Song(ish)s

These are the things that very generous listeners might call songs, but the more cautious among us call song(ish)s. They are combinations of words and music in often wholly unnecessary ways. They are intended to be for your entertainment. But they don't always succeed.

This piece was written for an event celebrating Philip Larkin at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2015. It was presented alongside his beautiful, gentle, sad poem The Mower.

The texts for these two pieces can be found in Lies My Mother Never Told Me as poems.

This piece is a musical setting of one of the story-poems from the collection Harold.

Song(ish)s in this section are written and performed by various incarnations of the A.F. Harrold Mystery Band (c.2000-2006), which played irregularly and under many different names. The recordings are almost all lo-fi (or lowest-fi) guerilla onstage or rehearsal recordings, except some soundboard minidisc recordings from the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe show, The Most Boring Man In England (and Other Love Songs).

The various incarnations included Diane Fox or Zac Yeo (bass), Rikk Smith (drums), Janet Barlow (flute, keys), Jason Manners (guitar), Gavin Taylor (sax) with a variety of guests. The music for One Word was written by the group in rehearsal, most of the rest deserve A.F. Harrold/Jason Manners credits. Song About Being Shy was written by A.F. Harrold andIan Mott.