Thank the lord - it finally feels like this theoretical 2nd aqualung album is becoming a reality.....
I’ve been collecting bits and pieces of songs for the last few months and keeping them in a bag (a metaphorical mind-bag- you understand I’m sure) trying not to think about them too much. At some point just recently, I felt it was time to have a proper look in there to see what I’d got. So I poured out all the bits, threw in a few old spares I found down the back and jiggled them all around and lo! there were songs and they seem....................promising.
Which is lucky as it turns out the record company would like a non-theoretical 2nd aqualung album delivered by July. This July. And it’s already this February. Hmmm.
Made a big stride forward a week ago, though. I wanted to try out some of the arrangement ideas I’d been having, and so I got a gang of musicians together to play the new stuff.
I had ben on guitar, kerry on bass, me on piano, jim on keys and sounds and dave on drums and crazy percussion. This particular gang had never played together before but that was part of the plan. I wanted it to be surprising and stimulating.
So I shyly showed them the fledgling songs - some pretty rugged and well developed, others just newly born and still delicate and blind - and the nice musicians applied themselves and didn’t laugh and we recorded it and it all sounds...........promising.
The big stride is that up 'til then all the new songs only existed as tiny piano and humming songs that I’d built up in my head to be shining and joyful and sumptuous and sad and mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Playing and singing them out loud showed that I wasn’t deluding myself, that these songs really can become what I want them to become, and that this frightening theoretical 2nd aqualung album can be made into a satisfying, surprising and stimulating REAL 2nd aqualung album.
And that, as you may well be able to appreciate, is something of a relief.