There’s something strange about writing a song; one minute you’re playing the piano or guitar and mumbling a few words. Then all of a sudden, just like magic it appears. I mean it might not appear all in one go. It might take minutes or hours, sometimes even days or weeks until it’s totally finished but in essence once it’s there, it’s there.
I’ve been asked many times what comes first, the words or the music. Sometimes I answer glibly using the words of the great songwriter Sammy Cahn that it could actually be the phone call. Maybe these days it’s most likely to be a commission via email.
Other times there are no words, there’s no music and no commission, it’s just an event or a feeling that I now know will become a song.
I know the exact date of the first time it happened to me. It was on Wednesday 17th May 1995. 1995 was the year Swansea had been chosen as the host for the Arts Council’s Year Of Literature.
At the time I was presenting a daily arts show for the BBC from Alexandra Road. Guests over the year included people like Seamus Heaney, Allen Ginsberg, Larry Adler, Pat Boone and Bono!!! It was also a great honour to be named as a patron for the festival alongside Arthur Miller, Paul Simon and the Honorary President and Patron President Jimmy Carter.
To coincide with the Festival I had been commissioned to present a series of programmes for the BBC about song writing. That was how I found myself in Cardiff on 17th May 1995. That afternoon it had been arranged for me to interview the American singer songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter. Right at the start of the interview I decided it was best to tell her that I was a massive fan and in particular I loved her song ‘I Am A Town’.
Mary was very gracious and a terrific interviewee. We said our goodbyes and as I left she invited me to her concert. That night Mary was terrific and played all of her hits. Half way through the show she started playing the introduction to ‘I Am A Town’. I was already in a state of transcendental ecstasy when through the mist I heard her say ‘I’m sending this out to Mal’.
It was just one of those moments made all the more special by the fact that it was the eve of my 35th birthday. Now if the Bible needs believing I was half way through the fighting, half way home to heaven. I knew that moment was a song. The words and music to ‘Standing At the Crossroads’ came a few days later as I tried to process the meaning and significance of such a special moment.
The same thing happened to me in January of this year. I had managed to grab a ticket for the first production by the recently formed Welsh National Theatre. If I’m honest I knew very little about what to expect. I had heard of the play, that it was written by Thornton Wilder before the second world war and that it starred Michael Sheen.
In many ways I’m glad I didn’t know the play because everything was new to me. The characters, the town and the surprising way Michael Sheen came into and out of the play as the character Stage Manager. As I left the Grand I found myself absolutely speechless. It was so utterly brilliant as a technical production. The music, the staging, the actors all magnificent and of course Michael Sheen a colossus.
But that wasn’t it. What moved me was the play itself. How it brought me to tears one moment and made me smile the next. It also made me stop to wonder about my own life and my own town. About the people I loved and missed and take for granted. About the town that I call home that makes me angry and crazy and which I love beyond any other place on God’s own earth.
The song came fairly easily. Now if you know Swansea and the people of Swansea there is nothing they like more than criticising everything about the place. There are too many traffic lights, not enough shops and don’t get them started on the council. But woe betide anyone from outside having a go at ‘Our Town’.
For me this always comes into focus at the Swansea dot com stadium. Quite often we get crowds from some of the more challenged industrial areas of England. There are always the chants that try to taunt the home fans, but when they start singing that they want to go home because Swansea is some sort of ‘hole’, I want to say to them really. Have you seen the view over the Bay from Pantycelyn Road? Have you taken a trip to Swansea Market or the Marina or down to the Mumbles?
As always you need to create a video to help promote a new record. I wanted the video to be ironic. As I sing the words…
I look around and I wonder why
Of all the place under God’s own sky
Why would anyone choose to live in our town?
I deliberately chose videos of Swansea looking all dressed up in its Sunday best.
I wanted the opening of the video to show Swansea coming to life. That meant getting up at the crack of dawn to see the traders at Swansea Market getting their stalls ready for the day. It meant driving around Mumbles as the vans delivered all the goods for the shops. It meant being down at Langland Bay as the RNLI Lifeguards set themselves up for another busy day on the beach.
And what a summer to film such a video. In years gone past I would have to have checked the weather forecast hoping for a break in the clouds. This year everyday was absolutely perfect to film ‘Our Town’.
Of course not everyone from Swansea will like it because…well that’s Swansea for you. But as I said, woe betide anyone from outside the area criticising it.
To see the video go to www.malpope.com