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Introduction
Oh, how did it start? Way back in 1966, at the City of Coventry Boarding school, Cleobury Mortimer aged 15. It was not long after Bob Dylan and Donovan arrived on the scene with Times They are a Changing and Catch the Wind and the arrival of the Pirate radio stations, changing the course of popular music from it’s simple love songs to experimenting and mixing different forms of roots music blues, R & B and folk with folk poetry and socially aware lyrics. It was an exciting period that opened up new worlds, New opportunities, new directions, a feeling that young people were going to change the world through the power of their music and creativity.
On Saturdays, we were allowed out of school and could walk the three miles to the nearest village, Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire and I used to pick up the latest music papers,Melody Maker, Record Mirror,Disc and Music Echo, the Beatles and the Elvis magazines and a little publication called Record Songbook, which had the full lyrics to all the latest and upcoming hits. It was Record Songbook that got me started on writing song lyrics.
I didn’t know much about poetry or lyric writing but through reading the lyrics each month in Record Song book and hearing the songs on the radio, I internalised the basic structures. Boarding school life was quite regimented and tough and there was quite a bit of emotion floating around, being away from home and dealing with all the flak and bullying. I was good at English and creative with it and I needed some form of self expression in which to channel that emotion and creativity.
One Saturday afternoon,sitting in the study reading various editions of Record Songbook, I noted two song lyrics for contrast.The first was by the Troggs – With a Girl Like You and the second was The Dangling Conversation by Simon and Garfunkle. The Paul Simon lyric stood out a mile with it’s magnificent imagery. I didn’t pretend to understand it back then but later bought all the Paul Simon songbooks and albums to see what I could learn from them.Meanwhile I just wanted to see if i could write a lyric, something much less ambitious. The Walker Brothers latest single was playing on the radio in the next Baby You Don’t Have to Tell me and so the experimental lyric became Baby I Can Tell. A first effort and i think I nicked the line ‘Superficial sighs’ from Dangling Conversation. It was just an experiment to see if I could write one at all.
I probably wrote and 9 or 10 in the 9 months left at school.
Note – To be completed,work in progress.
Melissa’s Garden
©Trev Teasdel Aug 1998, Great Ayton
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Wrote this new age song for a Song writing class I was taking for the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) in Middlesbrough. Wrote the music but never got a finished recording of it as was busy with work. The lyrics appeared in my 2007 poetry chap book Nightfall in Sorrento. Two versions here, one with my guitar but no vocals
A second version of Melissa’s Garden – by Culture Fuzion – a 2007 collaboration with Coventry drummer and Music producer Jim Pryal. Jim Pryal composed the trance track and Trev Teasdel wrote the poem / lyrics and provided the voice.
Melissa’s garden by Culture Fuzion on Soundclick
Streetbattle
©Trev Teasdel Coventry January 1980
A sudden left turn at the railway arches.
Counter demo led long another route
but soon get wise then off they shoot.
A sudden shower, sticks and stones hurled
Jackboot’s marching on us all.
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Written in Coventry 1980 after witnessing an anti National Front rally and watching a documentary on it. I was writing it while watching the documentary playing a run down of minor chords. I’ve used this as a performance poem over the years and it appeared in my first poetry chapbook The Escaped Poet in 1984.
Black Lizard Stream
BLACK LIZARD STREAM
©Trev Teasdel Coventry July 1970
Black cats creep out of the shadows
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Song story: This lyrics was written walking 3 miles home along the London Road at 3am after organising the band night at the Coventry Arts Umbrella Club. Influence from bands of the time like BlackS abbath and Led Zepplin, Thus a heavy, power chord type of song.The music of local band Asgard,was an influence.A three piece band in the style of the Nice and Pink Floyd,who were being promoted at the time by John Peel and rehearsed at the Umbrella. The bridge certainly came from their witticism in between songs. Someone came and said “The sun’s hot’ and one of the band quipped “you shouldn’t have touched it then!“.That gave me the line ‘The Mountain peaks they touch the sun but promptly burnt their hands.” I employed a personal symbolism in the song influenced by read the Forgotten Language by Erich Fromm ( An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams, Fairy Tales, and Myths).
It’s a Long Hitch Hike Home
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Began this lyric June 1967,on the coach, waiting to leave the City of Coventry Boarding School, at Cleobury Mortimer and finished in 1969. Probably influenced by Simon and Garfunkel at that stage.
The first first reflects leaving school and the imagery, with Glens and embankments, were influenced by the schools Cross Country run. I was in the school team so did a lot of running.
Good Day to you Mrs Jones
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Wrote this while working at the GEC in Coventry. I was feeling alienated and writing lyrics in the break time helped make the job more meaningful.
A more traditional folkie version of Good Day To You Mrs Jones.
Man Supreme the Perfect Being
Lost in the City
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Written after reading an article on homelessness in Reader’s Digerst at my Gran’s.