The Confession April 27, 2010

Today Godfrey and I wrote a song.

At least, we wrote most of it. We were rehearsing in St. James’s Church in Seapoint and we were exploring a narrator character. Godfrey had written some amazing text that felt very William Blake meets Tom Waits, which found the speaker in a confessional. As he played around with the delivery and the music a ballad began to take shape. And then we found the voice of this ragged man confessing a crime committed over 40 years ago, telling a story of dark love that began in the very chapel he was now kneeling in.

The amazing piano explorations of mr. Johnson seemed to pull lines and lyrics out of me, and together we wrote the text of this murderer’s haunting pain. I couldn’t believe how energising the process was, and how natural. Godfrey has an incredible gift for bringing out the voice in others even in the writing process – a truly generous performer.

I listened to a couple of songs that Godfrey’s been hiding under his hat. I was especially blown away by his interpretation of the music for the Mariner’s Revenge song. Such layered arrangements combining with deceptively simple hooks to capture the original feeling of the composition while making it uniquely Godfrey.

I’m really looking forward to sharing this show with an audience.