced by the current Mr Businessman song by Ray Stevens (although mine pales before that great lyric). An influence non the less. I later re-wrote in the mid 70's but a new lyric developed called Mary Annabella which begat the Teardrop in the Tees. The earlier song was in a bunch that drummer Steve Harrison took with him to the a practice session for Nack Ed En - c 1970 - a blues / rock trio with Loz Netto (later with Sniff and the Tears), Neil Richardson (later Drops of Broandy). Soon Steve was replaced on drums by Brad (later of the Specials). The group focused more blues based material so I didn't think my material would fit particularly but this was among one of the lyrics they read through. Later in the Dive bar guitarist Chris Jones asked me to write some material for his band. Neither project came off. It was a difficult time for bands anyway - they seemed to form and break up very quickly back then. The lyric below doesn't have much relationship to the top lyric but there were a number of transformation re-writes to the extent that a completely new lyric was formed with a different musical feel - if you are interested in the process that is!

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

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)