What I was alive for

03: From a Dark Room

Recorded c. October 1996, Savage Sounds, Cleobury Mortimer, Salop
Performers Pete Green (lead vocal, guitar), Shelley Merchant (guitar, backing vocal), Stu Fletcher (bass), Chris Green (drums)
Producer Paul Savage
Released Effortless cd album January 2004

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The way men treat women very often sickens the hell out of me. It seems to me that discrimination at work, domestic violence, Nuts magazine and rape ultimately have a common source: the terrible, poisonous think-habit of seeing a gender before seeing a person – and, from there, the mindset of very many men that sees women as insurmountably 'other' and, ultimately, somehow less than their understanding of human.

Ten years ago a fair chunk of my songwriting was to do with this sort of stuff. 'From a Dark Room' is a song about a woman or a girl who's being harassed and menaced by a man who she's recently ended a relationship with. She's scared to leave her house or do anything, but ultimately she musters the strength to phone the friends who he made her drop, and she overcomes her fear with their support and love. (The love of friends is the central theme of the final track on the Effortless cd, 'Today at Last', and also of a new song, 'Where the Music Still Plays', which I played live for the first time last weekend.)

I don't know whether it's cack-handed or clumsy or anything like that, you know, like it's always supposed to be when a man writes a first-person female narrator, or a white writer inhabits a black character, say. But I'm not sure that assumption is fair, and Jonathan Coe proves that men can write brilliantly about women. I guess this isn't too bad an effort – not exactly The Rain Before it Falls, but it doesn't make me shudder with embarrassment. (What do you think about all this stuff? Write a comment below if you like – I'd be interested to see.)

My girlfriend, incidentally, has always thought 'From a Dark Room' one of my best songs, but listening to it again just now has left me a bit cold. Maybe it's just too worthy and earnest to make for a good popsong. Or maybe it's an OK song but the recording is a bit lifeless. It's taken from the first of our three visits to Paul Savage's home studio in Shropshire, towards the end of 1996, when we rushed six songs down in two days.

The demo tape that resulted was called – well, nicknamed more than anything – Touched by the Hand of Nod: a sort of rubbish in-joke about our semi-ironic worship of Slade. There's a photo somewhere – possibly in an envelope in a box in my attic unopened since 2004, or possibly in someone else's house entirely; I've no idea – of me and Stu doing the we're-not-worthy thing in front of a mural of Noddy Holder painted on the wall at the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath, where we played our first gig in November 1996, not long after we recorded this. My old flatmate Dan had some friends in a band called The Ladykillers and we managed to get a support with them. There's a tape of the gig somewhere – possibly in the same box as the photo of me and Stu praising Noddy. I was dead nervous and couldn't play guitar too well because my hands were shaking, but it was a lovely night. Much the same as now, then.


It was the only Regulars gig when I played guitar, though. The original line-up had the rhythm section of Stu and Chris in place straight away, but with a front two of me and Shelley Merchant, both on guitar and with Shelley singing harmonies too. She left the band before we could play another gig, but this was the line-up that you're hearing on 'From a Dark Room' (two other Hand of Nod tracks, 'Saturday Song' and 'Into Your Bloodstream', made it on to Effortless too).

Shelley and Chris come to the fore in the best part of this song: the extended ending, which starts at 2:55. Chris's drumming is thoughtful and sensitive and, like Shelley's vocals (which start to fade in at 3:45), helps to create the sense of hope and triumph around the song's happy ending. But my singing is a bit hesitant and doesn't do it justice; these days I'd fly through that melody but as a much less practised singer 12 years ago I seem to have found the higher notes a bit intimidating.

In all, though, the recording demonstrates our naivety as much as my songwriting (like everything we did before Rob joined the band, 'From a Dark Room' was all my own work). We put some backwards effect on the drum intro just because we could, really – it doesn't run at all smoothly into the following section – and I remember getting enormously excited when I came up with the really very simple little lead guitar fill at the end of each verse (it first occurs at 0:43). Bless my youthful soul and everything, but it's hardly the best thing ever.

Like the song as a whole, really. It isn't awful, and it was an important step for me to take in terms of writing lyrics. But you'll just have to trust me for now when I promise you that Effortless has greater moments than this, and you'll have to indulge the four nervous and inexperienced musicians responsible if it sounds a little stilted here.



Linky
Lyric sheet (pdf)
The Hare & Hounds
A Google map showing the Hare & Hounds

posted by Pete Green @ 10:06