This is NOT going to be interesting, so don’t blame me if you’re reading it – it’s not my fault, you’ve been warned.
I’ve always loved singing. I used to wreck Colm (my older brother)’s head when we were out for a drive as a family, by singing at the top of my lungs, completely indifferent to his protests. My parents were no help to him, of course – “She’s singing because she’s happy”. But, I wasn’t. I was singing because I loved the sound of my own voice. And, also, it’s a great way to pass the time.
Back then, I had only the radio to sing along to (sob), and I was most certainly a child of the S.A.W. years, although even I had my doubts about Big Fun. Anyhoo, Colm, being that bit older, was into Guns ‘n’ Roses, Metallica and, later on, Nirvana & Pearl Jam etc. so, once I had my own cassette player, I was able to nick his tapes and broaden my horizons somewhat.
I think I was about 14 when I got my first guitar. I’d asked for it off Santy and he duly delivered, along with some plectrums and a couple of songbooks. No tuner, sadly. I don’t think my guitar was in tune for the first five years I had it. I still strummed away, frustrated that nothing sounded the way it was supposed to – you could never say that I was “naturally” gifted on the guitar.
Meanwhile, however, I was amassing a fairly decent selection of songwords (written by other people). So far as I recall, the inspiration for this came from when I was away camping with the Scouts, and we’d have singsongs around the campfire at night-time. Man, I’d hate it when people didn’t know the words to songs, so they were only half-finished, or verses had to be repeated. So, I started writing out the words to songs when I was supposed to be doing my homework; things like “Hurricane” or “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again”. I was BIG into Dylan, and still am. I also loved Joni Mitchell so so much. And the Beatles. And U2. Even “Rattle & Hum”.
Aside from performances at lunchtime recitals in school (playing songs like “Imagine”, “Fake Plastic Trees”, and “Carey” by Joni Mitchell, which were all very well received), I didn’t really start performing publicly until after I’d finished college, although I was always singing at parties and gradually improving on the guitar. At first, I got my mate, Steve Roberts, to play for me so I could just sing, but, eventually, I began to accompany myself, playing open mics in places like the Voodoo Lounge and the Haypenny Bridge Inn. And I started busking – the first day I went out, somebody donated a pack of blue Martin guitar strings to me – I must have been making a fair racket beforehand for that to have happened!
But, this whole time I was playing, I was playing other people’s music. Now this was not all bad – aside from those whom I’ve already mentioned, I also played stuff by Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Tom Waits and the Rolling Stones, and that’s not bad company to keep. But, it is a bit of a cop-out.
So, I’d tried and I’d tried and I’d tried to write since I was a teenager, but I’d found it impossible. Every lyric was trite, every melody sounded like it had already been written, and I never really felt as though I had anything particularly interesting or relevant to say.
This changed, however, when I got to Korea in 2004. I went over, primarily to teach English, but, when I got there, I started going to an open mic in a bar called Woodstock in Itaewon in Seoul. There, I made a wonderful group of friends who played and sang, and we had such great times together.
And I started to write. Inspired by one of my mates (Timmy)’s words of advice “The way I see it mate – if you’re writing your own songs, you can’t make any mistakes” (genius). So, I kept at it and found I had quite a knack for it – who knew?!
Anyway, I’m bored now (and you should be too, god knows I’ve gone on long enough). Might come back to this at a later stage - see “News” for updates. Bye now x