Friday, January 25, 2008

Haunted Castle and Teen Angst

I wrote a song when I was 14 called Haunted Castle. I was very proud of it and I played it to my music teacher at school; she declared 'You did not write that song' and just carried on with the lesson.
I know I have mentioned this before; but it comes back sometimes and is probably behind my personal mission to encourage people to write songs regardless of whether people think they should or not, and to become confident by doing so.
I've lost the words of the song, lost them ages ago, but I can remember the melody and the chords, and at the moment I'm trying things out with different chords, having become rather bogged down by the beauty of A major seventh. I started a song earlier this week and have sent it to Martin to finish; now I think I will revamp Haunted Castle and see what happens.
I had been hoping to upload some new songs on to Myspace, especially to replace the Christmas Queen (which was still being played, even though Christmas is but a distant memory).

Also when I was 14, I taught myself to play It's Too Late by Carol King on the piano. I could only play Christmas Carols (well, only one, the First Nowell) but I liked that song so much I listened to it and worked out the chords and practiced it until I could play an approximation of the song to wail along to.
When everyone in our family (big, noisy and nosey) left the house, I used to sit there and caterwaul my way through it, feeling very sorry for myself in that way that only teenagers can.
One particularly dramatic day, eyes closed in misery, I was howling 'Its too late baybee nowow, it's too late...' when I was aware of a presence in the room.
It was Mrs Hibbert, with her pale grey perm, winged specs, pink lipsticky lips and tweed skirt, shopper over her arm, standing next to the piano having let herself in the back door to see if she could get a cup of tea and a gossip from McMum.
'Eee man Helen man, that was lovely pet', (Geordie) she twittered happily, completely unaware of my shame at being caught out wallowing in my adolescent grief.
I've gone red now, even thinking about it.

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