Singer, Songwriter, Voice Over Artist, Producer, Copywriter
Fifty Greatest Misses
50 of my songs and stories written during and about my 50+ years living, so far...
Disclaimer... The artist (me) wishes to excuse some of the following... the crackle, cackle, buzz and pop, lazy lyrics and piquant pitching, bitching, scandal and slander. Any similarity to anyone alive or dead is occasionally unintentional.
Writing
I started out in Dublin in the early 80’s singing. I wanted to be a singing superstar ala Streisand. I dashed home from school to sing along with Barbra, at full volume, before dousing my pimples in TCP and rushing back to school.
I wanted to be famous, that was that. Pop, Musical Theatre which ever. Singing was what I was good at, ergo I should become a singer.
After a couple of years popping up to do guest spots for show bands and fronting local Dublin indie/pop bands I was spotted by producer Deke O’Brien. Deke teamed me with songwriter and sound engineer Dave Freely and we spent many nights and weekends working on Dave’s songs in Alto Studios where I was able to hone my skills as a studio singer.
Deke encouraged me to write, but I didn’t believe I had what it took or that I was clever enough and I was content singing other people’s songs, until I moved to London in the mid 80’s. I soon realised that a singer without a song has far less currency than a singer with a song so I bought myself a piano and set about becoming a songwriter.
I realise this sounds like my approach to singing and songwriting was a bit on the cold and calculating side but I simply didn’t have the skills or courage to dig any deeper into my own life experience and emotional drivers to put my soul and stories out there and I was still very focused on music as a means to fame and fortune and not anything more artistic.
Meanwhile I was making some headway session singing and through an advert in Stage and Television I found myself auditioning for a project underway at PWL, Pete Waterman’s studio and production company. I wasn’t chosen to front that project, I was too old at 24, but I was asked back as a session singer. My role often crossed the boundary between backing vocals and ‘ghost’ vocals where the session singer provides a bed for the lead singer and then the ‘artist’ sings along. sometimes the original vocal is mixed out or so far back as to be undetectable and more about tone and texture and sometimes the artist made only a cursory appearance. If you check some of the songs on my singing page you can try to work out which was which…
How ever working with PWL and particularly having been agreeable to performing ghost vocals, for which I was remunerated btw, I asked that I be included in some of the writing sessions and it was one of those collaborations with producers Phil Harding and Ian Curnow that I achieved my 1st co-writing credit.
I began to cultivate relationships with co-writers and it was those early collaborations that resulted in me signing my 1st publishing deal with Peer Music.
The main focus of my songwriting during those years was to build a catalogue of demos and secure a record deal, however that’s easier said than done! I was rejected by pretty much every major label in London and was on the brink of despair when through my friend and co-writer Neville Farmer I was introduced to Kate Hyman who signed me to the brand new US based Imago Label being set up by former Chrysalis boss Terry Ellis.
By then I was writing and singing much more from the heart and commercial considerations and constrictions were becoming less and less a feature in my work. My debut album To Hell With Love probably exposes this conflict quite well. Some songs were still more writing by numbers and some definitely hint at something deeper which came later and is more fully realised on my 2nd album Late Developer and subsequent EP’s Big Stick and DIY some of which are available on Bandcamp.
Below is a link to my blog 50 Greatest Misses which chronicles the stories around some of my songs both co-writes and solo efforts, though most of these songs never featured on a record or any release.
Growing up, alongside my dreams of superstardom, I also loved writing stories. I occasionally contemplated Journalism as a third level option, but having spent most of my school years avoiding actual work and study, I never had a hope of achieving the exam results to get a place in college. There was little or no expectation I would go on to 3rd level at home and no pressure to push myself at all really. A secretarial course and a husband was the expected roadmap for most non academic girls back then.
It was ironic to discover years later, that both my biological parents were journalists and very good ones at that!
It was when I started the Cushy club nights at the 12 Bar Club in the mid 90’s, promoting mine and other up and coming indie/alternative bands that I put my writing to work. Every month I prepared a blog, essentially, introducing the bands and any other relevant info, which I emailed to my growing mailing list and uploaded to the Cushy Productions website.
These posts were quite unusual at the time as there were no readymade blog apps or social media sites in existence back then so every month I dug into the source code of the website, which was technically supported and facilitated by my long suffering partner Manfred aka ‘Poor Manfred’ and I programmed the content. I learned by doing and my skills were focused on what I needed. I had no formal training or qualifications, but it worked.
Most importantly the club night put structure into my days. I had to have two or three bands booked, the promo disseminated and my own band ready, ideally and usually with a new song for my set, done and done by the last Thursday of the month. It was great having that incentive and my writing improved as I went along.
Now I am being asked to consult on scripts for some of the voice over work I do and also write copy and provide content for various media, internet and promotion.
When I moved home and started my family everything took a back seat till I hit the big 5 0 and decided I should tell the stories and air my many unheard songs and so I started the 50 Greatest Misses blog. Initially I hoped it would help me focus on working on regular posts and force me to get some of the pile of unused songs I had accumulated during the Cushy years out there, thus allowing me to make a brand new album, which it did, for a while. But life has a way of interfering with plans and good intentions and after a promising start the blog updates have been further and further apart. I have however meanwhile been writing and recording new music and to those of you who have patiently waited for the longstanding promise of a new record to be delivered, I can only say it is happening and I truly hope I will get it over the line in our lifetime;)
“Children; our greatest achievement and deepest disappointment” Anon;)
Nature nurture? Who to blame? Where does it come from, the stubborn streak, the bad blood, the good heart, the sweet smile, the loose tongue, the awful handwriting.
I worry a lot that I have unwittingly passed on the worst of myself to my children. Everyone who knows our family usually comments that my beautiful daughter is the image of her dad and my son, the spit of me. Their dad gets the credit for their brains, me for their tantrums and time keeping. We’re the core of their lives but it won’t always be so. Soon they’ll go their own way, a mark of our success or our failure as parents
I worry a lot that my kids will become estranged from me as I did with my family for a time. It’s that thing when you wonder if you’re even more fucked up than your parents….
My mother and I had a tough start. What part her personality, life experience and genetic coding were responsible, I don’t know and despite a lifetime trying to figure it out I probably never will. Throw in an unhappy marriage, an ill-advised adoption and the misogyny of Catholic Ireland’s then laws prohibiting divorce and a married woman’s right to work and support herself, and you do not exactly have the most positive, nurturing, loving environment for anyone to grow up in.
I brought stuff to the table too. Personality, life experience (begins in the womb apparently), genetic coding and an almost instinctive dislike of mum and a deep dependent love for my dad whom she unfortunately disliked. Intensely.
Roll on 60 years…
Extract from my diary ‘Caring for Mum’
January 2024
Got a call last night to say mum had a bad fall and had likely broken her femur. Off she went to A&E again. She was in a side room when I arrived up. The surgical team discussed the difficulties they would have getting her through the operation and anesthetic, not to mention post op infection and complications, given mum’s age and frailty. I told them they would have to work hard to kill her.
Mum duly flew through the surgery so much so when I was on my way to pick up some things for her from the nursing home this morning, I had a call from a doctor on duty saying they would be discharging her that afternoon. I diverted and went straight to the hospital. Mum was sitting in a chair at her bed and was very agitated and confused. There was a carer sitting with her supervising as she was trying to get up and move and was pulling at IV lines and dressings etc.
I negotiated another night on the ward for mum with the reluctant Doctor. The rational is mum will be better off back at the nursing home where she will be less stressed. I was gob-smacked! What about infection, the post op complications the surgical team had warned of? Still better off in the nursing home, where they can nurse her, apparently. – But the nursing homes aren’t set up for that kind of post op care – I suggested. – Really – the doctor asked – Isn’t the clue is in the name? – – And what if she goes downhill?- -They can bring her to A&E- I was told. – So back for another 24-48 hours on a trolley? – No answer.
I sat with mum and I saw how the distress of her bewilderment and confusion out-weighed her physical problems and pain, despite having had her femur bolted together less than 24 hours before, I started to realize getting her out of there was very likely the best option.
Returning mum to the Nursing Home in this condition will require even more attention than before and will involve more daily input from me. While the staff at the nursing home will take care of her, as well as their staffing, insurance and management protocols allow, it is the case that your elderly or infirm relative still needs your support and advocacy, on the day to day in a nursing home. Despite what it says on the tin.
Back in the room
I was deeply estranged from my mother for the best part of 30 years. The inevitability of that estrangement was unsurprising. Years of hurt, anger, bitterness. Things that happened, stuff that was said. Unforgiveable stuff really. However, I don’t regret those years apart, it couldn’t have played out any other way. Even following dad’s death there did not seem to be any likelihood of a relationship of any meaningful sort. That profound dislike still lived inside me.
So, what happened to change that, you might wonder.
Eventually I had my own family. I faced into the reality of parenting. The soul sapping drudgery, the loss of self, the joy of love.
But what if the love is just not there. How impossible it must be to mother or father another human without love. You can’t phoney up that feeling no matter how much you try and we did try, but if it’s not there it’s not there.
Slowly it started to dawn on me just how horrible not being able to feel that love and be that kind of mother must have felt. Here mum was, trapped in a loveless marriage with two children, pretty much acquired to validate the unbreakable nuptial contract, in the absence of a more traditional consummation. This just wasn’t what she signed up for and there was nothing she could do about it.
She railed against dad’s controlling patriarchy. To me he was a benign loving benefactor, to her he was a miserly, unyielding master. To my mind he was salt of the earth, a gardening, clean living, monk like presence as opposed to her, a frustrated socialite, whose undoubted beauty and glamour were wasted at the bingo in the community center on a Friday night. Winning a couple of quid on a full house was the difference for her between a new pair of nylons and a hair do.
Dad controlled the purse strings so mum took matters into her own hands. She began running up credit in department stores, hiding the bills, selling bits of jewelry, reporting them lost and collecting on the insurance. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She would of course be found out and punished with even less autonomy. She couldn’t be trusted after all. And of course she couldn’t.
Mum had, expert social skills. These skills brought her into unlikely company. American banker friends of friends who loved coming to Ireland on golf trips also loved spending time and money on her. By the time dad copped on to the nature of mum’s acquaintanceships he had abandoned any attempt to engage with her or she with him, but his ego naturally took a serious knock so he had to do something about it.
He always had the ace up his sleeve. She couldn’t afford anything like the outward appearance of the life style and postcode a wife of a successful partner in a large accountancy firm should have, so she had to suck it up and stick it out, or leave, with nothing. Appearances are everything to a woman like mum so she made the decision to stay in the family home while essentially living alone.
She took a part time job as an assistant in a model agency. Dad couldn’t seem to stop her, so he withdrew any remaining personal financial support for her. Mum soon worked full time and was gone from early morning to late evening most week days. Weekends were spent at the golf club. She no longer involved herself with any domestic activities. By the time we were old enough to do the cleaning and cooking that’s what we did. Dad would cook a little but mostly sorted his own meals. I was stood on phone books to reach the sink and wash the dishes. Dad thought a washing machine was an unnecessary luxury, so my sister Catho and I boiled our underwear in pots and washed our uniforms by hand. We went with a list to the supermarket on a Friday and dad picked us up and settled the bill.
From early on Catho and I cooked for ourselves. Tins of Cambells Irish stew, Dennys tinned meat pies, Findus crispy pancakes, omelets, beans on toast, spaghetti hoops all the 70s culinary classics. It went on like this until we reached adulthood and my sister married. That was when things hit rock bottom for me and mum.
In January 1985 I bailed and headed to London to find fame and fortune.
Mum realized with no buffer in the home her position was untenable she had to take her chances in front of a judge so she finally left and applied to the courts for a separation. Dad came out of the ensuing court case badly and found himself parting with half his monthly pension and a good chunk of cash to enable mum to set up home elsewhere.
Mum’s life finally began in her 50’s. She was able to live the life of a lady of independent means without the encumbrance of a husband or children. She decided against buying an apartment, choosing to rent instead and bought herself a sports car. She was advised by someone, that she would have a better claim for more funds from dad in the coming years if she had no property or assets. She should spend her money on herself, so she did.
I was not a part of my mother’s life through these years or I certainly would have advised her against that strategy but it probably would have made no difference. Some 15 years later Divorce was now legal in Ireland and mum found herself without any savings or assets starting her retirement. She came back looking for another settlement which, now the law had changed, resulted in Divorce.
Dad was elderly and frail and I returned from London to assist him with his legal affairs and his increasing health issues. Initially it was for a week every month, the two, then I was struggling to get back to London for a week every month to keep the Cushy nights at the 12 bar going. The Divorce settlement was satisfactory in the end enabling dad to retain his home while mum got an increase in her monthly allowance and a provision for her in his estate. Within 2 years he had died.
I transitioned from caring for my dad to caring for my baby who arrived 5 months later. I fully intended picking my life back up in London but by now I had integrated back into my home town and I didn’t want to leave and here I am over 20 years later.
It was a family wedding a few years later that prompted me to act on the unresolved estrangement from mum. I was so tired of hating her. Loving my own kids so much left no room for hate. I wanted to heal the wounds and just get along. I decided to open the door and invite her in.
Was there a tearful reunion, was it joyous, life affirming?
No.
It was fine.
Mum is, as I mentioned, an expert socially. She can play the game, flatter, cajole, charm, when necessary. It was easy enough to get along, particularly if you avoid any mention of grievances past, so mission accomplished. Mum was still a very active and independent woman in her seventies, so she got on with buzzing around with her bridge friends and her golf friends and her book club friends delighting them with stories about family events and visits, finally able to live the part of matriarch and adoring grandmother.
I immersed myself in my family and tried to be a different kind of mother. I would devote myself to my babies and nourish and nurture them if it bloody killed me, or them and it almost did. It’s fucking hard! It doesn’t end when they stop being babies either like you think it might.
Just as my children were requiring a little less micro-management I began to write again. I had notions of releasing a record and getting out and gigging but mum’s problems started to impact on my time
For the last 10 + years mum’s physical and financial health declined she needed a great deal of help to live independently and a lot of the management of that fell to me. It has been extremely stressful and time consuming. My resentment of her had fertile ground to spring forth again
Then Covid.
How the fuck did this happen. How did I end up being mum’s main carer when as far as I could recollect, she never cared much for me!
Of course, we cannot know whether our parents were caring and kind to us when we were very young, we have no reliable memory of life before the age of maybe 8 or 9 only snippets and flashes, maybe. I do know that for as long as I can remember I felt unloved and disliked by her, I have many memories of her telling me that no one liked me because I was difficult or attention seeking or defiant.
This kind of thing…
– If you go on like that no one will like you – or – there, you see (insolence, bad temper) that is why you have no friends -. One of the flashes of early memory I have is of us singing the clap handies song. – Clap handies, clap handies till daddy comes home with sweeties and chocolate for Catho alone -. Then she would turn to me and say -and none for you because you’re so awful -. False memory? Maybe, but I’ve had that memory my whole life, since I had any memory, so I think it very likely happened, more than once. Either way that’s how it felt.
Point is I kind of just accepted it as true. It made sense that I was lonely and isolated because no one liked me. It was so predictable that I would show off my singing and dancing and gymnastic skills endlessly, everywhere, I just wanted someone to say, – wow you’re great -. But all I saw or heard or imagined I saw or heard was – God what an irritating child, send her out to the garden or up to her room -.
I couldn’t stop performing though, because when someone not aligned to my mother’s opinion and experience of me praised me, I fell instantly in love. My vulnerability to flattery is still an Achilles heel to this day. Unfortunately, it’s not just a need for someone to like me it has to be everyone and that is just greedy and no one likes a greedy girl.
Anyway. Here I found myself, due to an unfortunate series of events, mum’s primary carer. With our history and deep-rooted malevolence toward each other, it was not ideal. But, we battled on regardless.
Just as Covid hit, mum’s finances were heading fast toward destitution. Despite her inheritance from dad 20 years before, which would have been enough to buy an apartment, she had in the intervening years continued to rent luxury apartments, suited to her idea of how a person of her social standing should live. By now she had no other recourse but to try to get housed by the Council, she soon would have no way of subsidizing the deficit between what the state allowed her in rent assistance and the market rent in the private sector and she had no intention of downgrading.
I dealt with all the various departments, filling out reams of forms compiling endless documentation that would be duly submitted and end up in the housing department black hole. But eventually she was prioritized on the housing list. She was even offered a gorgeous little cottage, which she turned up her nose at despite me pleading with her, as it meant she could continue to live independently, all be it with our support.
It was pretty obvious to me and the social workers, by now involved with mum, that she was at the crossroad of being unable to live alone anyway, so a placement in assisted living was sought. Honestly you have more chance of discovering a seam of gold running through the walls of your house behind the woodchip wallpaper than landing one of the precious few assisted living places available in Dublin. But we found one. It looked perfect, not far from family and friends though not in her area of choice. Still mum reluctantly agreed to take a look.
I remember the morning I went to collect her to view it. I knew straight away that she wouldn’t have a bar of it. It was a rainy grey day. – It better not be dark in here – she warned as I prattled on about keeping an open mind. – It’s in the middle of nowhere – she complained. – It’s five minutes from at least two of your friends and Catho and the same distance from me as your current accommodation – I replied, shouting now as I could see all the work and time I had invested in this falling away.
-If you don’t take this mum, you will have no choice but residential care-. I said, careful not to mention the ‘nursing home’ words as she had already repeatedly said she would live on the streets before going into a nursing home.
Turned out that even if she had loved it and she didn’t, she was hostile and rude to the woman who manages the facility. Unsurprisingly they rejected her application, confirming what we already knew, that mum, even with support could no longer live alone. She of course did not share that view, but at least it did set in train the process for arranging the medical referrals and financial support required before a residential place could be secured.
It was the end of summer 2022 and we were now coming out the other side of Covid and it was clear that mum had declined a lot during the long isolating months with just me and her home help coming in to visit. Her mobility was of grave concern, she was falling regularly, but her cognitive decline was also off a cliff. It seemed that almost overnight she decided that she couldn’t face another winter alone so we set about finding a nursing home which she might consider. I didn’t have too much hope for plain sailing but with the help and encouragement of her lovely social worker she edged closer to seeing the possible up sides.
I had heard of a spot not too far from both Catho and me so we went to check it out. Luckily it had a lot going for it on 1st impressions. It felt more like a luxury hotel in reception. Plush carpet and leather sofas. A small hair salon, a large dining social area. Mum was impressed. She contacted the social worker herself to ask her to initiate the next steps.
As the date came closer however, mum started to change her mind. She had backed herself into a corner though as despite me advising her not to give notice to her landlord till she had an actual move in date, she had gone ahead regardless and now she was moving out whether she wanted to or not.
Moving day arrived we packed up everything with mum, at her own insistence, looking on bewildered. She was watching me like a hawk. I was of course, stealing her valuables and any manor of bric a brac. I sucked it up. She was at last checked into the nursing home and it looked, despite her understandable apprehension, like all would be well.
That night there was a phone call from the nurse, mum was distressed could we come up. When we arrived, we were told that mum had called the police and told them she had been kidnapped and that we had stolen all her belongings, she wanted to press charges. What followed was weeks of this and other similar behavior as mum railed furiously against her predicament. Apparently, this type of thing is not unusual but it is distressing for all concerned. The staff were lovely, they tried to reassure her and amuse her and bit by bit it worked.
Eventually mum bonded with the staff all of them young lovely nurses and carers from all corners of the world, which she was fascinated to hear about. Her masterful social skills had not deserted her even though her memory of the friends and acquaintances she had lauded and valued so highly for so long, were fading away.
So where are we now?
Having a parent or family member in residential care does not mean your job is done. It is a huge relief emotionally and practically to know they are being minded, but you are still their family and like it or not you need to be present in their lives.
In another desperately sad twist Catho became ill this time last year and she was unable to be involved with mum as much. In a strange duality, mum was protected from Catho’s illness and Catho was protected from mum’s decline. Yes it meant I had to manage alone but it also meant I have been able to fully appreciate the benefit of having let go of the residual acrimony and damage between myself and mum, it wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, and she and I became very close. I was able to touch her and comfort her. I can really hardly recall a time when mum and I ever embraced, but over the last year we caught up. She liked me to groom her and stroke her cheek. Just holding her cold little hands was a pleasure. She would smile and say – you have such lovely warm hands – and I would laugh and say – yes, but not good if you want to make pastry! -.
When mum settled into her life in the nursing home I started to see the possibilities still awaiting me that my free-er time might afford me. It’s not that I thought I would head off into some exciting life, I still have school going kids and a cranky old man to deal with at home, but I am quite surprised by how the nursing home community became a part of my life. It has not been a hardship calling in to see mum, though I never know what kind of mood she will be in when I get there. Far from it. I look forward to seeing her so happy in the company of the friends and caring staff who are her family now too. Even when she has bad days she can usually be distracted and cheered up with a piece of cake.
Midnight September 23rd I had a call from the nurse on duty to tell me mum had died. I was with her earlier that day and I said to the nurse that I felt she was dipping again. She had been up and down with persistent infections due to being bed bound and they were ready with end of life care for her there, when she needed it, but she bypassed all that and nodded off into the long sleep unaided.
I was so proud of her over that time, she faced her mortality so stoically and without fuss. She was comfortable, which given the difficulties and discomforts she had endured in her life, was a very good outcome. She also didn’t fully realise how sick Catho was or take in the news that Catho had herself died the week before, which was truly a blessing.
PS: I did tell you a story of mine and my lovely sister Catho’s childhood in blog 41 Only Joking. It really is a love song though I’m not sure she thought it was. RIP my love.
PPS: This song idea came directly from the lines of the great poem by Philip Larkin
That Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
X
Guitar, harmonica and singing Suzanne
Cello Billie Baumeister
I am practicing my hole off and would love to do more shows before and after while I’m match fit so if you want me to play a set at your venue or event get in touch….
Since we last spoke I’ve mostly been busy ageing. Like you. The realisation that I’m getting older hits me in spasms. A jolt of pain, a pang of regret. Suddenly I’m no longer cocooned in my reverie, a carefully crafted dream state I’ve so far managed to manoeuvre through the years safely within. Now, I’m increasingly forced to look at mortality at close quarters and I feel terrified, until I remember how utterly futile worrying about it is. Dealing with getting older is really only something you can get to grips with by getting older.
When I was a child, I longed to be older. I looked on at the older kids and wished they were my friends. My peers held no mystery for me and I relied on my two years older sister and her friends for company. I thought I was one of them, but I was only tolerated under sufferance and was constantly on the back-foot begging to be included.
I was most often alone. I didn’t always like it, however it meant I lived most of the time, in my imagination. I practised imagining. One of my favourite childhood fantasies involved my family living a joyous millionaire lifestyle in a mansion by a river. We ferried ourselves about in our own speed boats, up and down to the shops and school and our best friends houses.
This dream was hampered only by my parents real life misery. Solving that problem was the best bit. I loved to play this scene over and over. Mum and dad sit us down to tell us that they have been part of a government experiment in which they had to pretend to hate each other for a million pounds, but they just couldn’t do it anymore. They loved each other so much.
As I got older into my teens I went on hanging around the periphery of older groups,fancying lads a few years older. I was so desperate to physically mature that I carried tampons in my school bag for two years before Ihad my 1st period in the hope it might encourage things along and I would at last be a woman.
I longed for an independent life. I imagined myself driving about the city in a sportscar, and home to my little garden flat for parties and late night sessions with my musician and actor pals all of us on a pathway to fame involving some random encounter with an industry mogul, leading to a Star is Born style breakthrough and then spectacular success.
I spent years in this alternate reality mostly in my front room singing along with Barbra and Aretha in Madison Sq Gardens or The Hollywood Bowl. I could feel the outpouring of love from the thousands of fans who accompanied me in my dreams. God forbid anyone interrupted me, I would explode in fury at the shock of being forced back to earth unexpectedly.
Some of it actually did manifest, the flat and the little white MGB. I did cross paths with people who put me in situations where I had some breakthroughs in the music industry but really, quite suddenly, it became clear that I had crossed from being the young girl wishing I was older, to being one of the older ones being overlooked for possible opportunities because I was getting on a bit. I was maybe 25 or 26.
I started to feel the pressure then to say as little as I could about how old I was, to avoid seeing that look of disappointment flash across faces. It was suggested to me in the US when I was promoting my 1stalbum ‘To Hell With Love’, to say I was 25, I was 28.
By the time I had picked myself up and started again after the Imago deal went, I was of course older and back to square one, a newcomer, sort of. By now I saw no point lying about my age, I was after all presenting myself as a serious singer songwriter and life experience was woven into the fabric of my songs. That cuts no ice in the entertainment world, in your 30’s you are just old, getting on for twice as old as the artists you have to compete with for advantageous support slots and airtime.
I adopted a fuck that approach happily broadcasting my advancing years as a great asset, worth every excruciating and painful minute of self-discovery resulting in far and away my best songs, I thought. I wasn’t wrong, it was just that I was the only one who thought it, or thought about me at all.
Older was one such song, however by the time I hit 40 I couldn’t stomach playing or hearing it. I had become the older I dreaded being and it didn’t feel either clever or funny singing about it. It was just depressing, so I packed it away and forgot all about it.
Not unlike my mum and dad, I was an older 1st time parent. Once the children came along I was completely immersed. I loved it. All those years watching them get older while not ageing a day. And that is the weirdest thing. Rearing children, time seems to stand still. It all feels endless, much as childhood does, until it’s over. All the minding and worrying and the slowness and the frenzy and then 20 years have just gone. Whooosh!
Now two decades later singing Older feels different. I am way beyond that ‘older’ and at a new level of old which is actually ok. Getting older is really the only option in life, right?
Older was a big favourite live, way back when and we did include it on an EP in 2000 called DIY which we sold at gigs and mail order. The other songs on the EP, That Song and DIY were also really class songs and although they were recorded on 8track in my little garden flat in London, they hold up pretty well. I finally found a man here in Dublin to fix my Fostex R8, (thanks Doug) and was able to import the parts into my computer and remix them.
It gave me the opportunity to use some pretty great digital EQs and compressors that John shared with me when we were working together recently. Did I tell you that? My old mucker John Morrison and I have been collaborating on new material which I am loving and really hope will be out in the world soon.
PS: Antony Harding ‘Ant’ was, I’ve no doubt still is, a wonderful illustrator and artist and he generously provided the artwork comic strip for the DIY EP which I love. Ant was among our favourite songwriters to join us on our Cushy nights at the 12 bar Club. That’s the thing about the internet, its a giant archive, check out what we were up to back then www.cushyproductions.com
Epilogue
Needless to say my parents remained in the government experiment, sad and angry, for many more years. A year or two before my dad died, after more than 15 years separated, he and my mother divorced. Dad was elderly and very frail he relied on my help to handle things. I was his executor and so we also discussed his wishes, around end of life care and subsequent arrangements. I was dreading the conversation but one evening while we were chatting, I decided to broach the subject head on. I asked him how he was feeling about being the age he was hoping he would allow me the notion that somehow it was all grand and as you get older sure you just accept the situation and get along with it and I needn’t worry. That was when he explained how he felt. – I don’t mind being old, it’s getting older I don’t like-
I probed a bit further and asked if he had any specific requests for arrangements when the time came. – How do you mean – he asked, – well you know, funeral stuff, like, now the divorce is through, would you rather the former Mrs Rhatigan, doesn’t show up? – He smiled, – I won’t care either way – I’ll be dead -.
Tuesday June 4th 2024.
Mrs Rhatigan is living her best life, she is happy in her dreams and memories, much as I was/am. She chatted happily today about her forthcoming nuptials. – Oh, that’s big news mum, when is the wedding? – Tomorrow – she said. – And will the bride be wearing white? – I asked-. She gave me a good stare and laughed, – don’t be ridiculous -.
I don’t want to get older Be left out in the cold in unfashionable clothes With no hope just a joke among kids in the know I don’t want to get old I don’t want to get older Make a mess of what’s left and have only regret Short of breath short of sense short of luck and good sex I don’t want to get old
As the years go by Policemen look younger Clothes sizes smaller Gin tastes better and better Problems get bigger Friendships grow deeper Lovers drift further and further apart
I don’t want to get older Be left out in the cold in unfashionable clothes With no hope just a joke among kids in the know I don’t want to get old
As the years go by Families grow larger Waistlines even further Actions made safer and safer Till nothing and no chance is left And you’re deeper and deeper in debt
I don’t want to get older Make a mess of what’s left and have only regret Short of breath short of sense short of luck and good sex I don’t want to get old
When once we would fight to the death Now principles fall by the way We fear failure and change And there’s no escape Getting older
I don’t want to get older Be left out in the cold in unfashionable clothes With no hope just a joke among kids in the know I don’t want to get old I don’t want to get older Make a mess of what’s left and have only regret Short of breath short of sense short of luck and good sex I don’t want to get old
One of the funnest things about doing this blog has been the opportunity to remix and overdub recordings that weren’t finished at the time of the original sessions, Holiday being a case in point. The original recording is from around 2001 and Dave’s re-mix was 2010. New parts vocal, extra bvs and my remix are straight off the press. Read on to find out more X
Suzanne’s 2021 Mix
David Barratt Mix
The Thrill of the Chill
‘Hey boys and girls would you like to fly out for a week or two?’
Here we are over a year in to our confinement remembering longingly the freedom of travel. The days when we could just up and go. Cheap airfares enabled us to step out of our real lives into a holiday realm. To hell with the cost to us, to the planet… it was ours for the taking. Now we’re living through a dystopian nightmare beyond our imaginings, way back then, a whole year ago!
Sunset at the slip April 2021 Photographer Lynn Feeney
On the plus side, here we are discovering the wonders of our own neighbourhoods. A bit like those dreams where you open a door to a room in your house you had somehow never known existed revealing a palace with great halls and gilded arches. You just can’t understand why you never opened the door before. You feel at once excited and kind of stupid. Where were you all my life? Right here you fool!
We’re so lucky to live by the sea. Within a couple of kilometers of our home is a long sandy beach with dunes, wildlife, wind surfers and suffice to say, water. The beach known as Dollymount, is on Bull Island a massive sand dune formed over the last two centuries, following the building of the North Bull wall in 1821,which stretches out into the Irish Sea.
The Wooden Bridge Photographer Blake Hodgkinson
The North and South walls were built, following a nautical survey carried out by the infamous Captain William Bligh, to divert water into the port in order to deepen the channel and allow larger shipping to access Dublin City. As a result of silting on the north side of the wall our beautiful Island emerged, which until the building of the causeway road on the northern end of the Island, was only accessible since 1907 via the now iconic Wooden Bridge or ‘Brown Bridge’ as we used to call it when we were children.
Our childhood summers were spent wandering through the dunes and swimming at the steps positioned at intervals along the wall marked by distinctive art deco bathing shelters. The bathing shelters and the Kiosk and other shelters along the promenade on the mainland between Fairview and the Bridge, were designed by architect Herbert Sims. These iconic structures identify the seafront at Clontarf.
Swimming is my favourite leisure activity. I regularly swim in the pool near where I live but since my return to Dublin from years living abroad the local swimming spots didn’t really appeal.
You see, perched as we are at the opening of Dublin Bay, a busy industrial port, which caters to ferries and freight coming and going and all the city crap coming and going, the water is at times, at least in appearance, not very attractive to swim in. Most of the time the beach proudly flies a blue flag, sometimes however, after heavy rain, the flag comes down and the ‘do not swim’ signs go up.
I have friends who have been swimming in these waters rain, hail, snow and E Coli for years and while I admired them, I couldn’t see the advantage over my clean pool followed by a steam and a warm shower so I passed. This year with the pool being off limits I ventured into the sea.
Throughout last spring and summer I watched the tides and headed on my bike out onto Bull Island to swim. Some days the weather was just too awful but I noticed not 300 meters away from my front door, at the slip for the local yacht club, there were people swimming. I decided to give the spot a go. It’s the same water, but it is 1 minute from my house, why on earth had I never jumped in before. A few of the days the water cleared and I went snorkeling. I swam with shoals of small sprat and tickled crabs as they scuttled under rocks. I couldn’t believe it. All this time I had my own reef right under my nose.
As the winter drew in I figured I would probably not have the tolerance of the cold to continue, but buoyed on by a growing group of friends, seasoned and newbie sea swimmers, I kept going. I invested in the gear, neoprene boots and gloves and now the thrill of the chill is what I love the most. I can’t tell you how great it feels. It is so exhilarating.
I’m not going to lie, there are some days I look out at the mid December gloom or the ferocious February easterly winds and think, I’ll give it a miss today. Then my phone lights up with a message from one of the swimmers putting out the feelers for a swim buddy, then another and another. Before long there are different swimmers heading out at different times within the four hour tide window and the FOMO takes over.
I can’t stop the niggling voice. Go on, you know you won’t regret it, go on, go on, go on. It’s true, bracing and brutal as it is in the worst of the weather I never regret it.
I feel so wonderful in the water; it’s like an out of body experience. The weight of the world is literally lifted from me. Gravity and the Covid kilos are definitely playing havoc with my joints but in the water all the pain disappears. My mind clears of the conflicts and worries I wrestle with on dry land. It is meditative, like being in an alpha state.
I have occasionally experienced alpha state playing music. That feeling of being fully focused yet completely relaxed. It is an elusive state certainly. Disengaging thinking from playing is truly difficult. It takes many many hours of practice to achieve the skill required to let go of conscious control, but when you do… It is sublime. That’s why I swim. It’s the only other place where I get even close to that feeling.
Cold-water swimming offers another element. The physical discomfort and the sheer effort of the challenge elevate the feel good factor above and beyond. I feel like a super hero when I climb out of the water. My skin stings, its scarlet tan glows hot, bellying my low body temperature. Often the air temperature in winter is lower than the water and you get that wonderful hot and cold feeling, like Baked Alaska.
I’m not going to sugar coat it, you need to be prepared, get yourself dry and dressed warmly ASAP, with hot bottles and drinks to return your body to it’s correct temperature. But all that is just logistics. You wriggle out of gloves and boots and swim suits into dry clothes with practiced ease and sit back sipping on your hot tea feeling fantastic.
I did that, you think, I braced the cold out here on the edge of the island, I took on the freezing tumultuous sea and I came through. Go me. You can’t buy that feeling.
It stays with you too. I am floating and buzzed up for hours with energy I forgot I had. I feel calm and confident and happy.
All the feelings you wish for on say… a holiday.
A holiday is really just a mind-set, it’s anywhere anytime, it is escape, whether for a week or an hour, seek it out and enjoy.
When you really get the holiday effect, it’s like standing still in time. But even on holiday life is moving on. The noise just becomes quieter. Quiet enough for you to tune it out and hear the music.
When John Morrison and I wrote Holiday it was toward the end of our time together. It was like a holiday when we were working on a new song. It was escape. At the time the band was drifting apart and I was spending less and less time making music, as family commitments were pulling me away and John and Paul were also busy with other projects. I knew the writing was on the wall, but for those brief hours I could pretend everything was going to be alright.
It’s the same trick we play on ourselves when we head away on holiday. We fool ourselves that all our problems and challenges have disappeared. We push reality out of our conscious thoughts until the last minute, probably till we pack our bags and head to the airport.
‘Holiday’ has that lazy days feel, it kind of meanders along, drifting, warm content. Maybe it was bit too sweet, I can’t exactly remember, but something prompted me to send the stems to my old collaborator David Barratt to see if he might take it in another direction and well, he did! Dave never disappoints.
I have decided to offer both versions of the song because they are so different and I am interested to hear your views. It is not a competition, I love both versions. I would add, both were produced way before the pandemic however they could be before and after.
I have been invited to play harmonica at the National concert hall with the I Heart David Bowie band who are playing the David Bowie/ Space Oddity album at a tribute concert in aid of the Laura Lynn children’s hospice next Monday, tomorrow in fact.
Yikes
The
2nd track on the Space Oddity album is Unwashed and Somewhat
Slightly Dazed featuring a four and some minute blues harmonica solo and it is
quite a challenge! Don’t get me wrong I’m
delighted to be asked and very excited but, oh FUCK!
My
love affair with the harmonica began with Larry Adler. He would pop up
regularly on our 70’s and 80’s telly playing the most beautiful classical melodies. I loved Stevie Wonder’s harmonica lines too.
He effortlessly picks up the melodies and weaves them in and out of his songs
with such skill it is awe inspiring.
As a child I wanted to play an instrument but several attempts came to nothing and I just gave up. It was much later, when I finally learned to play the guitar and piano and drums a bit I thought why not harmonica.
So taking my cues from the Neil Young, Bob Dylan school of playing which seemed kind of random and straight forward enough I bought myself a brace and a couple of blues harps. Turns out it’s not quite as easy as it seems.
I
was already challenged enough playing guitar and singing so throwing the
harmonica in on top lead to some lairy gigs.
Nevertheless undeterred by failure I would slap on the effects pedals to
try to fill the holes with feedback and shout into the harmonica to produce any
kind of sound. Sometimes it worked often
it didn’t. Happily on the recording of
Only Joking it did.
Fast forward 20 odd years and many hours noodling around on the guitar and harmonica between cooking and cleaning and school runs and and and… I finally felt the sound coming together and I realised the simple unavoidable truth. If you practice enough you will get better if you don’t you won’t.
Only Joking is sore.
I was an angry child caught in the gravity of a deeply unhappy marriage. My father and mother and sister and I orbited around each other in our nice suburban home pretending to the world that it was all ok but it was far from ok. My sister and I were unwitting allies in a cold war. For most of the time we were the only company we had.
Photo Montage Sara Light
Only Joking
Eventually as we got older, my sister started hanging out with her friends more and more and I was left behind. She was my best friend. I was jealous and lonely. I lashed out at her. I would lure her into play fights persuading her, since she was so much taller than me that she should stay on her knees, which seriously impinged on her ability to defend herself. Then I would explode in violent fury, reigning down on her with punches and kicks until her cries eventually brought one of our parents. I would defend myself with force insisting that she was lying and we were messing, or I was only joking.
Of course eventually my sister copped on that she had a considerable advantage over me if she stayed on her feet. Her favourite defence was to maul me into the corner by the door jamb and crush me till I couldn’t breathe. I changed tactics then and adopted more subtle strategies like stealing her vinyl and clothes and makeup and humiliating her in front of boyfriends, that kind of thing. Not very nice, but I was only joking!
So,
where are we now, going forward as it were?
Well
my sister is still my best friend, I don’t assault her anymore btw. I try to limit as much as I can the legacy of
our formative years from infecting the present and my own family. Family and
relationships are still informing my songs, even more now I suppose which is ok.
At least I can get the stuff off my chest.
Lots
of exciting things to come this year. A long over-due visit to New York and I
have my new record tantalisingly close to being finished. I will definitely
release some music soon and get out and play and let people hear it. Sure what harm.
Meanwhile
back on my head.
PS: Not all the stories in Only Joking are entirely true however… I did kill the canary, but it was an accident. Really. I arrived home from school and I was alone. Sweetie the 3rd was standing on the floor of the cage propping up his head with his beak, his beady black eyes rolling. We had lost several birds this way because, due to his tampering with the gas tap, to prevent us from turning the fire up to full, my father had caused the tap to leak and as a result the canaries were dropping like flies. Anyway I thought I would try to revive the bird so I ran the cold tap over him. Mistake. He went into a kind of seizure and was shaking in the sink, so I did what I thought was the right thing and got the hairdryer at him. Well that did for him. In the end he had a massive heart attack and died in my hands. It was awful.
Brought my girl to La La Land at the weekend. I love musicals. Our record collection growing up at home, before my sister started buying Zeppelin and Bob Dylan, mainly consisted of original cast recordings of classic musicals: Oklahoma, South Pacific, Hello Dolly, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and on and on. I knew every song and staged them in the sitting room most miserable Sunday afternoons between mass and lunch and the Riordans. Over and over I washed that man right out of my hair.
I dreamed of being a superstar like Barbara Streisand. I remember hearing about Barbara’s troubled love life and thinking to myself that I too would make whatever sacrifice was necessary to achieve my dream even if it meant a life of loneliness and heartbreak. I had the feeling that it would be unlikely you could have the good fortune to be talented and successful and also happy. So I would forgo happiness if that’s what it took. I set about pursuing my dreams with gusto. I had few inhibitions and even fewer scruples. When I fell on my ass, which I did, repeatedly, I would retreat to my dreams regroup and start again. Nothing much has changed.
City of stars
In the course of my search for the Holy Grail I was naturally drawn to LA and like so many wannabes before me and since, I had a stab at making the crucial connections in Hollywood. I had meetings with agents and music supervisors, songwriters and producers. One memorable lunch at Chateau Marmont with legendary arranger and producer Jack Nitzsche, became quite surreal when I realised he had no interest in working with me. He had only come to lunch to vent his anger and heartbreak following the demise of his relationship with Buffy Saint Marie who was a friend of my A&R person Kate Hyman.
Another memorable meeting I had with Kate in LA was with Don Was. Kate had worked with Was Not Was back in the day and he was top of my producer wish list, since before I had even met Kate. He had heard the demos and he was interested. We had our meeting at his house on Mulholland Drive, if I’m not mistaken he lived next door to Jack Nicholson. Anyhow superstar names like that were being dropped all the time, you became quite blasé about it after a while. I played Don a few songs on the piano and we had the chats. I told him how I had dreamed of making my album for years and how it sounded in my head, earthy and dark, shot through with light and humour. There was a definite chemistry. I felt it. I’m quite sure Don’s wife felt it too when she arrived home. Suffice to say I didn’t feel the love from her as much! We parted that day with hugs and kisses and Don saying “I’m going to make this record”. I remember Kate and I driving into the LA sunset with me screaming at the top of my voice… “Did you hear that Kate? Did you hear what he said?” “Yes” she said “He’s going to make your record”.
And I believed 100% that that would happen even as the weeks passed and Kate’s calls were unanswered I still believed it was destined to be. But in LA dreams are made and unmade over and over. I think the energy of all those dreams combusting is what powers the place. Eventually we heard from Don’s management. Don was committed to other bigger projects, ones much more likely to succeed, or words to that effect and that was the end of that.
On another occasion while on holiday with my then boyfriend, we hired a car to do the famous drive from Malibu to Laurel Canyon. As we were cruising through the canyons top down, Soul to Soul’s big hit of the day, ‘Keep On Moving’ on the radio, a spliff on the go, we realised we were running low on gas. I think it was me who had the bright idea that to conserve fuel we should cut the engine and freewheel down the hill. I closed my eyes blissed out from the weed and the music and the warm sun on my face when suddenly the engine roared into life, the brakes screeched and we came to a halt. When I opened my eyes I could only see space in front of the car, no road no barrier nothing. I looked at Craig. He was ashen faced. He had done as I suggested and turned off the ignition, only to discover he couldn’t steer or stop the car. We were a split second from rolling over the edge of the canyon to certain death.
And so a number of years later I wrote the story down in a song ‘Rent A Wreck’. It captures the dystopia my life was back then, dark rumbling bass and soporific vocals. I guess it’s a kind of lo-fi example of that sound I had tried to describe to Don Was. A sound I’m still dreaming of today.
It occurs to me that if I had the chance to write a musical about LA it would be a much darker affair than LA LA Land, which I absolutely loved btw. I especially loved the bitter-sweet ending and the perfectly nuanced performances from both lead characters. They fulfilled their dreams, but at a cost…
‘Oh to have come so far just to die in a rented car’
PS: Spot the deliberate mistake in the lyric. All mistakes are deliberate right?
As I got older into my teens I went on hanging around the periphery of older groups,fancying lads a few years older. I was so desperate to physically mature that I carried tampons in my school bag for two years before Ihad my 1st period in the hope it might encourage things along and I would at last be a woman.
I spent years in this alternate reality mostly in my front room singing along with Barbra and Aretha in Madison Sq Gardens or The Hollywood Bowl. I could feel the outpouring of love from the thousands of fans who accompanied me in my dreams. God forbid anyone interrupted me, I would explode in fury at the shock of being forced back to earth unexpectedly.
