“Solip” Album Artwork – Oil on Glass, Photography, Vikoria Byt

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First song I wrote I was no more than four. It was about Manchester United. Mainly it rotated around the players, such as my favourite at the time, Paul Ince, passing the ball and crescendoed in me shouting “goal” over and over again. Yes, a bonafide classic it must have been. But, alas, lost to the sands of time.

Next song I have a distinct memory of conjuring, I probably only remember as I was interrupted in the throws of it. I sang low, like an old man, lamenting a life of hardship and loss.

“But, you’re ten!”, says my brother Brian, barging in the door, and rudely interrupting what would be one of my staples of songwriting for the foreseeable future – taking whatever song that comes, no matter who, or what it’s about and being grateful anything came at all.

Thankfully, as a ten-year-old, I had enough sense to utterly ignore my brother’s sentiments, and keep on singing. Although – the lasting the feeling from this particular memory is one of shock, that I didn’t really realise I was in fact singing in the middle of it, it was like being woken from a dream.

Songwriting can be like a child in play, putting on voices of Action Man Dolls (which I was also prone to do, and is also a stellar band name) – sometimes you get so caught up in the film, you forget reality for a minute, and, that, that’s when the good stuff oozes out.

This is a topic, I’m quite obsessed with – having written about it here before, and tried my hand at a wee podcast chatting about it. Which is in fact returning, in a way. I’ll let you know more on that when it comes.  

Now, I’ve finished my last batch of songs, a kind of treatise of isolation and madness, called “Solip”. I’m currently wrangling the funding together to master it, and make vinyl. I’m on tour in April & July in Germany, and shall attempt to venture to UK and Ireland after that.

I’m trying not to lose sight of the joy that is creating, but there’s a real danger making what you love, your sole source of income. You inevitably look around at those further ahead of you, with what resembles stability, and yearn for it, yearn for the songs that will bare fruit and get your through winter.

But, these feelings are baseless and broken images. I haven’t missed rent or asked for a hand outs in years. For better or worse, this is what I am. That same human faffing away on the carpet, howling out a song on a tiny casio – for no one but the walls around me. When people barge in, and stay put, even paying for the privilege of hearing my tricks of the air (as Tom Waits calls songs) – there’s a real sense of magic still, a shock and awe with every envelop handed to me, or royalty cheque – always remembering, there’s really no such thing as songwriters, there’s kids at play in our heads, being interrupted by the adults presenting as us, saying, “sorry kid, do you mind if I write this one down?”

This may all sound like analogy, or a way of fobbing off the responsibility of craft in writing, but, no, I really mean it. When it’s going good, you’re not in the room. Taking credit for a great song, is like taking credit for a dream. That, being said, the only way you’ll do the tune justice, is by practicing rigorously enough to the point you can play it, sing it, and more importantly of all, evoke it in others as it first stirred within you.

The first single of “Solip” will be out in April. It’s called “Dogbite”. The image for this album created by Vikoria Byt, based on a Francis Bacon image I’m a little obsessed with. It’s byproduct of painting on glass, and photography. When I sat for it, Vikoria wasn’t sure if her idea would be even possible, we chatted, laughed, panicked, restarted numerous times, and suddenly it was finished.

Fitting for the album, that was assembled much in the same way.

It’s snowing heavily outside now, the grass quilted in it. I’m hosting a show later tonight, think I’ll play that new one about war, if I can learn it well enough. See how it goes. Looks cold out my window, yet the postman cycles through.

Jesus, I’m lucky. And have only you to thank you for that.

Love,

Conor  

Berlin,

16/Jan/24