Song and a Chat

Episode #17: God's Wish - (Song at 11:32 & 29:40)

In this episode,  I recount a couple of slices of my life back when I first came to Australia to live - including an exchange during evening in a bar, outdoors in St Kilda, Melbourne. Right then I discovered I was in a big city - a big change for someone who from New Zealand.

I also talk about what I've been up to during the week I record the podcast episode. 

This week,  I'll take you on a walk in a coastal national park, you'll join the band in a recording session and you'll get some insight into the lyrics - and song arranging in general. 

Song #435 was inspired by a fellow I met on a tram. Melbourne is renown for its trams. It's a very relaxing way to travel. I found I could read and write on the tram, much like I can on trains. I expect it's because you're on ' train tracks' and I don't get car sick there...

Woah, I've got off subject here. Actually this would serve to give you an idea of how I roll when I record a podcast episode. A theme develops, but I keep it free and go with ideas that pop into my mind - it's relaxed style of delivery...it's (hopefully) humorous, entertaining and informative

By the way,  if you'd like to read the lyrics at the point of the episode, you can find them. On this week's blog post.    www.petepascoe.wordpress…./ 

If I've piqued your curiosity, great.  Join me on a 30 minute trip into another world-some past, some present, all of it being the world of a songwriter. Enjoy 'Gods Wish'.

Episode #16: Balcony - (Song at 4:03)

A demo from my past - Feb 1994, written in Hamilton NZ, you’ll hear some anecdotes from my time there. As I describe these experiences, you’ll get an insight  into places I’ve been and people I’ve met and you’ll also see how they find their way into song lyrics and music.

I also talk about the song in terms of what it means to me today.

If you like the idea of stepping into the shoes of a songwriter for half an hour, you’re in the right place.

These episodes are all an evolving work in progress. I’ve decided I’m going to go back and collect all the song writing tips and examples and publish them in a concise form at some point in the future.

So it’s a case of art inspiring more art. Or speaking or writing or…story telling.

Balcony is song number 322 in my song book I wrote it as I sat on the balcony - it was an early autumn evening, the bright sun was descending behind the neighbours trees and I really felt like I was flying through space in time as the words came to me through the ether ..or where ever they come from.

These podcast episodes are proving to be enlightening to me as I reflect on the songwriting process - I’m collecting tips on songwriting and sharing them in the same moment of discovery.

Tune in and enjoy the chat - personal (almost confessions) and broader observations on life. Grab a cuppa or close your eyes if you’re on a train, do not close your eyes if you are driving. 

Enjoy 30 mins of a slice of life. Well, several slices - a healthy serving again this week.

Somewhat bizarrely, wolves make a (humorous) appearance twice in the episode. I bet you weren’t expecting that! Neither was I…

Thanks for tuning in.

Episode #15: This World Offers You - (Song at 5:24, 19:36, 28:47)

A bit of fun this week, a departure in music style… I won’t give too much away.

Go behind the scenes, get the inside ‘goss’ on how the song came to be, how it got recorded, what it’s about.

This song, number 34, written in 1998, is from the first ever album by myself and Paul Dredge (NZ) - an independent release of about 20 cassettes!

This was the 1st time we got to use a 4 track recorder, a drum machine and  reverb FX. It was a very exciting time for us. We set up the studio in the house I was sharing, and taught ourselves how to record a song. It was the beginning of the path for me of learning how arrange songs.

This has lead to solo piano, piano/vocal, folk rock and rock being my favourite genres.

This World Is …. something else. There are actually 3 versions of the song on this episode (well, one full and 2 abbreviated versions). I don’t think this is the end of the road for this song - the Pascoe band played a very ‘up’ rock version earlier this year. I think we’ll have to record another version sometime.

This show is not a high brow ‘exclusive’ sort of presentation. This is a show for anyone. You don’t need to know anything about music theory. But if you like music - here's another new song - and there’s one every week.   

So if you’re up for bit of entertainment and information, tune in, sit back and hear a little bit about how a song-writer / arranger thinks.

Also, if you know someone who might be interested - this episode, like every episode - has tips on songwriting and arranging - tips from someone who’s learnt by making a lot of mistakes and someone who’s still learning.

There’s the usual humour, it’s delivered in a relaxed manner, with a sense of discovery, as I look back through the years and the memories come to mind as I talk.

I explore the lyrics - a bit of analysis and some of the musical aspects of the arrangements.

Also there’s anecdotes from my past - in this case I recount a visit (as a youngster) to a club to play snooker…

Enjoy

Episode #14: How You Mend A Broken Heart - (Song at 15:55)

Welcome back! If you’ve come back again this week, if you’re new here, welcome along!

Be entertained, informed and you get a song to listen to part way through - another demo this week.

Written in 2000, It was a time in my life when things were fairly settled.

My song writing perhaps wasn’t in a golden sort of patch, but you keep going (I’m passionate) and songs like this one seem to come along.

You get the background of what I was up to at the time… I used to wander down to pier to fish, to give my mind some space and get some energy, to work on my creative work: filling the well.

Equally importantly, I’ve worked really hard over the years, making a living from the arts.

There are some anecdotes about my life, my neighbours, etc. a real slice of life, and this is what this podcast is all about - you get to step into my shoes for a while.

I was a Pianoman back then - there’s an art to it. I describe how it feels to play background music. It was a busy fun time, balancing it with developing my art.

I was flat out - and when you’re busy, you’ve got to look after yourself - and you’ve got to keep an eye on your relationships.

This song is about.. healing, coming out the otherside a relationship ending...you can bounce back and on reflection you can see that the experience has lead to a deeper understanding of yourself.

All presented in an old laid back jazzy sort of ballad.

It takes determination to write songs, get them recorded, etc.

If you’d like to read the lyrics as I sing, you can find them here, on my blog (along with paintings, cartoons, more music and writing) www.petepascoe.wordpress.com    

Thanks for tuning in, Enjoy!

Episode #13: Sunset Journey - (Song at 9:43 & 22:55)

I’m really enjoying recording these episodes. This song came about after a drive down to the beach with friends. We wanted to catch the sunset. It was early winter. As it turned out, we timed it really well. The tide was out, the sun was about to dip over the horizon. The sky was reflected in the wet sand.

A black swan appeared out of the deepening dusk, flying - a silhouette against the stars as they started to appear. I was completely lost in the beauty of the scene, lost in the moment. It was a moment where it really crystallised for me that this was the end of a chapter - and the beginning of the next.

It’s great to have friends around, full stop - but it’s great to have friends around when you need a bit of support to get you through. This was one of those times.

Sunset Journey appeared on an album ‘Can’t See The Words For The Trees’, some years go. I’ll be re-recording this album in the future, as the old gear I recorded on wasn’t the best, sound quality wise.

Join us on the beach as you listen to the song. Enjoy.

By the way,  there’s a surprise in the 2nd half of this episode.

Episode #12: Who'll Forget - (Song at 4:10)

A political song this week. I wrote this one back in 2002. It’s popped up again now. It was released once as 100 CDs, a booklet with lyrics and watercolour / pen paintings. But it always felt like a demo.

I’m going to re-record this album. I have repainted the original watercolour / pen sketches in acrylic and developed them some more.  I’ll include these with the new release.

In the intervening years since I wrote the song, it only seems to have become more prescient - and pertinent. These are worrying times. The more art and music that draws our attention to matters that (in my opinion) need urgent attention and addressing, the better.

So, I’ll make no apologies for the serious mood that pervades this episode.

There is an element of hope. There’s always hope. But it’ll take action to turn things around.

This about the danger of where things might get to if there is capitalism with no controls/limits in place.

As usual, I analyse the lyrics - at the risk of coming across as special, or conceited - I step outside the song, forget for a moment that I was the writer and look at the words as they are.

There’s a line that's very pertinent to these present uncertain times with Covid-19:

Where’s all your berries, stick them all here - next to your dead buried, without even a care.

It hit me between the eyes when I read it this week.

I’m an optimist, I hope for great things in the future. There are great people doing great things today leading to this possibility.

For today, here’s a snapshot of our times, written 18 years ago.

Its a bit grim - I lost most of my income overnight as an artist / musician entertainer. But quite amazingly, this was the very week I’d committed to publishing the podcast, a new start to this blog and a new Youtube channel.

The time to publish is now.

Episode #11: Tomorrow - Today - (Song at 9:36 & 23:10)

I committed to writing a song each week years ago. There wasn't ‘that moment’ where you go:  "right I'm now going to start writing 700 songs. Nope. It was start-stop. 'The dabble', as it were... I just had feeling, had a go. Then it becomes something more - it gains it's own momentum.

I think you get lucky early - often - when you take a leap of faith, trust and just have a go. For example, Tomorrow Today is a song that came through very early on…in fact it’s song number one in my songbooks!

As I sat in the airport with pretty much a broken heart - and the plane delayed - I could've got pretty worked up. Instead, I got my feelings out by writing the lyrics on the back of my plane ticket. I'm glad I did.

The result was less of a ‘broken heart’ type song and more of a ‘it can be what you want it to be - reflective’ sort of lyric.

You can read the lyrics here, on my (weekly) blog post: https://petepascoe.wordpress.com/

There are 2 versions on this episode. The original demo and a studio track.

This song appears on the album 'Righto'  (https://petepascoe.bandcamp.com/track/tomorrow-today)

A sense of discovery and love pretty much sums up song writing. I keep my podcast episode recordings very ‘free’ - no written notes, the idea being that’ll keep me free, ‘on the breath’. As a result, the things I end up talking about are often a surprise to me.

Each song is like a ticket back to the feelings, the dreams I had at the time I wrote the song.

Towards the end of each episode, I look at the song from a songwriting point of view. So each week you’ll get to step into the shoes of a songwriter.

Back to Tomorrow Today: When I eventually arrived home, my black and white cat (see last weeks’ blog post), sat on my piano. Both seemed to be waiting for me.

I had a feeling something special was about to happen as I let my hands fall on the piano. The opening riff is what happened.

Hear this - and a very young me singing, sitting at my old piano playing this one.

Enjoy!

Episode #10: The Main Thing - (Song at 7:35)

This song, number 515,  traces the trajectory of a (musician’s) life and marks the points where he prioritises his goals as he goes through a series of transitions - which pretty much sums up a lifetime. Along the way, his definition of the main thing keeps changing.

I’m loving archiving these songs and I hope you’re enjoying them too.

Alfred, the Labrador, makes another appearance this week - the Labrador we were looking after kept me company as I wrote the song, 19 years ago.

As a lyricist, I generally write from an ‘I’ perspective. In this case, I wrote the song as a ‘storyteller, this time in 3rd person. It started off with a true episode that happened when a girl was young and moves on through her life, then it becomes equally - or more so - about the man she eventually meets - and their relationship down through the years.

There’s a saying ‘being in the zone’ …not blowing my trumpet here, but there was something about the songs, the demos from this particular fortnight of house sitting.

Writing lyrics really flows for me. I don’t work on these lyrics for months. These generally come together in about 20mins - and the music generally happens in about the same amount of time. 

I’m looking forward to recording an album of these ‘demos’. Recording these podcast episodes is proving to be a useful sorting process for me. Also, it’s very much a time of discovery, as I discover things about the songwriting process as I talk about this.

I welcome your feedback about what I’m up to on this podcast. I’m very much finding my way.

I’m enjoying analysing the lyrics and exploring the song from more of a composing point of view towards the end.

I find these episodes entertaining and informative. I hope you do too.

There’s nothing like some new music, too. I hope after listening to this episode, you feel a bit like you’ve been to gig, heard the story of the song and maybe even picked up thing or two about songwriting and arranging - which is certainly an ongoing learning process.

If you’re tuning in and finding you’re enjoying these episodes, you might like to hear more at www.petepascoe.bandcamp.com. There are a selection of my albums here, including 2 piano/vocal singer/songwriter style, along the lines of the songs on this podcast.

Also you’ll discover my other albums and styles there - which I’ve touched on in previous episodes:  Piano solo, Rock, Folk rock, etc. 

Other links for you to explore:

www.petepascoe.com

www.petepascoe.wordpress.com  (blog  - art and music with links to more)

Youtube: Pete Pascoe Art and Music

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrHYCpWbGGaBQr8ukxASVnw

Enjoy.

Episode #9: Second Story - (Song at 7:32 & 24:47)

This podcast is evolving. It's becoming a collection of songwriting tips, concepts. It's also bringing anecdotes to the surface - stories I'd forgotten about, that had their origins at the time the song was written. Plus there are observations on the complexity of the human condition, the evolving self & the opportunity for growth - by working through the challenges that life presents as we push on. 

Art and Music are great mediums to document these events, as there's a lot of emotion and not everything that happens to us during our time on earth is easily summed up with spoken/written language by itself. 

On that note, Second Story is a song that describes a process: how it feels to sort of disappear into another world which can happen during writing a song. Transcending time and space, it really gets you out of the skin. Maybe if you're lucky, when you come back to your sense of self that you're normally accustomed to, you'll have some echoes of what you've experienced - like memories, somehow in the present. And these can become the building blocks for a song. 

I was house sitting at the time, there was a baby grand beneath an arched window, in a sun drenched room. Brilliant for song writing. I recorded an albums worth of songs in the 10 days or s  that I was in this house, Alfred the dog kept me company as I noodled away on the keys and waited to see where the piano would take me. 

Two versions here. The original demo. And the finished album cut

The demo is quite ethereal somehow, which suits the subject material. 

I describe in some depth this pretty much transcendent type of experience here. 

It blew me away and it seems like yesterday. I enjoyed taking myself back in time as a part of re-experiencing this. Another journey of discovery. Enjoy.

Episode #8: Fall Asleep - (Song at 5:52)

Continuing on with another song this week. I explore the songwriting, using pretty much 'layman' inclusive language. So non-musicians, non-songwriters that know nothing about the theory of music can enjoy hearing how the song came together. 

A song is like an emotional book marker in time. When I listen to an old demo like this, it takes me right back to when the song was composed, which was in 1988 (!)

This 'Fall Asleep' demo was recorded in 2004. It's what I came to Melbourne for, from New Zealand, so it was very exciting to get some basic recording software, courtesy of Anthony Reed - he plays guitar on this track - and we still record and perform together today in the (previously mentioned) band, Pascoe. 

The amazing Mr Earl Pollard (sadly no longer with us) is on the drums - we recorded these in his garage, this take is the first time he'd heard the song.  I've been lucky to have these marvellous musicians coming into my life... and my wife, Marie, is on backing vocals - and Tamborine, I see, too. 

I wrote the song years ago, I was on a 2 month job, it was a gig on an NZ mountain, playing music in a restaurant during a skiing season. I got to ski all day and sing all night. Perfect. Plus if it rained I'd go trout fishing of write songs or draw cartoons. Pretty much sublime. 

Except I broke my right thumb on the afternoon of the first gig. Youch! This made for an interesting performance on the keys that night, I can tell you (you can hear more about it on this episode).

In 'Fall Asleep', there's a sense of loneliness and loving for what - and whom - I'm missing, but there is also a peacefulness, plus an 'other worldly' sort of outro that lifts the whole thing into something else.