Cal Egan

Tales

  • Talkin’ Woody Guthrie Blues – The Suns of Albert

    I’d been listening to Woody Guthrie on a loop, beguiled by his troubadour cowboy lifestyle, popular songs with socialist themes, and conspicuous anti-fascist stance. Who would have thought he’d be so relevant again.

    Woody Guthrie by Lester Balog (1941)

    Talkin’ Woody Guthrie Blues is my attempt at emulating Woody’s guitar technique.

    The lyrics are vignettes, glimpses of sensitivities, situations, retrospections from early teenage wilderness and awakening, through family dysfunction, travelling revelations and tragedies to acceptance and awareness of things as they are.

    The recording was made, perhaps 12 or 13 years after writing it. I was adamant that it should be recorded live, to have an authentic folky mood about it. So, apart from the sparse backing vocals it’s just me with my old beat-up, cheap Westfield acoustic, singing and playing the song through SM58s at mouth and soundhole. It probably took four or five goes before getting adequate levels. To make the guitar sound brighter I used a plectrum, but usually finger pick it. I could play it better but that’s not really the point.

    The chords and finger-picking are C, F, C, G, C.

    Lyrics

    We jumped into the river
    Beyond the secret pool
    The crumbling bridge above us
    And the waters sparkling jewels
    I was drowning
    Whilst screaming like a mute
    But when I came up for air
    You were gone
    I can’t dispute

    I’m lying on my bed
    In the depth of Wintertime
    And all that once was shining
    Is coated in grime
    Oh lies and death
    True as the burning sun
    Less easy to forget
    When all’s been said and all is done

    An old man reads my palm
    In a shack up in the mountain
    My head’s in a rain-soaked cloud
    His wisdom like the fountain
    I don’t know who I am
    I can’t see the way I’m going
    But just now I’m sitting here
    For tomorrow, there’s no knowing

    Jimmy’s leaning out the window
    Now he’s lying on the rails
    His life will never be the same
    And mine will seem so frail
    But the little man
    Whose smile engulfs the world
    Kept my head above the water
    And in a shell, put a pearl

    There is no meaning to this song
    The journey’s what it is
    I want to get back home again
    There’s the bus I’m going to miss
    Oh beautiful eyes
    And hands to heal the pain
    Walk me through the long valley
    Show me love that never wains

    Graphic by Colm Mac Aodhagáin.

    Written, produced and recorded by The Suns Of Albert in a Seafield flat on a Mac Book Pro (2012), an Mbox 2 Pro A/D, and Adobe Audition CS6.

  • You Sold Out – The Suns of Albert

    It was 2017 and I wanted to write a song with just two chords.

    Sitting in my cousin’s lounge in Bentley Heath, Birmingham, with her son’s beginners classical guitar in hand, I began messing around with the elementary E shape. Rolling it up to an open F# (with the thumb on the bass note) and back down to E. Anyone could learn to do it in their own way.

    We’d just returned from a day trip to the Cotswolds and I was in an Arts & Crafts head space. Certain members of my family (I’m included in this gypsy idyll) have always had a fascination with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, and so, whilst staring at a pair of ornate curtains, the first line came to me – ‘Wrap me in material, endlessly elaborate, contented by the detail, a design of the beautiful’. It all flowed from there. It didn’t take long to write.

    When the three of us came to record ‘You Sold Out‘, each brought something evocative to the session; the piano is filmic, it feels like being on a rainy moor up North (down South from here); the bass is meandering, pulsating, conversational. There’s a gorgeous yet plaintive guitar motif in the last verse.

    I like the instrumental break – a spacious, simmering broth of synth and echo, sparse piano, and jangle-ska, held together, betwixt, swaying chords and a sweet-rolling backbeat.

    It’s pretty clear what the song’s about. Listening back to it reminds me of when I was a student, working at a huge Royal Mail sorting office, where industrial relations were often strained. On a number of occasions we walked off the shop floor due to the oppressive machinations of newly-appointed managers who were ‘on the turn’, harassing workers who were once their equal. These ‘downing of tools’ moments were my first experiences of the power of organised labour. There was a tremendous comradery, even beauty about it. The heart of a movement, alive, refusing a dehumanising system. I remember working an early shift the morning after one of these walkouts, as I strolled down one of the isles of the gargantuan workspace, someone was playing El Condor Pasa over the Tannoy – ‘I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail. Yes I would, If I could, I surely would. I’d rather be a hammer than a nail. Yes I would, If I only could, I surely would.’ It was like being in a perfectly realised film scene.

    Returning to the songwriting process. As if exploring a multitude of ways that melody can be layered over two chords, the feel of You Sold Out ends up somewhere different from where it began – bolder, but ultimately unresolved.

    I wince a little about some of the vocal delivery. Like many singers I’ve read about, at this point in time, unsure of the quality of my voice. In any event, recordings like all artworks, are abandoned when you’ve taken them as far as you can at that moment in time. The embryo of a new idea or direction gestates.

    The last note of the song is the sweet tone of RoSa G. More about her later…

    You Sold Out Lyrics

    E           F#
    Wrap me in material
    Endlessly elaborate
    Contented by the detail
    A design of the beautiful
    I keep my faith with dreamers
    Make my beating heart
    The treasure chest
    Write words of just fraternity
    And roll them through the printing press

    There’s no doubt
    That you sold out
    That you sold us
    Down the river
    And climbed out
    Your status to flout

    Our master’s worked us to the grave
    They legalised iniquity
    We downed our tools en masse
    And walked away from their economy

    Otherworldly instrumental

    So we organised in secret
    Sewed banners proud, bold and bright
    Unfurled them on The Commons
    Hoisted high
    Up in the light

    But there’s no doubt
    They sold out
    They sold us
    Down the river
    They climbed out
    Their status to flout
    Yeah, yeah, yeah

    Supporting music is life support:

    Buy 24-bit/44.1kHz .WAV of You Sold Out for £2 on Bandcamp

    The video background illustration is from this:

    Walter Crane – The Triumph of Labour (1891)

    Photos were taken by Cara in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh.

    Written, produced and recorded by The Suns Of Albert in a Seafield flat on a Mac Book Pro (2012), an Mbox 2 Pro A/D, and Adobe Audition CS6. Except drum parts – recorded at Banana Row on a Tascam portable recorder.