DESCRIPTION:
THE WAR and 2016

I started recording a new album in May, songs I'd spent the previous winter writing.

We were mixing said album by September and as the finishing line grew nearer I mused more and more on the events of the summer.

I had been recording as seismic social change happened, as Britain voted to leave the EU... recording as shocking news feeds appeared on my phone...recording the day after the Florida shootings, and on the day of Jo Cox's murder.

My last few records had contained songs about love, relationships, parenthood, personal circumstances - but for the first time in a decade I knew I was making an album of songs which were my take on the tone of the times, the social and dare I say political climate... and by September we were living in a changed world.

Having felt that my new batch of songs presented a cohesive statement, suddenly - in amidst shock, numbness and bewilderment about all that had gone down - came a feeling that there was more I needed to say.

So in the course of 2 hours one evening during mixing I sat down at a keyboard and "The War" appeared.

And now I offer it up, prompted by a nagging notion that it should be heard in the dying days of the year which invoked it.
I humbly request that you watch right to the end of the video.
I offer it in love and respect to those to whom the year was not kind, and I trust that anyone listening hears not just the darkness in it but also the hope.


THE WAR

She took a walk
Past rebels and boys who talk
Raised up her hand and fought
To bridge a divide
And the screen ghosts moaned
Flickered in every home
The teeth of the times grew long
And glittered with pride

Cos the war
It isn’t out there
Like before
It isn’t out there
But they’ll show you the blood on the face of a child
They’ll sell you your heartbreak so perfectly styled
and they’ll tell you to take your position and man the frontier

But take a look at that box on your desk
Take a look at that heart in your chest
Take a look at those thoughts in your head
The war’s already here

From sea to sea
From GTA to MTV
The language of absentees
Is zeros and ones
And Orlando aches
The French Riviera shakes
That avalanche overtakes
The roar of the guns

Its so easy to hide
Behind imagined Ironsides
Nostalgic and misty eyed
When the wolf’s at the door
In the tide of hate
Throw down the counterweight
Tear up that flag and say
You’re worthy of more

Cos she took a walk
Past rhetoric and empty talk
Raised up her hand and fought
To bridge a divide
You can cut that stem
But wild flowers grow again
All you can do is just tend to them
And know that you tried