Introduction

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Today, somewhat out of the blue, I’ve decided that instead of my lyrics and songs existing purely on other platforms (like Soundcloud and Reverbnation) or being held in an A4 folder in their own individual sleeves, that they should have a life of their own; sometimes with their back-stories, or with other media; sometimes with the music that has been written to accompany them.

I’ve known for many years that deep down, I’ve had a lyrical calling in one form or another – either in the form of poetry or songwriting. This is something that has been in gestation for a long time but only in the last four years has it found its natural outlet and only in the last two years have I learned to develop my own style and my own lyrical voice.

Like many other writers, I have been inspired by those that have gone before. The observational style of Jarvis Cocker and Chris Difford; the story-telling ability of Neil Peart and Gerry Goffin; the imagery and emotive word-play of Steve Hogarth, James Grant and Neil Finn. Among many other legendary writers who’se works have been the soundtrack to the lives of millions (Graham Gouldman, Paddy MacAloon, Jimmy Webb and  countless others), I am starting to find a way to articulate what I’m trying to say.

Taking part in a BASCA songwriting retreat in Wales in 2014 was a formative experience – being the first time that I had written collaboratively outside of the comfort zone of friends and fellow band members, especially against the clock and to a brief and with people I’d never met before. I found the experience liberating and empowering and highly productive. Watching an idea of yours grow quickly from a planted seed and take shape and through the efforts of your own hands and others, within hours not only reach a recognisable form, but one that has the capacity to make a complete stranger smile, think, cry or even just sit there in silence and absorb the message or the story, is something that I will never tire of.

While turning a latent desire to write into something with a tangible output was originally born of a need for catharsis,  the intervening three years have seen the perspective change. Nowadays, I find my inspiration in so many different places. It can be mis-heard words or phrases on a radio or TV broadcast, it can be from watching a film, it can be from a real world experience, it can be a narrative. It can take the most innocuous spark to start a fire of ideas or conversely, it can be an idea that just pours out in minutes, as if born fully formed. I’m sure that this is a lyrical journey that is not a unique one and that many others who have trod the same path would feel the same and continue to experience the same as I do.

This blog is a record of my journey along that road.

I hold the copyright in all of these works as the sole writer, unless indicated otherwise. I am also open to licensing either songs, lyrics or music to other interested parties.

I hope you enjoy what you read.

S M-H.

Only You And I Know…

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“Whenever I think I know you better
Better than I know myself
Ooh, I open up and give you everything
Then you say, “Okay, what else?”
And when I run away, you always cry
You always overreact
But I don’t know if you know how you really feel
But you better know before I get back…”

© Collins/Stuermer, from the album “No Jacket Required”, 1985

Well, this one just walked in pretty much fully formed and was gestated from some spare lines that I figured that I wanted to use that had managed to avoid the sift so far. There were a few things that prompted it really, some of it from seeing a couple of very old (well, nearly 40 years old now) videos on YouTube, one of them being REM’s Everybody Hurts, with some of the lines being inspired by some of the subtitles in the video. It is one of the most devastating videos I’ve ever seen and one of only three that I have ever seen where I have got what the video director was trying to say immediately. The main other one being Alanis Morissette‘s ThankU, but there are others.

Anyway. Before I start diversifying too much, this one has kinda crept in quite late and so long as the music manages to meet the spec, should be able to see its way on to Time Demands, probably smack bang in the middle of the listing. I have been giving some thought to how the album should run, but I’ll come to that in future updates.

The subject matter is one that was prompted by a line in a song now that I cant even remember – where the premis is that a writer’s songs are full of pointers and what are effectively open secrets about the person that they’re written about. I mean, Patti Boyd can write an encyclopaedia on the ones that have been written about her by Eric Clapton, Wayne Hussey has had a few as well from Children and Gods Own Medicine that were about the same particular muse, the mother of his daughter… Jimmy Webb most famously did, most eloquently and uniquely with McArthur Park as well… and where Steve Hogarth is concerned, fuggedaboutit….. Neverland, Somewhere Else, Games In Germany… his muses whether they be women that he has been close to, like his first wife or a good friend of his from his childhood in Doncaster who joined the army, are never far from the surface.

And I guess as well, going back over the three albums I’ve been writing, I’ve not hidden where the muses have inspired me either. And I guess, this song is a way of saying, if you hear this song and listen to it carefully, you’ll recognise bits of us in it, secrets that only you and I will be aware of. Everyone else will sing along but will be completely oblivious… The first verse referring to close time together where a couple will recognise intimate moments by a seashore and the second verse descends to tongue in cheek wordplay, where it refers to a suitcase full of the wrong clothes and straws to break a camels back, because its the only thing he knows how to do, is to push her to her limits.

There are some slightly odd lines in there. No more arguing in the house of God, funnily enough came from a Steve Hogarth Christmas gig in Oxford in 2021 when he had to tell someone to wind her neck in as she was prattling away when he was trying to speak to the audience, which I know he tries not to do…Tell the shivers to subside was heard in a film, dont ask me which one though, but I thought that is brilliant, I’m having that... stream the songs of the angels through the blandness… well, that one is pretty self explanatory really. Given how much bland noise there is these days out there on the likes of Spotify and others, when we hear what are the sounds of angels, or great songs that we love like diamonds amongst the coal, we should sing them louder to make sure everyone hears them.

Music-wise, all up in the air at the moment, although something is telling me Tears For Fears “Seeds Of Love” era… trying to have polished high production values, but its almost like there is bits of Neil Finn-isms in there as well, like Locked Out from Together Alone. I guess if I can pitch a metaphorical lyrical tent somewhere between Neil Finn and Roland Orzabal, I should be happy.

Lets see how it turns out… I’m in the process of building all the songs at the moment and it is likely to take some time to bring these things into a recognisable state but things are quite promising at present…

Only You And I Know…

Verse 1
My songs all contain secrets about you In every line,
the look in your eye or the warmth of your hand
The sea between your toes, barefoot in the sand
 
Chorus
And only you and I know, the truth in the songs and the lines
A seed of love sown with tears, flowers in the spring with joy
And only you and I know, You’ll hear your name in this song all the time
Only you and I know what it is all about, theres no reason for us to be so coy
 
Verse 2
My heart’s been dragged around like a suitcase
Filled with all the wrong clothes
Its full of the straws to break your camel’s back
In the only way that I know (and how..)…
 
Chorus
And only you and I know, the truth in the songs and the lines
A seed of love sown with tears, flowers in the spring with joy
And only you and I know, You’ll hear your name in this song all the time
Only you and I know what it is all about, theres no reason for us to be so coy
 
Middle 8:
No more arguing in the house of god,
No more seeking the truth in wine
An unfinished jigsaw on the kitchen table
Shouldnt be the story of our lives
Tell those shivers to subside,
Scream out loud to be let in from the cold
Stream the songs of angels through the sea of the blandness
Did we really say goodbye thinking we’d never get old?
Chorus x 2 to fade

© Music and Lyrics, Steve McCarthy-Hunt 2025

A Strange Love

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“…Everybody’s waiting up to hear if I dare speak your name
Put it deep beneath the track, like the hole you left in me
And everybody wants to know ’bout how it felt to hear you scream
They know you walk like you’re a God, they can’t believe I made you weak…”

© Halsey/Elliot/Larcombe, from the album “Badlands”, 2015

Pretty much the last one from the current writing spell. This one is again, slated for the Time Demands album although it is thematically, not really there; is it more thematically correct for Echoes? Meh. I’m not sure. It doesnt have any kind of Suno connection at all yet – and given today’s announcement of Suno doing a deal with Warner Brothers, chances are it may not have that connection at all, if what happened to Udio is anything to go by…

As I’ve alluded to before, there has been an awful lot of noise around the use of AI (either by those who are only interested in scooping up as much of the micropayments for streaming as they can by poking holes in the mechanisms built by the streamers and their attendant distributors, or by the industry itself whining rather hypocritically about “theft” and grumbling that people should protect the artists… when they really mean that people should protect the labels interest in the artists. Most of it is bullshit and agendas….), but as I’ve gone to great lengths to state on here, my interest is not in trying to get micropayments for tracks that Suno has helped me bring to life; it is now about using it as part of my workflow to create new pieces. If that is going to be throttled or asphyxiated by the major labels, as seems to be the case, then using it as a tool is likely to change dramatically… but, we’ll wait and see.

ANYWAY. Digression again, right on schedule!

This one has been dormant in a book for an extremely long time. Again, it goes back to one of the BASCA writing retreats run by Rita Campbell back in 2014/15; this one was under some …. consideration, I think is the best way of describing it by myself, Sean O’Connell and another chap called Alex who’s surname escapes me. It was being written to a brief that Rita had given us and the direction it was drifting towards was more the modern electronic pop/funk direction; Alex’s notion was that it could have/maybe should have been written for Will Young or an artist like him. At the time, Sean and I were both open to that, having listened before to Young’s Your Game album produced by Stephen Lipson (one of my favourite and most influential producers). The lyrics that were kicked around were mainly a series of rhyming contradictions and opposites and apposites.

From my memory, we ummed and ahhed and wandered around crashing about in the dark for an afternoon on a Sunday and by 7pm, when it was time to go into Monmouth to the pub for a quiz evening and say goodbye, we still hadnt got anything solid. Alex was the main driver, so whether he did anything with it later on his own, I do not know.

So far as I’m concerned, this set of lyrics with the Will Young kind of vibe that I have in mind is one that as a work in mind (and when it will be finished) will be one that is unique to me. Obviously if Alex and Sean see otherwise, I’m sure we can still talk, LOLZ.

So, as I said… the majority of it is wordplay, its not about anyone that any of us knew and certainly not about anyone who I’ve known. Music, I have an idea about, that sort of early 2000’s electro-funk… kinda Level 42 sort of feel but more synth-y…. but we’ll see where it wants to go before we decide.

A Strange Love

I havent seen you all day
But I’ve been thinking about you all night.
Cant help feeling what I do
but I know its not right
I know you dont feel that way about me
When I want to kiss you
But all the things you say
You made me think that you do…

Its a Strange Love…
Its a Strange Love…

I dont know how this love works
Or even if it does at all
Were you really my type or was it heart over hype
Never thought I’d be here with you…

Its a Strange Love…
Its a Strange Love…

(…..so what happens now?)

We’re somewhere strange
In a strange place
You didnt laugh at my jokes so, dont laugh in my face
Its so strange the way we behave…

Sitting in the dark
and replaying the scene
Maybe I should have told you
What I really mean

about this
Strange Love
(so strange the way we behave)
Strange Love
Strange Love
(somehow, somewhere, some day, in a strange world)

© Lyrics Steve McCarthy-Hunt, 2025

Where Are My Heroes Now?

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“…Don’t the best of them bleed it out?
While the rest of them peter out
Truth or consequence, say it aloud
Use that evidence, race it around…“

© Grohl/Smear/Mendel, 1997 from the album “The Colour & The Shape”

Another track, currently slated for the Time Demands album. It may, just possibly, may go onto Echos Of Unmade Miles, as I’m debating as to whether it thematically fits onto Time Demands…. it sort of does because of the subject matter…. our heroes have their time and then they move on to the next realm to do whatever they have to do in that next place… but who comes to take their place? Who are the new heroes?

As I alluded to in an earlier post, this one was kinda born in a separate form and this is effectively a different iteration of the same track. As I said on the recent Next Chapter update post, it was something that came up on a BASCA songwriting retreat at the late Monnow Valley Recording studios in Monmouthshire, between three of us.

I had a one third stake in it, by virtue of being in the room and producing the demo on Cubase and contributing lines towards the song and the storyboarding of the song. Its performance at Open Mic nights around Leicestershire by its lead composer and driving force led to me getting my first ever PRS cheque. It allowed me to call myself, very very very loosely, a professional songwriter. Not something I shout from the rooftops, because while I can write and while I do write, I dont make a living from it as a “real” professional would and I dont expect to. As I’ve often said, I dont do it for money. But anyway, we’re digressing again.

Now, this particular version, all it shares with the one that was performed elsewhere is the framework of the story behind it.. The framework is that it is based around someone who first heard their hero’s performances on record, on radio and on TV when they were much younger and they have followed their hero’s careers ever since as they grow older. Their material was part of the rites of passage of getting older and the listeners just expect the performer, the hero, to always be there, growing old alongside them and continuing to buy their material, go to their gigs, keep buying the t-shirts, and so on and so on.

And then 2016 happened and it started with Colin Vearncombe from Black in January of that year which was bad enough, as I had fond memories of Black’s debut album… then David Bowie, which was kind of unexpected…. then Glenn Frey, which hit me really hard as I’d loved his work with the Eagles and he was no doubt about it, an inspiration… and it just got worse and worse throughout the whole year. It was like hardly a month went by without another passing.

Jimmy Bain from Rainbow, bassist on the magnificent, timeless Rainbow Rising album.
Maurice White from Earth Wind and Fire. Absolutely irreplaceable driving force behind the band who my uncle and the rest of Intensive Heat loved as much as breathing itself.
Paul Gordon from the B52’s. Legendary Beatles Producer and Air Studios owner Sir George Martin. Keith Emerson. Jimmy Vand Zandt. Prince, for christssakes. When Prince’s death was announced on Radio 2 in the car and I was driving home from work, I remember clearly shouting to no one else in the car “Oh come on FFS, thats enough, f’ing stop it!”

…Billy “Me & Mrs Jones” Paul. Bobby “Rubber Ball” Vee. Leonard Cohen. Leon Russell. It was just relentless.

Greg Lake. Rick Parfitt from Status Quo…. by the time it got to George Michael on Christmas Day 2016, I was feeling punchdrunk. I dont know how I can explain how the passing of artists that I never personally knew and never personally met and in most cases, never even saw live… how can you feel the loss as keenly as you do, if the connection is only through their work? I cannot explain it, but I know that when I see video footage or hear music by Bowie, Earth Wind & Fire or George Michael in particular, I’m filled with an immense sadness and I miss their work and their contribution to the tapestry of music that makes up my life.

I tried to rationalise it in the sense of trying to see it from the performers side too as well as just the fans perspective.

Again, like a lot of this work so far, it is first draft lyrics and the form is pretty loose and kinda proggy, but I dont necessarily see it going in that direction. As with the others, theres not really a proper coherent beginning/middle/end storyboard to it but I do pose the question; where are the next generation of heroes coming from?

And ten years later, its not particularly clear. Some deserve to be heroes for their age ( you could arguably say Adele, Chris Martin, Jarvis Cocker, Paddy MacAloon), some were knocking on the door anyway of that status… but others, while they are no doubt successful dont have that global footprint, that ubiquity…. James Dean Bradfield, Matt Bellamy – guitar heroes are in painfully short supply at the moment, beyond Bonamassa and the emerging Chris Buck – and who is going to follow on from the likes of Carol King, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, David frickin’ Gilmour and many many others? None of them can stay forever and you could say well, they are here for their time and new ones will come along to take their place.

Sam Fender, Lewis Capaldi, maybe…. and there are a few others that have the potential to be these global artists… but not like the ones that burned into a nation’s consciousness like these guys and girls did. I dont genuinely see this generation of superstars being replaced by a new one.

Maybe they wont. Maybe they shouldnt be. Maybe the era of the rock hyperstars is over and done and will never come back. If thats the case, I’m just glad that I was lucky enough to be around at the same time as these guys as they gave my life a soundtrack, while it happened and that is something I will treasure forever.

This is my tribute to them, I guess….

Oh and while we’re at it: theres at least two album titles in there, either directly named or obliquely and they were definitely albums that changed my life.. and at least three other references in lines to very well known songs. Very well known indeed….

Where Are My Heroes Now?

I was young when I heard your song
In a house full of sounds
The FM radio hummed into life
And your melodies remind me of where I’m from

Vinyl dreams and tapes of stories
The bringer of storms and the kick inside of my heart
Spinning around like a carousel
And I learned how to love and cry as I fell under your spell

Late at night as the sun goes down
A sonic rite of passage to another world
Painted diamonds in the sky
Firing the imagination of this child

I followed you through the concert halls
Stadiums and arenas followed on
Feeling the energy coming from the stage
Finding the place where I thought I’d belong

Ten minute stories from you from the road
Became the soundtrack to all of our lives
Watching you on MTV
Stuck a flag in my heart that to this day still flies

Never crossed my mind as I got older
That in turn, you would grow older too
Your music was my ever present
The rock for my undsteady heart,
And the one thing I would always cling to

It was a time to learn how to heal
When life’s dreams managed to vanish into the wind
Your music was always in our hearts
And now for another new generation it all begins

So where are my heroes now?
Your songs will never get older
Some will follow in your footsteps
Inspired by your devotion to make them bolder
Your music and your art so sublime
Where are my heroes now?
May you always never get older
I will always remember your sound…

© Lyrics by Steve McCarthy-Hunt 2025

picture: By Tpaairman – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26937651

Time Demands

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“…Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say…”

© Lyrics by Roger Waters, 1973 from the album “Dark Side Of The Moon”

Another new song, this time the title track from the forthcoming album of the same name.

This one again came from the same collection of lines and ideas that have been sitting in an A4 folder and a number of notebooks over the last few years. And they’ve been collected from all over the place and the more observant of you will notice a pretty glaring Joni Mitchell one in here as well… one of my favourite tracks of hers, a heartbreakingly beautiful song called River. Its not theft (well not exactly, more of a tip of the chapeau, thats my story and I’m sticking to it, LOLZ) Very seasonal as well. And theres a line that is half borrowed as well from the late Glenn Frey, right towards the end.

The thrust of it, is as per the rest of the album; an exercise on growing older and watching the world changing around you. It also questions whether any of us put down roots on this particular journey called life, either in a physical place or whether we continue to keep the same values through our lives (Do you know where you stand/can you still stand where you stand/Will you now stand where you want to stand?)

And through the series of questions and challenges, it comes to the conclusion: There is no such thing as the perfect path. Even in living in the moment (such as like wot I try to do), events of now very quickly become yesterdays news – hence the chip paper reference, going back to the 1970s where British Chip shops used to wrap their portions in newspaper until they realised it contained lead… The “Did You Get What You Wanted? Is a Deal A Deal” line comes from Jimmy Webb’s autobiography where he said that what he wished for was to be a writer and thats what he got and he later realised that what he had asked the universe for came at a price, but because he did a deal with the universe, whatever she asked for as the price of entry, he was honour bound to pay it. Because a Deal Is A Deal.

So, what exactly does Time Demand? It demands, not to put too fine a point on it that you get your shit together to make the most of life while you have it. Many are denied the opportunity to get to the age you and I have reached, by the universe’s unseen hand at work, it is a privilege to grow old. Dont be afraid of the outside world, embrace it, be part of it to your fullest. Take control of your life as much as you can. Find that crucible for your dreams. Its all your journey now. Dont do it for someone else. Do it for you.

Again there is the first draft/lyrics only caveat at this stage. Not sure it is going to go in quite the Floyd-y direction that this post may intimate. Just so I set your expectations accordingly!

Time Demands

Getting to grow old is a blessing
Denied to so many by an unseen hand
Desire as you knew it may have walked out of your heart
But it remains in your mind
As you work out your new place in this tough and changed land
Do you know where you stand?

You’re splashing around in puddles of tears
Some frozen hard after all this time
If you dont slip over, maybe you can skate away
And put behind you all of those old fears
Can you still stand where you stand?

You should never be scared of the outside world
You can find peace by a lake under the moon
Dont worry about all those old bad ideas
They’ll be miles behind you and over very soon

Dont you worry about those old regrets
About what you didnt get to do
Take control of your own life now
Its all down to you, now
Too much too little, its all so scary
How do you find any middle ground?
Will you now stand where you want to stand?

The latest post is now yesterdays news
Yesterdays headlines now the chip paper they can no longer use
Did you get what you wanted, was a deal a deal?
Were you chasing your feelings not knowing if they were real?

You were meant to find a forge, for all of your dreams
And its time to work out now, if it is all what it seems

(Its your journey now…)

© Lyrics by Steve McCarthy-Hunt, 2025

Silent Time

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“Somewhere down the road, you’re gonna find a place
It seems so far, but it never is
You won’t need to stay, but you might lose your strength
On the way

Sometimes you may feel you’re the only one
Cause all the things you thought were safe, now they’re gone
But you won’t be alone, I’ll be here to carry you along
Watching you ’til all your work is done”

© Phil Collins (1989), from the album “But Seriously…”

This one has probably had four gestations in its lifetime. There is also a version of it that is on the Echos Of Unmade Miles album and is on this site as Unspoken Words.

Basically it goes back to an old conversation that my best friend and closest collaborator, Robert Pearce, where he had said that as a young father that the one thing that worried him was the kind of world that he was going to leave for his son and whether he could do anything about it to mitigate how the world was changing, or words to that effect. I lazily sat on the floor with an A4 pad and dashed off a page of lyrics and said “there you go, try that for size”, it just flooded out right there and then… and did I take a copy of it?

Can I remember even a single solitary syllable of it?

NOPE!

The second iteration of it was Unspoken Words, which was also something that went through evolutions to get where it is and then sat in an A4 ring binder for a decade before I threw it into the fiery goblet called Suno to see what would get spat out… and I was quite happy with the results of what it generated for those lyrics.

There was though, always another version of it which had another way of looking at it at its heart; and that was the yin and yang of for every good thing that he could/would leave to his son, society would leave something that would be darker and less useful to him. For everything good, there is a bad.

And the kicker being, everything that is bad, is something that we, he and I, and all those around us, are guilty of not only propagating, but also perpetuating to prop up our current lives and the sting of hypocrisy that goes with it, like lemon juice in a paper cut… and that was the version that I’ve sought to bring to life now.

It did poke its head above the duvet briefly at a BASCA Songwriting Retreat at Monnow Valley Studios in 2015, when three of us were kicking around the idea that later became This Time, which was subsequently cut by me on the London Road album… but nothing came of it. Too complicated at the time and (co-writers) Nikki and Alan werent feeling it either, LOLZ.

Obviously, at this stage where its just lyrics, I have no idea how or if it is going to work the way it was conceived. But, I’d like to see it do great things, much as if it were a child of mine that I never had… despite its future being weighed down by all the things I should have done and never did.

Talk about Art Imitating Life….

Oh and just for clarity… I dont (normally anyway) write protest songs (although there have been two which could be called that – This Time and Revolution In The Rain) – and Im firmly of the belief that you dont have to cancel out the rest of real modern life and go along with the greenwashing insanity to look after the planet that you live on. Living in harmony with nature does not mean this insane, heavily politicised zero carbon BS.

Silent Time

Standing on a shoreline
Many miles away from home
Silent times alone with my children
Wondering about what my generation has done

For every fish caught from a holiday pier in the summer
More and more plastic bags in the sea
For every beach that our family has walked upon
There is litter and sewage as far as the eye can see
Feeling so free, swimming in the sea, playing in the surf
Wondering where all the fish stocks have gone
Purse seine’d from the deep where there was never enough

For every forest with its huge canopies
There are miles and miles of urban sprawl
Where there were once habitats for wildlife
Logging and sawmills have seen to that all
My memories of green and rolling hills
Keep fading into the past
Scars in the soil of rails and roads that are carved into the land…

Fo every sight of the stars and the moon
Space junk and drones fill the skies
Where the birds were once soaring and singing
More and more buildings are raised ever more high
The breath of pure nature is replaced by the smoke and smog
And the beautiful sound of nature and silence
Is shattered by noise and the electronic fog…

Take a look at the lights, drowning out the night
I tried hard to make my world good, but for your future, its not right
I took the world my father showed to me
The beautiful world that he had known
And its time for us to hand it to your generation
Only now can we see what the hell we have done…

If you take one lesson from us, my son
For the breaking world that we leave in your care
Dont look after it so you can be righteous
Do it because it is still there….

© Lyrics Steve McCarthy-Hunt 2025

Say Nothing

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“Our memories, well, they can be inviting
But some are altogether mighty frightening
As we die, both you and I
With my head in my hands, I sit and cry…”

© Eric & Gwen Stefani, 1997 from the album “Tragic Kingdom”

Next up, from the forthcoming album, Time Demands... another one, a bit shorter this time, again in a bit of a virgin state as of this precise moment in time; just lyrics. I dont really have any notion yet what direction it is going to go in…. the metaphorical chicken bones that I’m throwing around the floor are suggesting possibly TalkTalk or a similar late 80s/early 90’s feel. Too early to say though. It will go where it will.

So what is it about? Its that part of coming out of a relationship that neither of you really wanted to come out of but felt that not only did you have no choice, but as soon as you made the decision, you knew you’d made the wrong choice. And sometimes, its better to just say nothing than say the wrong things and only make what was once, however briefly beautiful, tarnished and broken and worse as a result.

Or, to use a shorter phrase, “Some things are better left unsaid”.

Its about trying to get on with your life without getting bogged down with the past and trying to constantly go back over the slate of memories thinking and rethinking “…. ah but what if…. what if so-and-so hadnt been there when… I would have then have…” and the such like. The past has gone. Nothing can change it, and re-writing it does no one any favours, because the rewrite is a lie, no matter what prism you think you’re looking at it through. The past is still the same and is cast in stone from the moment that it happened.

Its not a case of Only The Victorious Get To Write History. Its perfectly ok to be able to see history objectively and be comfortable acknowledging if you have failed.

There is no dishonour in failure.. only in not having tried at all.

Say Nothing

Searching for your name
Through contacts and photographs
Wasnt there somewhere else where I needed to be?
Picking up all the shattered pieces
I’ve never ever known,
Never known a heart to feel so damn heavy.

Trying to find my way out of the dark
Can someone please tell me what Im supposed to have missed?
Is this the point I watch you leaving the park
Have you already forgotten the hope of love that was in my kiss?

Please… just say nothing
You dont need to say anything at all
The only person who could ever have helped me
Is the one who couldnt stand to stay and watch me fall

My little broken princess, its ok to be afraid
There is a time to heal from all these choices we have made
Its a road thats less travelled, its a window less viewed
So many ways to say I love you, but we only knew but a few

I try hard not to let you walk across my mind
I spent far too much time, trying to read between you and all the lines
You can drink til you dont remember and then cry yourself to sleep
But when you wake up with your feet over the edge
remember the promises that you alone swore that you’d keep…

© Lyrics Steve McCarthy-Hunt 2025

Lives Of Glass

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“…To find the fundamental truths
It was going to take some time
Thirty five summers down the line
The wisdom of each passing year
Seems to serve only to confuse
Seems to serve only to confuse….”

© Hogarth/Rothery/Kelly/Trewavas/Moseley from the album “This Strange Engine”, 1997

Three for three. Next up is this one, nominally known at the moment of Lives Of Glass, the title coming from one of the lines buried deep in the song’s soft underbelly. Now these lines arent particularly old and have been ones that I’ve happened across in the last few months. But come one, come all, they all have a place, no matter how they have been acquired, LOLZ.

Again, its autobiographical. It reflects on the concept that everything around you and everything you do and every memory, every interaction you have is fragile, transparent on the surface, not to mention precious and easily broken… but in the same breath, if you tiptoe around life and act scared of it, you’re going to spend more time not doing anything, not getting the joy out of life for fear of something going wrong and ruining it all. Its ok not to know something. Its ok to find the joy in learning something for the first time. It is, after all, all about the journey and not the destination. The destination is the same for all of us no matter what stations our life’s trains call at on the way. The terminus is NoOne Gets Out Of Here Alive. And we all get there sooner or later than each other, depending on what the universe has mapped out for us along the way.

So, thats what its all about. The last lines are inspired by and taken from Rick Rubin, particularly that we all are in and imagine in different worlds to each other; right now, this very minute, is my time for my life and no one can take that away; as the line says, its my moment for me to feel alive in my own way. Im looking forward to reading Rubin’s book over the coming months. Like him, I am a non-engineering Producer and for the most part a non-playing musician (at the moment anyway), but there is still a valuable part to be played by those who trust their ears and who bleed music if you cut them open and thats maybe one thing that Rubin and I have in common, in our very different worlds. I find his philosophy fascinating and am looking forward to learning more about him.

And finally, the last lesson being: stop expecting the life you think you deserve; go out there and make it happen while you still can. No one else is going to make it happen for you.

There is no music as yet, although something is telling me that its likely to be quite proggy and probably have distinctly different elements and themes. That though is nothing more than idle Sunday Night Speculation, it will go in whatever direction it is meant to go in and I will follow it.


Lives Of Glass

I could be a butterfly in your pocket,
Going everywhere with you where you go
You keep on waiting for the glow, the glow that never comes
We saw it once, but it never came back,
I guess I’m the keeper of your lost cause.

We all want to live in a better world than we do
Dont just smile to pass the time of day
You spend all your time furiously scrubbing
Scrubbing at a stain thats never going to go away
Just one more river
And just one more wall
Another obstacle, that is going to stop nothing at all

Sometime it felt like our lives were made of glass
Every train was the start of an adventure
But no more walking on needles and pins
How much our modern lives have changed!
We’re looking at the lights, drowning out the night
Something about it all, it just isnt right…

There is an innocence in learning
And a beauty in growing
And a naivety and a joy in not knowing
Dont try and fill something in your life that can never be filled
Or let your worry about life’s one way journey ever make you ill
Everyone wants a piece of you when you do it right
And most of them dont know or care who you are
As long as you put up a fight

We all imagine such different worlds
in my other world, maybe it would be melancholy, maybe it would be pearls
This is my time for no one else to take away,
The one moment to feel so alive but only in my own way
Stop expecting the life you think you deserve
You cant put something else ahead of your life and just call it love…

© Lyrics Steve McCarthy-Hunt 2025

The Land Of The Low White Sun

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“…Today I dreamed
Of friends I had before
And I wonder why
The ones who care don’t call anymore
My feelings hurt
But you know I overcome the pain
And I’m stronger now
There can’t be a fire unless there’s a flame…”

© Seal, 1994 from the album “Seal”

Third new song uploaded for the day on a cold, foggy Warwickshire night, from the forthcoming album Time Demands. As per the previous posts, this one is lyrics only and first draft at the moment. No music exists yet.

I have to admit, I have no musical preconceptions for this particular track, at the moment, I have absolutely no idea what direction it is going to take me in. Ahem, pardon me. What direction it is going to go in, dragging me after it, more accurately.

Its is like a lot of the other songs, based on a collection of lines, observations and thoughts that have been percolating for the last decade and have a broad number of different sources where I first heard them and thought “I’m keeping that, that’ll come in useful…” It is definitely autobiographical, about childhood, fleeting observations and nuggets of wisdom found amongst the fools gold of life (bloody hell thats good, I’m not giving that one away, LOLZ). In some cases I’ve had these lines for a long long time and not had the opportunity to use them and some of them have snuck their way in here and finally found their place.

It also cements the lesson that life has taught me that life isn’t something that just happens to you, you make a number of choices that then open up a number of forks in the road of life in front of you which then give you more choices and each one of those leads off in different directions… well, thats my philosophy anyway.

Just for the shits and giggles… where did the title come from? Actually, it came from a podcast where I saw it was going to be an article of discussion that night. I’m not avoiding a copyright sniff on where the title came from, but thats where it first struck me. Also, I can absolutely confirm that its got absolutely nothing to do with either Taiwanese or Chinese or Japanese flags or political parties, or necessarily the phenomenon of the northern latitudes where the sun always remains low in the sky for a whole day and doesnt really rise or set… The relevance of it is more the latter, where the light is always low and maybe blinding you to what may be right in front of you. It is a line from a notepad and its one that I liked and it for the moment at least, it fits. Like other works in the catalogue, it may change, but when I was looking for titles for these songs, this was the one that seems to fit and for now at least, it will stay.

The lines themselves; very much about where I grew up in Coventry and about the people whose company I found myself in during my late teens and early 20’s. Im particularly happy with the last verse, particularly the references to factories, football grounds, paper planes and toys and unemployed boys; Coventry was quite grim in the late 1970s and early 1980s as it was changing from being an industrial post-war town trying to rebuild itself after the war and the political changes from the late 1960s through to the 1980s put a very different slant on that; I was born less than a mile from Coventry City Football Club’s old Highfield Road stadium and that was a big part of my childhood; so were a lot of the factories that family members and friends families were dependent on for their livelihoods at the time, all pretty much now gone as the city changed and evolved. Unemployed boys, well, there was certainly tens of thousands of them around at the time, all looking for something, maybe something that some of them never found, or if they did find it, they didnt find it in Coventry….

As it says, you connect with what works for you. What is meant for you will not pass you by. But by the same token, its a cautionary tale if you keep swimming after something that you figure you have to chase, even if it may not really be what you want any more… after all, no one wants to be in deep water on their own thinking what the hell do I do now….?

I’m very happy with its current form and I’m very much looking forward to where it may take me during its gestation period.

The Land Of The Low White Sun

This is the path you had put yourself on
Its a little late in the day to ask yourself: Was it wrong?
Back then everyone told you; it’ll probably be OK.
Then they went ahead and did the opposite thing anyway…

Other people have already decided who I am
Reputations change pretty fast these days
Nobody gives a damn
So here I am sitting here all tangled up in my words
Shards from a shattered looking glass
looking like feathers from scattered birds

We all looked towards those we thought were the wise ones
And from the company we kept; the answers there came none
And in the time it took to sleep
In the land of the low white sun
We look back to the way it never was
And we weave our ideas into the fabrics of our times…

It all gets lost, so deep amongst all the noise
A childhood full of games, paper planes and toys
Of factories and football grounds
And unemployed boys
You connect with what works for you
I guess its easy to say

Theres no point swimming after a ship that has left you behind
Deep out int he water drowning on your own
While the old men keep on dreaming their dreams
And trying to find their way home…

© Lyrics by Steve McCarthy-Hunt 2025

Raindrops And Razorblades

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“My life is a house
You crawl through the window
Slip across the floor and into the reception room
You enter the place of endless persuasion
Like a knock on the door when there is ten or more things to do…”

© Neil Finn, 1993 from the album “Together Alone”

Second new song added in 24 hours, from the intended Time Demands album. Again, the caveat is that it is a first draft and may change by the time it hits the hard drives for real and the music has yet to be composed too. My initial feelings about the music is that it is likely to be quite proggy, but again… it may decide to go off in a completely different direction. Thats the joy of songwriting, I find.

There have been a lot of the songs that were originally written as part of the 2014-2017 Purple Patch which ended up in a very different place, whether that was Suno-assisted or not. This is no different.

Anyway. Digressing and all that.

The lyrics are a combination of a lot of lines that were written/seized upon during the 2017-2019/2020 period. Some have been used as, I guess the equivalent of mortar to pin other lines together, so there is a bit of wordplay in there, but there is actually a cogent theme running through the song.

And that theme is this: No one elses life is yours to save, only your own. You cannot save people from themselves.

Around that is a series of observations of how I see my life looking back at some of the things that happened and how I reacted; I dont really think I criticise the decisions that I made, just that they happened. It was I guess, more a case of observing the world around me and how mad it was at times, particularly lines like “Everybody always seems to be somewhere else, always chasing a new kind of high” and “spent my youth being forced to decide between prejudice and passion and choosing a side”. Obviously now the wisdom of age tells me that I didnt have to choose a side at all, all I had to do was plot my own path. I didnt have to have a prejudice or a pre-determined point of view about anything, I just had to watch, listen and learn. I’m also quite proud of the “I’ve tried catching lightning in a bottle, it didnt need to be mine” line; the concept of being around people who you figure make you look good, you’re in their reflected glory, you figure that by being in their company, that you get some of that glow to make you feel better about yourself.

Obviously, I learned that was a fallacy in fairly short order, but it still took time to learn and as the old saying goes, the Universe Keeps Sending You The Same Lesson Until You Learn It. Tick. Been there done that, bought the T-shirt.

Most of the lines relate to yes, the same three muses that have been part of my life and shaped it. It also contains a Bridge/Middle 8 that refers to my current partner (“you let in the sunshine and led me out of the night”).

It is, ultimately about life in a snapshot, I guess. Where is the town of False Dreams? Oh it could be a number of places. It could be London. It could be Aylesbury (its most likely to be Aylesbury, in fairness, LOL), it could be a market town in Warwickshire. It could be a number of places. Could even be Peterhead in Scotland, where I spent a lot of my youth.

I am quite comfortable with the direction that it is going in and I’m quietly, reservedly confident that it will turn out good. I’m looking forward to the musical journey that I’m going to go on until its finished.

Oh and why Raindrops And Razorblades? Well, if it is driving, fierce, horizontal rain in real inclement weather, especially in Winter, that rain stings when it hits you in the face. Trust me, I know, LOL. Plus, I’m quite happy with the rhythmic alliteration of it and it almost has a Wayne Hussey-like thing to it, it strikes me as the kind of song title he would have come up with in his time. And given that Mr Huss is an influence of mine (although you have to dig pretty deep these days to find it, LOLZ), I am definitely influenced by him as a musician and a writer.

Raindrops and Razorblades

Raindrops fall like razorblades

Her life wasnt mine to save

Just hold me til my soul melts inside…

In a town of false dreams
Streets of fear that didnt come true
Theres nothing else to find out about me
That you dont already know

I tried catching lightning in a bottle
It didnt even need to be mine
Everybody always seems to be somewhere else
All chasing a new kind of high
None of us know how long the ride will last, not for ever more
When the novelty of beauty finally fades
All of these ambitions will be left at the door…

Its like you walked into the house of my mind
And turned on every one of the lights
You let in all the sunshine and led me out of the night
I didnt know if I would make it out alive
and if I’d make it all right…

We left a little piece of me in everywhere I’ve been
All sixes and sevens and eights and elevens
Trying to tell all of those shivers to subside
Preaching to the wind and trying to hold back the tide

A million flashbulbs of sun on the ocean
And you fell through my fingers like a ring in a sand-dune
Spent my youth being forced to decide
Between prejudice and passion and choosing a side
I could stop and look around me and the consequences roll on
Cant try and turn it around if it all turns out to be wrong…

© Lyrics Steve McCarthy-Hunt 2025

Parallel Lives

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“Passion or coincidence once prompted you to say
“Pride will tear us both apart”
Well, now pride’s gone out the window
‘Cross the rooftops, run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart

What is happening to me?
Crazy, some’d say
Where is my friend when I need you most?“

© Taylor/Rhodes/Le Bon/Cucurillo, 1993 from “Duran Duran” (aka The Wedding Album)

Well, this is the first of the songs that are in the process of composition for the future album Time Demands. And, while a lot of other writers would be sensible and wait for the finished product before writing about it and recording it for posterity….. nope, thats not my modus operandi. I’m particularly keen to deliver Added Value, my dear followers… you get to find out about the stuff while its gestating, as it is building, while it makes its journey from first draft (like this one) to finished track. None of that corporate flim-flam here. Nooooo….

… and then, when I should come back later and edit it and say “well, it started out like this, but ended up way over here somewhere instead…”… yeah, that bit sometimes/most often falls under the table and doesnt get done.

But here we are and I’m not really going to break the habit of a lifetime just yet.

So…… Parallel Lives, then. This was put together as an important part of the album and is largely self explanatory. It is about my best friend and I and how he has been part of my life for the best part of 30+ years and how I would not be the man that I am without his influence and his friendship. Some may think it is too autobiographical and I have to admit, I havent spoken to him about it and whether he is happy about me being as candid as I am in these lyrics. And some may say, more than a little raw. I guess that will find its own level during the track’s gestation period. I suspect, conversely that one track that he has written which I had produced and played on back in 2012 may have been about me as it sure as heck lines up with a lot of my life events of the time during my first marriage, but then again a) I never asked him about it and b) if you look long and hard enough at any song you can read any meaning into any of it… viz the comment by James Grant about the middle 8 in Jocelyn Square from the “Strange Kind Of Love” album….

“All the memories that flower and blossom in this pale endymion hour, they paint a picture of you, too good to be true”...

when I first read that I was thinking “jeez, how can I compete with that… endymion … wtf does that mean?… Oh thats what it means? The sleep of the dead…. so while he’s sleeping the sleep of the dead, his mind is creating this image of her thats too good to be true… bloody hell, thats brilliant”. There is no way I will ever be worthy, etc etc... and James himself later said “oh that, yeah I saw it in a book and thought ‘that looks good, I’m having that’ and dropped it in. Dont ask me what it means, I dont know”. Talk about crushed,, LOLZ.

So, in a roundabout way, I may have got off on completely the wrong foot, but having said that, what I say within the song is true, there is very little artistic licence and it is an honest and open paean to the man who has been, for most of my adult life, my best friend. It is absolutely true that if I had been posted into the military unit that I was sent to in 1992 on any other day, if he and I and another member of his band hadnt crossed paths on the day we did, every single day of the following 35 years would have taken a very different turn and I would absolutely not be the man, the writer, the lyricist, the producer, that I am now. My whole adult life from the age of 27 turned on that moment.

Parallel Lives tells that story. Much as we have a friendship that I hope will never be broken, much as real life has demanded our day to day attention for as long as it has, much as he is finding music not to be the comfort that I found it to be when I was in a darker place… that bond is one that I will be forever grateful for and will treasure and I hope he finds his way back into the light when he is ready. Obviously, it only focuses on parts of our lives, its not warts and all, but its about what has bound us in its own way.

And, as per the caveat in an earlier paragraph, it is a first draft and it is subject to change.

Parallel Lives

I dont know if I was your best friend
But for so many years, you have been mine
I didnt really need to know, our parallel lives just used to flow
The most precious thing we gave each other was our time

I took your songs and believed in you
More for your good than mine
Onwards we walked, down that same long road
Side by Side, always Side by Side

And we’d share a stage, night after night we’d play
Searching for our place in the big time
Night after night, music under lights
Smoke in our eyes, our art demanded our sacrifice
When all our hearts really craved was real life
It all got left a little further behind.

I thought I had found love three times
In the time it took you to find the one in your life
And you stood by my side in my darkest hour
On the last day I ever saw my wife
We shared some unforgettable times
Where our music sealed its mark on our lives
And we stood by each others sides

And after thirty years, even though you loved her like no other
She wanted more than you said you could give
I was too many hour behind, I couldnt be anywhere but online
But you knew I’d still give you all of my time

Thank you for the you that once appeared
My life would not be the same after all these years
You gave me someone to sing to through the thunder and the rain
Somebody to lean on through the thunder and flame

We’re only human, we’re all made of mistakes
In a broken world of broken people
The most precious thing is our time
The most precious thing is our time.

© Lyrics by Steve McCarthy-Hunt 2025