'Castles' is out today! Yay!

I dreamt this song. No, really. I did.

I know this sounds like some 'songwriter 101' book nonsense or something. Sure, the songwriter is just the vessel for some inspiration that comes to him from,.. where exactly? I never believed in that stuff. Songs come from sitting down with pen, paper, guitar, tuba (whatever) and putting in the hours. At some point something will start to happen and you continue making tiny decisions until-sometimes-you get somewhere you never thought you'd be going before you started. Or not. The process of songwriting and how you get to a finished song is still -after all these years-a wonderful mystery to me. But that's part of the fun, right?

Coming back to this song and it's story now...

I woke up at 6 a.m with this tune in my head pretty much fully formed. In my dream Suggs (from the band Madness) was sitting across from a girl in a kitchen singing 'I don't mind, I don't really mind at all' over and over. Why Suggs? I have no idea. I'm not a HUGE Madness fan, either. So, why Suggs?

I managed to stumble up to my studio, pick up a guitar, find the right chords (they're not too difficult) and record a version of the song on my iphone. Then I went back to bed.

When I I got back up to my studio later that day, I fleshed the song out a bit, recorded some more stuff - but the song basically remained as I had dreamt / imagined it in my head when I woke up that morning..

A weird, slightly confusing process this time, but I'm really happy with what came out of it all. To me, the song is about trying, failing, falling and watching castles get washed up by the incoming tide leaving behind a pristine, clean plane of sand perfect for a new day. Kind of a downer, but hopeful as well.

Still, ... Suggs? I just don't know.