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It all starts in a small studio off the Purley Way, with an acoustic version of Tide Will Turn. We’re all waiting for miracles. We’re all chasing the things that we want. And what was the second song? Anywhere With You? I forget now.

That’s not strictly true, the songs can be elusive. It starts at the beginning, a toddler at the piano, choirs and orchestras and so on. In another studio, further off the Purley Way, five years earlier, instruments were being impulsively purchased and songwriting revived after a decade dormant. Under a frosty, north-facing dormer window, little songs were being born, little hurts being teased out of their hiding places and interwoven with melodies, straw into gold, or at least something sparkly.

“Go perform,” said the owner of the ears who heard the first recordings. “You’ll never know how the songs are meant to feel until you play them for other people.” Nerves. Friends. Supporters. A year at least of feeling sick about being on stages, behind microphones, playing tiny heartbroken songs in rowdy pubs or dropping barely-there fingerpicking for audiences comprised entirely of respectful fellow musicians. Learning chords. Learning how to use the nerves. Learning how to stand and play and sing all at the same time. Learning to push into the corners of my voice. Learning how to mess up and carry on. Learning how to breathe.

Enter another pair of ears. Wish You Were, Be With You - songs for the owner of that first pair; These Hours, Mile Away, Dry-Eyed for these later ones. An album an hour long in retribution for therapy “hours” being only 50 minutes. So grateful to have so much help; so grateful to have so many people now listening. From 2014 to 2019, enthralled: utter love and amazement for pretty much everyone at every gig. Friendships forged in single meetings or random re-meetings in unexpected places over months and years. Scenes, circuits, people people people. Teaming up, talking about everything, feeling everything, beginning to discover what it is to be a songwriter alongside other songwriters. Peculiar, messy, blessed breed.

I can’t always help what comes out, or that the songs tell the stories of my life that I can’t always explain and don’t always want brought to light, some things I wish I hadn’t lived, others I was glad to. Choosing what to record, what to release, what’s worth the investment. Writing for potential audiences, writing for myself, carving slices of myself. Rarely, a song will feel absolutely perfect at the moment it’s just finished or first performed. Everything is a compromise or a stepping stone to better truer future songs. I dream of a life documented in music, of being understood, of dispersing some kind of comfort - but this wondrously complex multi-threaded life eludes me. When I have the energy I will chase it down.