You weren't really supposed to be out, you know, but I thought, well,
if the police stop you, I'd just say I'm, you know, just coming back from a walling job.
Lockdown was incredibly difficult. I mean, the first thing for me, of course,
street entertainment, as you know, from the previous documentary, Living on a Shoestring,
that was a lot of part of my income. And I said, I mentioned in that, that I would only sometimes
have to do dry stone walling, but that's usually the recording money, right? And anyway, so sadly
what happened was, I couldn't play on the street anymore. And luckily, because I had some dry stone
walling work that came up, there happened to be quite a lot of walling that came up.
And sure enough it was out in the middle of nowhere. It was really strange because
there were no vapour trails in the sky. There was no planes in the sky. The birds could hear
themself twitter for once. And of course I had the sheep and all that around me at that time.
And there was hardly anything on the road and that was strange as well, because I was driving sort of
17 miles to work and back, each day. Anyway, so what happened was, I mean, then you'd go shopping
and everyone didn't know who's got the killer disease or something, standing apart and not
everyone had to wear masks in the beginning. So there were some people like who had masks and
some people's masks were like you think they were going into some sort of riot area. I mean,
it was really weird, like sort of surreal war, but not a war. And so, yeah, I was thinking, God,
this is chaotic. Do you know what I mean? And so that's what kind of started me thinking.
I was driving back and course a part of my drive is a place called Minchinhampton Common.
And of course you've got Winscombe Valley, where I have to go down into to get to back to where I was
living in the van. Then I went to a place called Coaley Peak and I thought looking down at the
valley below and there's all that chaos going on, or complication, and no traffic and things like
that. And you think my God, this is a really strange era that we are living in. So anyway,
that's what inspired it. Then what happened was I had a few little things that happened was,
I did this wall for a guy called Prof Barr, it turns out that
he created or invented this idea of a laser that would go down your neck.
Yeah, and it will identify cancer and it will zap it. And I thought that's amazing,
because I had an operation on my neck as well and he looked a bit and said oh yeah,
I recognize the scar here or whatever it was. Lovely chap to talk to and what a clever thing
to do because you don't have to have invasive surgery then on neck, which makes it a lot better.
And of course anyone can get throat cancer, even if you don't smoke, you can get throat cancer.
So it turns out that he's got a foundation trust with the NHS Gloucestershire,
and I was talking to him about it and him and his wife were very nice to talk to,
said that they had to find venture capitalists to put up the money to make these things.
So I thought, hang on a minute, why can't I use this song? To make lasers, raise money,
make lasers, I mean, it's easy enough. You only have to give a pound, a quid. Nothing. Do you
know what I mean? But I know, as you know, you're my experience on the street, them pounds add up.
Jools came up with his friend, Tim, to do some dry stone walling with us. He's a very talented
artisan as well as a brilliant artist, and we got on famously together. He was particularly
interested in what I was doing with scientific research, and we used to stop and have lunch
together while he was doing the walling and all his artistic things and he was
telling me about his music and I listened to some of it and it is absolutely outstanding.
He was very interested in the scientific research because I'm an esophageal gastric surgeon.
I was interested in early detection of disease and he wanted to know what we were doing and how we
were doing it and how we were using light Raman spectroscopy to interrogate tissue, so we could
get a diagnosis. He also had friends and people who are little ill. And so we spent
a lot of time talking about illness and disease and then about his life as well.
So anyways, that's what inspired it.
Then what happened was I recorded it on my little Micro BR. The batteries in that van,
that's all I got really to record it on, but I did it differently this time. I thought, well,
I had a rough idea of the rhythm, it's got a little beatbop thing. It's like a little
studio, I think anyway. I completed the whole arrangement of the track and I had to hone part.
Now I didn't put that down on it, on that recording,
but it was there in my mind and I knew what the harmony was going to be as
well. So I had that worked out, then I thought I'll ring up Jane Kennaway.
She'll give me a hand with the song and you know, me and Jane have worked together. I worked on her
own stuff, Different Kind of Honey is her band. I work with her and she's a good songwriter too.
She's really good on harmony and she's also good on production. I got hold of her.
No, I like engage. Yep. A world divided in two.
I met Jane some years ago. She had a band called Different Kind of Honey, because she's a brilliant
songwriter as well as a great singer. It's called a different Kind of Honey and she
wanted me in to do the horn section. Brilliant. She just told me what a player made me sound
like James Brown. I never, never sounded like James Brown horn section before.
You'd think being a saxist, I'd know what to play, wouldn't you? But the wonderful thing
about vocalists is, good ones anyway, and she's sung in jazz bands and stuff,
they know what notes for you to sing, to make the chords. So she's brilliant. I'm really looking
forward to hearing her sing today. Right? So it's the same note on
the second and third. The first time it's you
can put the word back together again, right? That's after the first verse,
after the second verse because it goes on about the world corporation, yeah? It then goes, I know-
I'm seeing a lot of that lately. I know. Well, we live in hope. I know
and you know, she knows and we know we can put the world back together again. So it's,
we can put the world back together. Right. Well, have you got the lyrics I
hope for me? Yes.
(Singing). And then I was
trying to get a hold of a bass player and, oh no the drummer, and I thought I'll get my old
mate Nige Harris because we found a Pendragon with Nick Barrett and Stan Cox years ago.
And I thought I'd get a hold of him, drag him out. It would be something
that we could do together. We haven't worked together for years [crosstalk 00:08:52].
Yeah. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. It's quite regimented then. Okay. We can put-
Oh, it's quite regimented. What does that mean?
Well there's no emphasis in the pushing the beat or hiding the beat back. Da, da,
da, da, da. It's -- still ours. It might be pop music it's --.
So I had myself a drummer, then the bass player I was a bit stuck with,
and then I phoned up Nick Barrett and asked him about Pete Gee. Do you think he'd do it?
Could you ask him to do it? I didn't have his number. You see? Well, not his mobile number,
and he's very difficult to get a hold of on his home number. He never answers it at all.
So anyway I got Pete Gee. Wow. He answered the phone, I couldn't believe it. I said, I'm on
the way with this song, when things happen like that. Yeah. And so they now had a bass player.
(singing). And of course in Butsy
you've got the keyboard player co-producing as well. Do you see what I mean?
So I've got me, Jane and Butsy co-producing, and Nigel. I mean, how you drum like that when
you don't even own a set of drums. I mean, he hasn't even played for years anyway.
And he plays like that. Yeah. I was really confident when I walked in to that studio.
I'm a music act . Do you know what I mean? I play a saxophone, I song write, I play the guitar
and then he walks in and does that.
None of them would listen to the tracks. That was another thing. So I literally go in, pre them,
yeah, Butsy hadn't even heard teh track. So we use the Micro BR track and I did a separate
guitar track for that, which is used on the track itself, yeah. And so everybody never heard it. Now
Nigel's going to drum along to it, first time he heard it, Pete Gee's going to put bass on it
the first time he heard it, Jane's going to sing over it the first time she ever heard it. And of
course Buts playing his keyboards, but he's used to that with me. Maybe Pete Gee and Nige, I mean,
Nige was very concerned. He was a bit of a worrier Nige Harris. Well, surely we can hear it, can't
we? I said, no, I said when I did a track for Nick Barrett off of his new album, Love Over Fear,
I went to a studio and he wouldn't let me hear it. So I thought if he could do that to me,
I'll try it with you. (singing).
Yeah. I mean, what's his name? Miles Davis used to do that to all his musicians, but he picked
the right musicians. I think it worked out really good because it's got that vibe, it's got sort of
spontaneity vibe, it's a bit improvised as well. I mean, there's a lot of improvisation and Jane,
she altered the lines and that singing lines. The whole thing's such a joyous thing to do,
and if it does raise millions and provides more lasers for people to have this kind of
diagnoses and treatments. Yeah, I think that's a fantastic thing. Think of all the vocalists who
may suffer from throat cancer, I'm sure they'll be thinking about giving some money. I'm sure.
(singing)
I think when you write songs or you are a songwriter,
you're always looking for new material. I haven't written that many songs, political,
do you know what I mean? And probably people won't want to hear them anyway,
but I'm always looking for a new subjects and topics. So to write about
what was happening at that time when there was the lockdown, for me was just a wonderful response
to what was happening at the time. And I think just like your film or just like a photograph.
I think we captured it very well in the song. And I hope people like the song.
Like the song, give us a quid, like the song, give us a quid. We'll see.
Like that, which is brilliant. Oh, I guess which is what you've recorded. Oh it's exciting.
Oh, do you want me to play again, or am I done?
One more time?
Oh, one more time I got to go through the agony, the pressure.