Delving through the old archives

This song is ancient.  April 1996.  Written by a 15 year old me, sung by a 33 year old me.  



'Do You See Me Cry For You?'

Look at you sitting opposite me, looking so pretty
Now and then I look at you, you don't look back, you never do
You never notice, what I go through just for you
  
    One day
    I won't be tongue tied
    And I will tell you what you mean to me

Your hair's so dark it could hide the stars, glittering pretty your chocolate eyes make me drool
Now and then you talk to me, it feels so great,
It's written in the stars, can never go wrong

    Some day
    I won't be tongue tied
    And we'll look back and say
    Wasn't it nice back then

        Do you see me cry for you?
        I'd paint they sky red for you
        I'd steal the stars just for you to put against your hair

        I think I love you, no I'm sure I love you
        Do you care, you're never aware, you never notice what you do to me?

        Do you see me cry for you?
        You light the candle you put it out...

Now I need to work on getting simpleton back together for a 20 year reunion...!

3 Million Dead - The Forgotten Genocide

(originally posted on MySpace blog 2010)

Today is Language Martyr Day or International Mother Tongue Day. This is a day in Bangladesh that commemorates the language movement, especially those who died for it.

History

Partition of India involved separating Muslim majority areas from those that were Hindu majority due to communal tensions. Some people wanted it, some people did not. Unfortunately it still happened.

Two pieces of India were carved out to form West and East Pakistan, 1000 miles apart with India in between. Logistical stupidity?

East Pakistan was made mainly out of East Bengal, leaving West Bengal in India. Culturally and geographically East Pakistan had absolutely nothing in common with West Pakistan; religion did not unite two completely different peoples. That is not a dig at religion, people who are different cannot be united by it and what happened between West and East Pakistan shows this.

The mainstream Pakistan government decided that the state language should be Urdu, despite the fact East Pakistanis (East Bengalis) clearly were the majority population wise. I.e. there were more speakers of Bengali than Urdu.

There were many protests against this decision. Students died. This is where Language Martyr Day comes from. One should have the right to be able to speak their mother tongue; one culture should not suppress another.

1947-1971 West and East Pakistan still did try to exist together, but for many reasons it did not work. Eventually war broke out and acts of genocide. The Bangladesh Genocide is the forgotten genocide, after the Holocaust it's one of the biggest: 3 million dead.

The West Pakistan Army decided that the problem was Bengali Culture, that by destroying it that would help create a unified West/East Pakistan. People were brainwashed into thinking Bengali culture was not Islamic. But Urdu containing a few words of Arabic is an Islamic language, even though it's derived from Persian and Hindi languages that had nothing to do with the Arabs.

Hindus that had not migrated were targeted at first. To the point that if they were unable to tell if a man was Muslim or Hindu they would check to see if they were circumcised. If you have a foreskin you're going to die, otherwise we might let you live.

Then the intelligentsia. People who were considered the intellectuals of East Bengal society were rounded up. Killed for their art. My Mother tells me stories of going into hiding, not only themselves but their books. They were not allowed to show any signs of being an educated family. Imagine being killed for being able to read a book?

After a bitter war and help from India, East Pakistan became independent as Bangladesh in 1971. A secular country united by a common culture rather than just religion. Secularism – the way forward is together. Unfortunately these events are being forgotten, and worse still the current Bangladesh government has done nothing to bring those who collaborated to justice. Worse still the crazy religious extremism that lead to the genocides has not completely died, which is a bit sad considering how many people died.

Anyways I am writing this rather sombre blog as me doing my part to make sure these events are not forgotten. This is what Language Martyr Day is about. Please Re-Tweet, please forward, awareness is in our hands.

Please read this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_genocide 

 

http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/ 

It's an oldie... But a newie...

Someone asked me to sing them a lullaby.  I remembered this song of mine...

Sleep Lullaby

Sleep my sweet, sleep my sweet

Tomorrow is another day

When the morning comes for you

You will wake to glisten again

In the morning air...

Sleep my dear, sleep my dear

I hope you find me in your dreams

When the morning begins to be

I will hold you in sunlight

In the morning air...

            And I will whisper in your ear

            Words to make the monster disappear

            A song to keep you here

            Hide you away from all your fear

When the night comes, when the night comes

I will leave a light on for you

Watch you sleep and watch you dream

You are safe in my arms

Till another day...

Sleep my love, sleep my love

I will wait till sunrise

The night will burst with the gold of the dawn...

 CLICKMEEE

Happy August Bank Holiday Weekendo!

This is a cover of a Bob Marely track originally recorded last year for some ingrate's (joke!) birthday. It's now taken a life of it's own, I recorded new vocals for it but it just lacked something from the original where even though I had a cold it had a certain emotional quality I can't seem to recapture.

What I love about this track is that Bob Marley a figurehead for rebellion would sing about revolution and fighting authority but when he sings this love song it almost sounds like he is crying.

Yes boo hoo this is a song I am constantly feeling!  Boo hoo!

This is my take...

Words & Music: Bob Marley...

 CLICK HERE

The 5 songs that 'made' me

Sometimes, typically during my commute to and from work, I have thoughts that I never seem to get around to putting down.  No not those kind of thoughts!  The idea of my blog was to get random philosophical dribblings out there and unfortunately it does not happen often enough. 

I was just thinking of back when the internet was new and interesting, how blogging wasn't really 'in' yet but we amused ourselves with email forwards.  Interesting ones were like those interview type profiling type forwards where one would respond with their own answers.  I used to have last remnants of this lost empire on myspace but last checking my blog is gone!  Good thing I started this one.  Shit I better check what's happened to my music on there...

I digress...  So I have spent a few minutes thinking of five songs that made me who I am, that were a major influence on my sad little existence.  It would be nice if you did too!  Here they are in roughly chronological order.

1 'Take on Me' by a-ha 1985

Talking away, I don't know what, what to say I’ll say it anyway...

 This song is my first musical memory.  At that time I was 5 years old and my Family were going through a rough patch and we were living in some bed & breakfast temporally.  I remember seeing the video on 'Top of the Pops' on a tiny white TV. 

The bed and breakfast had lots of corridors.  I would bash myself against the walls in an effort to change myself in to a cartoon version of myself.  No pretty cartoon girl would appear either.  It doesn't seem to work in reverse. 

A little unknown fact, there is a part 2 to the video.  The next single a-ha released showed what happens to the boy and girl.  It didn't work out.  The video shows what happens during a 2nd date with me... 

2 'Fall at your Feet' by Crowded House 1991

Who knows where that might lead…

I remember the songs from the Woodface album when it came out, but didn't really get into it till about 1995.  I remember hearing a live version of 'Fall at your Feet' and it really was beautiful.  I have always been a romantic at heart and it reminds of that 'first love' you have that isn't some sort of immature infatuation.  Where you have something real and almost tangible. 

I learnt to play this song and yeah I have sung it to a few chicks...  At one point during my first year of university I was convinced the creative me was dying a sad death and I was destined to be a square.  I sung this song in front of one my flatmates who was in the room next to me.  She wept.  She hadn't realised it had been me singing out of the window all this time.  Claire Whyte, where ever you are, you saved my creative soul that night. 

Still to this day, after that first drink or after that walk home or after saying goodbye at the station I go home, listen to this song, and think I might be making progress...

3 'Stay Together' by Suede 1993

Stay together, two hearts under the skyscrapers…

The Manic Street Preachers very very nearly took this spot, Manics signify me and my two best buds sitting around drinking beer, trying to play guitar, and listening to music while trying to form bands together. 

But I choose Suede.  Suede turned everything around for me.  Before then I didn't really listen to anything that sounded 'weird' as such.  But Suede came along with 'Stay Together' which changed my perceptions.  I wanted to wear Doc Martens and look different. 

'Stay Together' was the single. And it's bside 'The Living Dead'.  The lyrics were very gothic, ‘urban’, and dark.  And me being a moody teenager growing up in London it reflected me and what I felt greatly.

4 'Fake Plastic Trees' by Radiohead 1995

If I could be, who you wanted…  All the time...

The funny thing about music is that you don't always get into music in chronological release order.  And some of the best music I found while I was growing up in Barking was in the bargain bin at either Sam Goodie, Woolworths, or WHSmith.  We were quite lucky to have those shops, it would save us having to get to Central London for HMV or Virgin. 

I remember picking up the CD single in the bargain bin of Sam Goodie.  For 50p.  Yes 50p.  I am sure anyone that worked at any of these shops in Barking at that time will remember me hanging around contemplating whether or what I should purchase.  What a great purchase it was.  50p for this great song that captured my teenage angst about rejection and the fake!  Accompanied by 2 bsides!  What a soundtrack to my summer that was. 

Back in the mid nineties generation X was lucky as music television was at its peak of brilliance.  I remember watching the video at late night.  How I miss flicking through those 3 channels to find greats like this video.  Now-a-days you are lucky to find any music playing on our 10+ channels and when you do it's lazy programming hosted by Z list celebrities.

Paris Hilton's Personal Enema Nurse hosts 100 greatest number 11s in the odd years of the 90s!  FUCK OFF!

5 ’Settle Down' by Unbelievable Truth 1998

 Every move that I make is phoney, and every word I say is lies…

This blog is named after this band.   One of the most underrated artists EVER.  They were dropped by the major label after the first album but ploughed on independently for the 2nd and then called it a day.  They were mostly famous for lead singer Andy Yorke being brother of Radiohead's lead singer.  This was a good thing and a bad thing.   It was connection that got me into the band.  The flipside is it meant being in the shadow of the other hugely popular band. 

'Settle Down' was a song that I would listen to again and again while smoking and staring at the Essex countryside out of my window in my first year of university.  Usually on an album I am always a sucker for the heartfelt love song.  This is it on that album. 

Unbelievable Truth really connected with us fans, especially after becoming more 'independent'.  They used to make available demos and rarities on their website.  They may not have had the most technically brilliant site but it resonated with us fans.  It was one of those sites you would check every day to see if anything new was there. 

NEXT UP ON RAB TV

Paris Hilton's Personal Enema Nurse hosts 100 greatest number 11s in the odd years of the 90s! 

New Random Lyrical Dribblings and Things

Well It has been a while since I have actually posted anything on this new blog of mine.  Unfortunately music is very quiet at the moment.  I have baaaaad RSI in my left arm and have to rest that arm for a while, it would seem I even have to rebuild the muscles.  So it looks like I will be out of action a while on the music front, which is a shame as I have a few ideas.  I am trying to start using keyboards but it just doesn't sound right to me.  I have been playing guitar 20 years and it's the instrument I write songs with so it's quite a bummer.

It could be worse, but I have other creative outlets at the moment luckily.  I may try to post some half finished recordings, I can still sing and play keyboards/glockenspiel/slide guitar!   Here be some snippets of stuff from my lyrics book...

They laugh at you but I’m enthralled by you

So hypnotised by beauty

This is my moment of triumph or my belly flop???

They sit and stare unfascinated by you

But I’m hypnotised by beauty

We are lost now and you never want to come back

I see you over there

I see you over there

Waiting for the answers I can’t give you

This is my despair

You’re everything I let down…

You’re everything I should let go…

Oh how confusion reigns inside my mind...

'Once you've hit rock bottom, the only way is up!!!'

Monday mornings do not care.

When did you fall out of love with me

Or were you in it just a fallacy? 

pressing the reset button - a clean slate is needed

I know a girl she won't see eye to eye with me

She ties up my words in knots and makes me hard to see

She’s lost to me and does not wish to be found

I never meant to lose her but how am I losing when we have already lost???

She's lost to me and doesn't want to ever come back 

I never meant to lose her but how am i losing when we are already lost  ?

Through stars we float in a space so close

So hypnotised by beauty

London is cold for me and you

This is the death of you and me

So hypnotised by beauty

The beauty that you possess is UNDENIABLE

The clock radio alarm awakens me... Back to the land of the living... My sleep walking commute...

DISTANT – DISTANCE

I would take you for all that you are warts in all and for when we fall

'What does the past matter when we could have a glorious future together?'

Electrum

If only i could find the right words

Waiting for your eyes to surrender

I am not a turncoat

But every thing i feel is unreal is unreal

You will take the blue pill and i will take the red pill

And we will wake up worlds apart we are worlds apart

I've said too much it doesn't add up anymore

Sing to me, a lullaby to ease the pain

Believe in me or I may disappear from view

Inside and beside their lies I would be

Sing to me

I think dickhead things when i am drunk


remember if i act like a dickhead it's only because i am crazy about you






Tired... Jaded... Where is my way out?






Till that moment you can't resist me no more I await

My broken heart rules over my head

She speaks to me in post it notes

You'd walk on broken glass for love but you won't walk towards me

Only my heart beats for my misery

I’m paying for the mistakes I swear I did not do

London smiles in the sun

And the moon smiles westernised and standardised

You are my ghost of Christmas diwali past

I am lost in neon light

This is the death of me and you

I meant EVERYTHING that fell out my mouth

I didn’t mean for it to happen but it did

Oh but I tried for us to be as friend, to be again

But I have lost you now and you don’t want to be found

London is cold for me and you, this is the death of you and me…

A snowflake lost in the dark

A tear that has been cried

The last ember of the spark

We walk tightrope lines between your heart and mine

So hypnotised by beauty

Does my charm exceed my insecurity???

I don’t expect much but whatever it is it seems too much

I am something but am I enough?

Let me in, let me in, and I’ll be all that you need

What am I chopped liver???

Waiting for the moment you will see as i do

She speaks to me in postit notes

I want to take away your pain and make it mine

You will never cry

Creative Writing Classes

Hey everyone, my creative writing class teacher is looking for new students.

It's on Thursdays at St Francis Xavier 6th Form College near Clapham South Tube Station.

I did the whole course over a year and highly recommend it, I still make the effort travelling over to Clapham to attend the advanced class even though I have moved back to East London/Essex!!! It's excellent value for money too. Check it out: http://broadoak.sfx.ac.uk/