Your guide to the album Fool Circle

Welcome to the album. Firstly, I never set about to write any of these songs. They came about in all sorts of ways, & are all many years old, the earliest written in 1988.
I write songs about characters & their stories, often inspired by characters I have played on the stage. Our (anti) hero is me, or you, or someone you know, or someone you see walking down the street. You’ll hear different voices or ‘other selves’ giving their comments. Sometimes there is a narrator who can shift from first to third person at will, sometimes within the same song. Our hero too can jump from scene to scene, sometimes from Shakespeare, sometimes from New Zealand, always searching, coveting, wanting, always fighting the weather, always alone; yet with a sense of a dark companion in the shadows.
We start in the present & go back in time to see our hero’s demise into love & loneliness, & his eventual rise to wisdom.

Black Dog Blues—This song was written well before I ever heard the words ‘black dog’ being a metaphor for depression. Until recently I had no idea English Prime Minister Winston Churchill supposedly coined the phrase in describing bouts of depression he suffered. Further investigation reveals this to be incorrect, as various black dogs have been hanging around in writings throughout history.
I enjoy how children & adults relate differently to the messages in the song,; & how ‘black dog’ can mean anything you want it to. One interpretation is about befriending those who are different or lonely—almost with an echo of ‘love thy enemy.’ Certainly the song is about depression, but in a wider sense it is about re-occurring stuff that follows us. The re-occurring words re-enforce this, along with the feeling of the narrator trying to flee the song without success. We also have this dark rain that accompanies the dog. Black Dog represents an inability to change or eradicate flaws in character. Moving town & reinventing yourself doesn’t work—your failed inner nature will surface. Black Dogs should be befriended & tamed rather than run away from.
I think the initial inspiration came from a dream. I don’t remember it, but I found a notepad with a rough scribble ‘some strange dream that a large black dog was following me.’

Not Unusual—Imagine our hero or heroine thinking about a flirtation of the opposite sex. This infatuation means everything. It’s warm & sultry with the sounds of New Zealand summer. Contrast this with verse 2 when he’s trapped at a work meeting with his mind elsewhere. Thoughts of love & lust are projected into the cosmos by all the lovers of the world, & he feels them.
Ultimately though it is just a fantasy for him. While all around him the birds, bees, men & women are mating & procreating, he is alone with his fantasies. Originally Not Unusual began as a sarcastic comment about others finding love, but not him.

Feste’s Song—The epilogue of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night features a song by the fool Feste—`When I was a little tiny boy, with a heigh ho, the wind & the rain...’ I sang it when I played Feste for Waitemata Theatre in 1994. Feste shows many faces, & while he manipulates those around him to get what he wants, he never finds lasting contentment or love. Our hero is a fool who covets the love of the princess, but she is not in the least bit interested in him. He feels like the heavens are constantly raining on him; preventing him from being happy.

I Have Seen— Began as a bass line in the shower. It echoes with memories of travelling NZ as a young man, & juxtaposes beautiful scenic imagery with scenes of destruction & death. Again it is the age old struggle to reconcile the natural world with the modern. Amid this turmoil our hero hits the road, & dreams of the princess who’s eyes for one moment shone with love for him. That moment was as powerful as any natural wonder or force of destruction.

Threw Love Down the Drain— The song within a song within a song, threw love traverses reggae, ska, jazz & rock to make its repeated point. Most enjoyed if you sing along in the chorus with the mob. Our narrator switches from the third person, perhaps the bar publican who watched events, to the first person, our hero himself, who wails & bleats like a child, & is obviously suffering the affects of the missing bottle of whiskey. She has taken his heart & flushed it down the toilet. They looked good together but it was never going to last.

Resignation— So he gives up. Life drains out of him. (This track affectionally known as eggs.)

Coma— Our hero now likens his despair to that of being in a coma. He is now fully trapped inside his head & the confusion is overwhelming as he slips further into mental illness.

Suicide Note— He contemplates suicide. His life is totally dependent on the approval of others. Without it life is not worth living. Yet he finds himself in a quandary: killing himself is unlikely to meet with the approval of his loved ones. He finds he can’t do it. What he really wants is sympathy & love. Having come that close to the edge, he suddenly feels a kind of relief, & finds a hope for the future when eventually he will be surrounded by God’s love.

Gotta Grow— Fortified by a renewed self sufficiency, our hero sets about improving himself & the world around him. It’s like he’s become a guru of the psychic revolution. His other selves join in to reinforce his sermon. Featured on this track Cypress Goudge, Reggae John, New York Eugene, along with Tracey & Helen. Live handclaps thanks to Marie & Stan Goudge, Jo Birbeck, Kathy Lowe.

Under the Greenwood Tree— this arrangement written for the 1994 Summer Shakespeare production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It when I played Amiens the minstrel. It was a 60s style production so the initial guitar chords were meant to be reminiscent of Hendrix. Our hero now appears content without love. He lays beneath a tree, satisfied finally with a meagre existence where the weather is the only concern. Again the weather always comes back to teach our hero. I think he spends many many years under that tree. At first we hear musician friends accompanying him, but soon they depart, leaving him only with the sound of birds, but also the growing sound of aeroplanes & construction.

So Many Dead— In So Many Dead our hero jumps forward to near the end of his journey. He looks down from Lion Rock at Piha & sees the invading forces gathering for an assault on his people. While he has been asleep under the tree he has lost his friends, long dead in the conflict. His thoughts return to the princess he still dreams about. After all he has been through, our hero finally accepts responsibility. He resolves to be the best he can be, & to declare his love to the princess.
With this declaration, chainsaws spring into life as the invaders begin their work. Some people have commented it sounds like whale-song. Maybe so. When all is said & done, the sound of the sea will out live us all.

This album in memoriam to Dwight Andrew Hargreaves died June 30 1988, aged 19. Dwight & I together discovered the joys of Wagner, Holst & Pink Floyd. Greatly missed.
Special thanks to: Kathy, Tracey, Len (Grey Ghost) & Svargo, Stan & Marie, Helen, (Mad Dog) Mark, Charlie (Chuck), Dave, Geoff (bassman), Johnny Conga, Steve Graye, Rob Molyneux, Robyn Goudge, Chris & Lynn Radford, Graeme Heap, Kate Burt, Mark Pav, Andrew Featherstone, Simon, Mahuia, Jonathon, Bernie, Daron (NavmanDazman), Janine Williams, Robert Horwood, Dave P, Ian Harvey, Kor, Chris Kirby, Janelle (Nelly), Sue & Mark Warren, Brent Westcott, John King, Lance Brooks, Bill Shakespeare, Waitakere City Council creative communities, & the Titirangi Community Arts Council.
Thanks to all those musicians I’ve played with over the years, & to all my friends & family who have supported my efforts.