I write a lot of songs. Often, but not always, I write with the idea that the songs will end up being played by my band, Rocket Kings (rocketkings.bandcamp.com), but sometimes they are just not suited to what we do in Rocket Kings, so the songs end up just sitting on my hard drive for evermore. When I shared ‘2021’ to friends and family, it seemed to go down well (maybe that was my daughter, Holly’s, expert filming in the video www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIjGhq_lTxQ) and it made me think that perhaps, whilst awaiting the release of Rocket Kings’ album later in 2021 (once we can return to gigging to promote it), I’d share some of these ‘other songs’. They are a bit rough and ready as they were never intended for release in this form. They have been written and recorded at various points in time over the past four years. I hope you enjoy ‘The Lone Rocket’.

Here’s a little more information about the songs:

1. 2021 - at the start of 2021, I decided that the strange times that we were living in required an optimistic song, so I wrote it, then I recorded it (I even took my mandolin out of its case for the first time in nearly 20 years!) and then asked my 10-year-old daughter, Holly, to film a video for it.
2. 1837 – my band, Rocket Kings, has a song called ‘Everything is Gas and Gaiters’, which is a phrase first mentioned by Charles Dickens in 1837. At gigs, I often have a bit of banter about 1837, so decided to write a full song about that particular year. Hopefully you’ll enjoy a bit of a history lesson whilst singing along.
3. It's Always Today – is a song about living in the moment.
4. Dream Undream – my great friend and fellow Rocket King, Bex, told me about a dream she had where all museums and temples and churches etc. were taken into huge storage hangers and everyone had to view the buildings and artefacts only through videos – this song is about that actually happening.
5. Open Up the Book – I read a lot. I listen to records a lot. The song says it all.
6. Insomnia Has Taken Over – this is a song written during lockdown 1 in 2020 when I couldn’t sleep one night and went downstairs and wrote the entire lyrics of the song in one hit. I wrote the music later. Ironically, I don’t suffer from insomnia.
7. Under the Orange Moon – this was a song written way back in 2017 that Rocket Kings played live a couple of times, but it never quite gelled so we moved on from it, but I have always liked it… so here it is.
8. Gospeltown – I came up with the idea for a big a capella intro and the song grew from there. It dates back from 2018, but it still goes round my head at various times.
9. To All Our Big Ideas – written in 2017, I really like the way the two vocals (from Bex and myself) intertwine. This was never likely to become a Rocket Kings song, but Bex and I both really like this one.
10. Frontline – In 2019, I saw a Facebook post from a wrestling organisation wanting a new theme tune. I did some research into wrestling. I wrote this song. I recorded it. I sent it to them. I never heard from them. However, I really love it.
11. Home – this song is about… home!
12. A Different Kind of Normal – I know that Bex thinks this is one of the best songs I have ever written. I like it a lot too. Despite it seeming like it may have been written during the pandemic, it actually dates from 2018. We tried to work out an arrangement for Rocket Kings, but it never quite worked so we moved on from it.
13. The Seeds Have Risen – I had an idea to write a song about the after-effects of an extreme weather event and how communities come together to rebuild. I then came up with the phrase ‘The seeds have risen from the ashes of the storm’ and then I stumbled across the little piano riff, which then became a bit of a signature part of the song’s sound.