I began this experimental blog in living hopefully, in my childhood bedroom, ‘shielding the makeshift tarpaulin covering my parents’ fragile existence from the menacing weather encroaching them.’

I have one Amazon review of my first album ‘Can’t Clip My Wings’. It is not of the whole album, the reviewer could not bring himself/herself to listen beyond one song – The Man With the Child in…

Life is getting back to normal in England. This requires adjustments for many of us - I keep forgetting to add in travel time for IRL meetings.

I am enjoying the return of random connections and conversations. But I came…

September is my favourite month. The weather is often lovelier than I expect, as it was this year. I should have recalibrated my expectations by now, but I’m surprised and delighted year after year, usually after being disappointed by August.

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Walking in the Spanish hills super-charged my creativity. My notebook is awash with words waiting to be adopted (most will remain orphaned). My phone has 23 new vocal snippets yearning to be developed (most will remain unopened).

I used to…

I believe, wholeheartedly, that rest is essential for creativity and for productivity. When I was younger I believed…

There are some habits that are etched so deeply into our childhood bones their shadows survive every reinvention. Our response to music is an example, as I have written about before. Our spending habits are another.

I joined Soundcloud nearly ten years ago when it was a welcoming, nurturing hangout for music-makers of all types and calibers. Without Soundcloud, I would never have released music because I would never have believed anyone would want to listen…

I’m fond of the word ‘august’ when used as an adjective to convey majestic, respected, or impressive. I don’t use it often – its air of pomposity makes it a poor choice in modern sentences. But I could not resist…

Hello.

This is the 34th Yours Hopefully post. I’ve written to you every week for 34 weeks. But, sadly, today I do not have time. Please forgive me. I’m being menaced by a looming deadline. For once it is not…

I saw the hypnotic Van Gogh Immersive Experience last week. The visuals and staging are stunning. You do, as they promise, step inside the paintings.

The soundtrack was less inspiring, snapshots of well-worn, much-loved, internationally recognisable classical masterpieces. Beautiful, but…

I wrote of my late awakening to the influence of Joni Mitchell on my music a few weeks ago. This week I celebrate another late love – Patti Smith.

I’m not working this week. I should be somewhere other than my home, but predictable and unpredictable events mean I am not. That’s how 2021 rolls.

I have been calm this month. Keeping my eyes forward. Focussing on putting one foot in front of the next. Progress is always possible, but not without traversing chasms on tightropes. Such is life – a helluva ride.

I have a tortured relationship with time that music soothes and stokes. Without a soundtrack, my brain cannot catalogue experiences. To remember when something happened, I often go through complex contortions trying to recall what I was listening to at…

I discovered I can record audio straight into this blog. So here is my first audio blog. With the song that has been on loop in my brain.

It’s been a fevered week in England. Football may be Coming Home…

Songwriting may not seem a perilous activity, but you are forever on the edge, a couplet away from cliché, a stanza away from self-importance.

The year is half-done. And often in this just-too-far-in-the-distance month, so was I. But each time my head drooped into my hands, I perked up, lifted by a gift, unknowingly bestowed by a spirit of humanity.

I share a few…

The title of this post could be mistaken for a guide to playing live music in 2021. Sadly, it is not. It is a question that many musicians are pondering as a second summer of song is silenced.  

People like to know where you come from. ‘From’ could be geography, job, class, values, political persuasion, or myriad other parameters we use to evaluate how another person aligns with our worldview.

If you are an artist, the question of…

I find it easier to make hard choices than simple ones. Do you?

If an experiment isn’t working, and a better one presents itself, I switch. I am not swayed or dismayed by the hours or emotion already ploughed and…

May was capricious, teasing me with flashes of heat and flickers of freedom. It was a bungee-jump of a month. If my hopes drifted too far into the future May yanked me back and left me dangling above solid ground…

Like all marriages, the relationship between music and lyrics is intriguing and complicated, mirroring the universal and unique dynamics of every partnership.

I write the music and lyrics of my songs, so people often ask me for insights into a…

I’m a dreamer (I’m not the only one).  

I dream big (I’m not the only one).

Dreaming big…