I’ve been writing songs since I was 16 years old, in a band called ‘The Vaults’. My first song was some words I had written based on a Psalm. I took them to my friend and fellow band-mate, Jim, to see if he could come up with a tune. He picked up his guitar and started playing different chords, and singing the words to the chords. I didn’t realise it was that simple! I’ve written many songs since then, but the vast majority of them were either never recorded or the recording of them has been lost. For me, I needed to have a reason to write songs. I didn’t see the point in writing them if no one was going to hear them. So I would go for long periods of time when I never wrote a song. Then, a few years ago, I began to write drama, and rather than use other people’s songs for background music, I decided that this was a perfect opportunity to write my own songs again. A lot of the songs on these web pages are songs that I have written for the films, but not all. Some were written with friends just for the fun of it. Some were written for a particular purpose or occasion.
For example, just over a year ago I suggested and encouraged some musician friends to get together and make a Jazz band. The band is called ‘Blue Monday’ and I have so far written two Jazz songs for them. You will find them on the My Jazz Songs web page soon.