[5 guys named Lars]

Looking forward to hearing more of your songs @PaulAds . Most of all, hope you enjoy what you do. I wasn`t on the Friday night chat last night but I could hear your foul language from here. Excellent stuff. All the best from across the Northern sea, Paul.

[Morefrog Jones]

Good luck Paul..have a good break.
I still going to try and finish off the cover we collaborated on at some point.
Sorry i did not get round to it on time.

[hardtwistmusic]

Good luck.  Regarding the FAWM. . . I never understood the value of forcing yourself to write so much.  I've always only written when I felt like it, which is still way, way, way too much.  And I simply can't imagine that anything I wrote because I had to have a song every two days would be worth listening to, but that is just me. 

I won't say it wouldn't be good for others.  Just that I don't think anything I did that way would be worth listening to. 

[PaulAds]

Thanks for all the good wishes!

I'm a little embarrassed because I'm not doing so great this year....but I don't mind...it's an interesting exercise.

When The Jam needed to deliver their third album, they'd gone off to a farmhouse studio in Wales to write and records demos for the new songs.

Chris Parry from Polydor went down to see how they were coming along...listened to the demos and basically said "This is SHIT...you need to write some better songs PRONTO...otherwise you're HISTORY" and they binned the garbage they'd written, went back to the drawing board, wrote the songs for "All Mod Cons" and The Jam suddenly became awesome.

Similar story with Pete Townshend and "Thunderclap Newman" who I think were recording in his studio and coming up with naff-all when he lost his temper and told them that they "have got to get it together...NOW" and they wrote "Something in the Air" using that refrain.

Had they not had to pull a rabbit out of a hat, they'd have fallen by the wayside. Now I'm firmly entrenched in whatever it is that is by the wayside, so I'm not really under any pressure at all...except that for which I put myself under. And that isn't very much. It's interesting because, having done it before, I know that it interests me to have a glimpse of the pressure involved.

There were always kids at school who could flick a ball over their heads after stepping over it and balance it between their shoulder blades or keep it up for an hour and a half or whatever...but invariably...once the game got going and the 6ft 2in Neanderthal centre half was breathing down their necks and kicking lumps out of them, they'd throw the towel in.

If I was happy with what I write and didn't want to change anything, I'd keep doing what I was doing...but if I thought, maybe once a year, it would be worth trying to see if I could do better, at the risk of making a fool of myself, I'd give it a go.

To be fair...I'm mostly written a load of rubbish this year...but the next song I write just might be excellent.

Magicians never get particularly excited about pulling a rabbit out of a hat. They know there's a rabbit in there. I don't.

Imagine being able to say "Fuck Me...a RABBIT" 

[cowparsleyman]

@PaulAds - Paul, good to hear from you again Man, We all have periods where inspiration just leaves us, or everything you try sounds rubbish, and like a '49er ... the next one will be the one that pays off. It'll just come to you, trust me.

It's only rubbish in your mind, but there WILL be someone out there that thinks it's the best thing since....

I write many songs that never get to the finish line, but I wrote a song once which I really never liked, felt it was absolutely awful, never clicked with it, a totally unruly mongrel if ever there was one,  but I managed to finish it, rather than take it to the musical Vet...I still really despise it, but some people liked it much to my surprise, they must be mad.

I guess I'm trying to say things might turn out differently, maybe you're heading for a gene change....


Do me a favour and tell me this is awful...and we can drown out crap song sorrows together over a glass of something cheap and strong

[PaulAds]

That's a really cool song CPM!

Far from being crap...it's got a fantastic pub rock vibe to it...lovely and loose and almost "amateurish" if I may be so bold...which can't be easy to replicate with all of your talents!

It captures the essence of what original music is all about, I reckon.

Looks like I'm at a table for one in the crap song sorrows bar 

Thanks for the encouragement!

[MichaelA]

@PaulAds, I am sure you will get that rabbit out of the hat soon, cos remember, you can’t hurry songs, you just have to wait, cos songs don’t come easy, it’s a game of give and take  OK, I accept the forum ban 

But imagine if this was the most famous song you were known for. I came across it today when looking at what had happened to old British retail brands. This is Woolworths 40 years ago. It’s a cringe classic!

 

So be inspired. You can thank me later 

[pompeyjazz]

Goody Goody Yum Yum

[PaulAds]

Good grief...that Woolworths Ad is pretty grim...but those were the days, my friend.

I wrote this last night...did a quick demo of it then realised it was too high for me to sing the chorus, so I asked someone on FAWM if she'd sing the chorus, so she sent me an mp3 straight over and I patched it up and wrote the verse lyrics and have just finished it. Took about 6 hours, all told. The drums were mostly from some Groove Monkee Garage midi pack I bought on sale a while back...I chopped it up a bit...but they've been great for a little inspiration...the song's here if anyone wants a listen


I'll likely have to re-do it later on...as I'm too busy to get bogged down with it right now. That means I've done 8 and am roughly on schedule. I've done a couple that I haven't got the lyrics for yet...so I just left them as instrumentals for now and will have to come back to them...


PS When I finished typing this...I went back to singing that Woolworths advert...grrr  ;D

[MichaelA]

I say sir, now might that be a rabbit emerging from one’s hat?!

Great chorus that, cemented by the moody harmonies. Took me back to The Motors this, with those Ricky power chords and delicious melodies. You could tweak around with this one to be a PaulAds super classic, such a good chorus.

I knew that Woolies ad would help. And yes @pompeyjazz , The Goodies are there. Bit disappointing, but being ‘cool’ probably wasn’t a requirement of comedians of the time, but wonder if they wrote the song too? Mind that Anita Harris was a bit of a Stacey Solomon of her day, anything for a telly slot. She was probably on the till in Basildon store on a Saturday.

[Boydie]

@PaulAds

Imagine being able to say "Fuck Me...a RABBIT" 

There is your song right there!!

Keep going - that song is sounding great!