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Guest Blog…..Rowiegar Update….Life on Venus?......  

by Bernie Bell - 08:41 on 20 January 2025

 

 

Guest Blog…..

 

Blue as skies and blue as heavens

 

Articles of Faith is a new feature in the revamped Church Times, and here’s my contribution, from this week’s issue. Some readers may not have noticed that I’m a Christian, but here I reveal myself, not merely as a Christian, but an Anglican Catholic, Ethiopian Orthodox adjacent kinda guy, one with United Reformed beats and Quaker quietist leanings. And I know that for some people, most people, I guess, this seems mad, what with one thing and another, but there is more than one history of the world.

The point here, though, is that I get to big up Prefab Sprout’s fifth album, ‘Jordan, the Comeback’, and to play a couple of versions of a song, to illustrate what songwriters take to their producer and band mates.

One of the reasons that I feel qualified to claim that I have many of the skills necessary for writing a realist novel about pop music, is the thankless aeons that I spent working to become a singer and songwriter. But at last the 200 odd songs I was involved in writing are coming in handy. I’m using the material I co-wrote with various musicians as the source of the Breaking Wave’s set list.

At the source of my songwriting, or close to it, was my love of Prefab Sprout. The songs, and Paddy and Wendy’s singing of them, changed everything I thought about pop music.

In an interview what I read, (citation needed) Paddy MacAloon said that what he liked was songwriting, and then making demos of his songs, and that he felt that no producer had ever quite caught the essence of his original demo. So all that top work by Thomas Dolby, Paddy is like, yeah, no, whatevs.

Mad Prefab buffs hunt about for rarities. There aren’t many, because Paddy doesn’t let much slip out of his control. Here’s one, though -

This is what Paddy would play to the band and Thomas Dolby, and it’s so lovely, and keys are so clearly Paddy’s second instrument, that you can almost sympathise with his view.

This is the album version -

It's so interesting to trace a recordings progress from rough demo to polished production.

I prefer the second one, because for me the Prefabs have always been beautifully produced. But it is a lovely song.

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 IAN MARCHANT

JAN 17

 

**************************************************************************

 

Rowiegar Update….

 

https://archaeologyorkney.com/2025/01/17/rowiegar-update/

 

 

 

Life on Venus?......

 

https://earthlogs.org/2025/01/17/was-venus-once-habitable/

 

A fully revised edition of Steve Drury’s book Stepping Stones: The Making of Our Home World can now be downloaded as a free eBook

 

 


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