Monday 1 December 2008

The Mission For Lost Songs

To my hometown of Helensburgh for an appointment this morning. At the station I recognised a tramp who used to hang around the town centre when I was at school. My school friends' band wrote a song about him - Sobriety's Not My Strong Point. He does not seem to have aged in nearly twenty years - an impressive achievement.

Whilst waiting for the next train back, I went to the deserted pier. It was a cold and beautiful day - the kind of day to drop everything and head for the snow-clad hills of Argyll. Instead I pulled out my penny whistle and practiced a new tune I've written, Homecoming 2009, my only audience a cormorant in the Clyde.

Helensburgh from the pier:


Whilst in a musical mood, I ruminated on a project I've fancied starting for a while - The Mission for Lost Songs. The idea behind this is to create a web archive of good music released by unsigned bands that no longer exist. It is my strong belief - backed up by numerous examples (listen to Opposites, or The Cooling of Lightbulbs pt 2 for example) - that many bands, or artists, have at least one good song in them. Many have a lot more than one song. Yet the vast majority of these bands never recieve much publicity, and fade into utter obscurity after a couple of years. This is a great cultural loss, as these songs are worth preserving.

But I'm no Alan Lomax or John Peel, and there is so much stuff out there that The Mission for Lost Song would need to be a collaborative effort.

The Mission remains just an idea - for now.

2 comments:

Billy said...

Time for Patrick Swayze by the male nurse

Anonymous said...

Hi !
Hi !
I've just discovered your blog, which I find very interesting.
Cool pictures too... so thanks !