Bedroom Versions: ‘Another Failed Song For Rosie’

Ah, the follies of youth.

Bedroom Versions: ‘Galveston’

I try not to be one of those types who fetishise the Sixties. I’m not old enough to have lived through them, but I am old enough – just – to remember when the critical consensus held that music stopped being good roughly forty minutes after the release of Abbey Road. It took me a long time to get out of that mindset myself, but these days I’m quite happy to admit that my music collection is better for not being constrained by the mores of artists working twenty-five years before I was born.

That said – and I am willing to be convinced as regards my next point – I don’t think there’s ever been a combination of songwriter and performer as magical as Jimmy Webb and Glenn Campbell.

Bedroom Versions: ‘Exodus Train’

There’s nothing on earth like the Edinburgh Fringe. I should know; I wrote a show about it. I was supposed to be going back there in August, three whole weeks spent singing my heart out in a vegan cafe just off the Meadows.

Are You Happy Now? – Bedroom Version

Yet another new arrangement for this video; my new tripod fits neatly on the side of my headboard, thus allowing me to display more of the actual backdrop I’ve painstakingly created and less of the underside of my wall cabinets.

However, this also means that my microphone is now closer to the wall behind, with all the attendant issues that brings – if you’re wondering why this video is wonky, or why I flub a line in the second verse, it’s because I spent a good amount of time getting a much better performance of this song only to find afterwards that the audio was comb-filtered to hell. The finished article is a result of me initiating a hasty bodge and using the very next take I got, to spare both my own sanity and that of my family. But, y’know, I’ve had worse performances recorded for posterity.

‘Handstand ‘Cross The Land’ – Bedroom Version

I tend to think I’m not good at collaboration. I’ve built a compositional style around my own limitations, and I don’t possess the musical nous to go beyond that; I’m also deferential to a fault, so keen to avoid fucking up that I become incapable of actually doing interesting.

And then there’s this song.

‘As Time Goes By’ – Bedroom Version

Max Steiner, composer for Casablanca, never wanted to use ‘As Time Goes By’. The song was simply a stand-in while something more appropriate was found, at which point the appropriate scenes would have been re-shot; except that Ingrid Bergman’s next film required her to have a drastically different haircut, one that made recreating Ilsa Lund’s demure perm impossible. Steiner, stuck with having to work around this corny song, evidently decided to make it the cornerstone of the entire score instead; the rest, as they say, is history.

Bedroom Versions: ‘Just Making It Up As They Go’

I have tidied my room, brushed my hair and restored some dignity to the plight of poor Teddy No-Nose. Now I just need to work out where to put my face when I’m performing, I’m not sure the awkward look-right-into-the-camera moments really works.

Bedroom Versions: ‘Fair Margaret And Sweet William’

As may be noted from my hair, I spent a good half-hour today rearranging the space in order to use an audio setup, only to find the software I use has been broken by an OS update and won’t be patched until later this week. So here is another video with iPhone mic audio, with my apologies.

Bedroom Versions: ‘Last Train To Sublime Street’

In the aim of being more productive during this period of social distancing, I’ve decided to start filming videos of songs in my bedroom. First up is a very quick video, made more as an experiment in video editing on iPhone than a pleasurable sonic experience. Still, it seemed appropriate to film the first (decent) song I ever wrote, ‘Last Train To Sublime Street’.

Richmond Super By-Election Funtime

I’m currently curled up in bed with a cold, feeling miserable. My nose is running like a tap, I’ve gone through enough tissues to constitute a deforestation threat and I’m sneezing with a ferocity akin to small amounts of plastic explosive (which, incidentally, is what my sinuses appear to have been filled with).

The worst part of this is that I won’t be able to stay up and watch the Richmond Park by-election.

I admit it – I’m a nerd. A geek. An anorak. I’ve been all of those things since a very early age, so it’s not like anyone who knows me would be deeply surprised by the confession. I just love me some electoral excitement.

Of course, a by-election like Richmond Park is especially exciting: the incumbent Conservative has resigned over his government’s infrastructure policy (specifically the third runway at Heathrow) and is running as an Independent (albeit one getting some suspiciously healthy support from the local Conservative Association. Like, here’s-a-photo-of-my-canvassing-team-that-just-happens-to-include-several-Conservative-MPs healthy). However, Richmond Park was a Lib Dem seat until 2010 and the party has retained a relatively stable base in the constituency, something the infamous Big Yellow By-Election Machine has been making great use of during the campaign.

Of course, this particular by-election has been made extra-spicy by the undercurrents of national politics which have come to the fore. Richmond Park was a majority-Remain area in June’s EU Referendum; Zac Goldsmith, its Conservative-turned-not-so-Independent incumbent, is not only pro-Leave but is the son of the late James Goldsmith, bankroller and leader of the Referendum Party (whose sole manifesto commitment was to have a referendum on leaving the EU). The Lib Dem campaign has played a delicate balancing act, presenting themselves as the anti-Brexit, anti-runway, ‘sensible left’ choice in an attempt to cover both local and national bases. Labour nominated a noted transport commentator (to the relief of many who feared Jeremy Corbyn’s singularly useless chief of staff and Richmond Park resident, Seumas Milne, would get the nod) and also quietly endorsed an anti-runway position – missing a trick in the process, as canvassing anecdotes suggested there was potentially a substantial pro-runway vote in the area. UKIP nominated someone, but were too distracted by their second leadership election since June to pay much heed (and the result of said leadership election suggested a pivot away from targeting areas like Richmond Park anyway)[EDIT 2/12/2016: actually I was completely wrong – UKIP didn’t stand a candidate in Richmond. This is why you shouldn’t post while hopped up on Lemsip]. The Greens declined to run a candidate and instead endorsed the Lib Dems, a decision that might have made sense to the people responsible but left most others (including many Green members and voters) various shades of dumbfounded.

The most important issue, though, is that this is a contest the Conservatives need to win – and (officially at least) they aren’t even running a candidate. The government is operating on a razor-thin majority of twelve – one which could, with the right by-elections, be wiped out in the space of a year – and the referendum has brought to the surface ideological divides just as deep and potentially destructive as those currently consuming the Labour Party. It is unclear at this point whether Tory unity is a result of iron-handed party discipline, the centrifugal effect of being in government or sheer inertia thanks to the lack of direction since June 23^rd. Now is not the time to be losing seats – not to a party considered to have been wiped out just eighteen months ago, and certainly not as Britain faces its most critical juncture since the Suez Crisis.

Zac Goldsmith’s run as an independent was always a tissue-thin face-saving gesture; as the heavy support from Richmond’s Conservatives indicates, he would be accepted back into the fold with surprising haste on his inevitable return to parliament. Unfortunately for both Goldsmith and the Tories, they reckoned without the formidable Lib Dem by-election campaign – the Big Yellow Machine.

Lib Dems have been anticipating this by-election since the moment they lost the seat in 2010 (opposition to a third Heathrow runway being a key part of Zac’s campaign then). Canvassing and leafletting began even before Goldsmith had resigned his seat, and has only intensified since. I don’t know a great detail about the internal workings of the Big Yellow Machine, but I do know that in the betting odds for Richmond (yes, you can bet on political results – and if you know what you’re doing you can make some serious money from doing so) the Lib Dems have gone from a long-shot second to snapping at Goldsmith’s heels.

I’d go on, but I really need my bed; I’m expecting Goldsmith to have edged it when I wake up, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find another victory for the Big Yellow Machine.