So, the last few months have been a little bit weird. Basically having taken ages to get the Furnace / Abbey Road album mixed and finished (my fault, nothing to do with James Ewers or Sam Miller – great producer/mix engineer repsectively), I realised I didn’t really have a band I could call on as often as I wanted. Which makes putting a record out a bit – well, very – hard. Really, I’ve done nothing since January.

Then I saw the everlovin Ben Startup at Moulettes‘ LP launch last week, and had a chat with the nice people at Sotones last weekend, and listened to a lot of old stuff, and remembered how much I like little acoustic songs. And we might be going to Denmark / Germany to play a little this summer, too.

Now I have a plan. Basically, we’re going to get together a few small releases between now and October, when the LP campaign’s going to kick off. Some of these will be old demos / rarities; some Ann The Arc stuff I did in Falmouth with Dave Wade-Brown (drums) and Jimmy Shivers (bass) with Dan Parry producing; and rude_NHS has agreed to do some remixes (anyone’s welcome, too – email me). Lastly, I’ve been writing some stuff again.

This song (see above) is one of the new ones. It’s just a quick throwaway number about an obsessive fan. I suppose it’s about living in someone else’s shadow and a bit murder ballad-y, the kind of thing I might cook up with Dave Miatt. Apologies to Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill for the middle bit I lifted. And Evan too of course 😉

Neither Of Us Will Ever Be Evan (J Parker)
================================

It’s hard to follow your idol,
Hard so you’d better be brave,
But I find that it helps if you’re obsessed and it hurts,
To follow them into the grave.

So while you play the lead,
I’m drawing a bead –
Neither of us
Will ever
Be Evan

You may think that I’m kind of a friend to you,
You may think of me just like a fan,
But I’m waiting out here with your brake-line and shears,
So good luck driving home in your van.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a rock star,
Giving all your love to just one fan…

You may think that I’m not very like you,
You may think I’m not much of a threat,
But I’m stood in the wings as the fire-bell rings,
Cos my lighter ain’t failed me yet.

So while you play the lead,
I’m drawing a bead –
Neither of us
Will ever
Be Evan

It’s not clever, it’s not meant to be anything serious and I kind of shit these out now and again when I’m in the right phase.. I like songs like this and there’s probably enough for a small EP, I suppose. Here’s hoping, anyway.

.. also I want to marry Katy Goodman and live happily ever after for ever.