“…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