Dust to Dust
6 years ago
Summer has scorched the earth and the soul with its wonderful oven like heat. I’m not one for hot but the sun was soaked up like olive oil on Focaccia. Squeeze played a few festivals, with its fair share of hot tin roof, all game and correct. The World Cup seemed to stick people together, and in Soho where i stayed recently, people gathered to console and belong. It was heart warming. I finished the edits on my paperback out in August with its extra chapter, Rainbows End. A short read but i hope it captures the post book Bambi like swagger. June proved to be a full on month with another great writers week in Somerset, possibly the best ever, and thanks to all who took part. I took my friend Honey with me, she is 17 and we have just signed her to Rocket on a development deal, she writes and sings with love and soul, i think the future is a bright for her. Im on the sidelines shouting for a goal.
I donated all of my stage suits recently to Cancer research in London, not really like Elton when he puts his wardrobe up for grabs, but suits none the less. I hope they fit the bill, and people like them. I started selling all of my guitars too. In other news I went to see the Arctic Monkeys and The Foo Fighters, i saw what it was like to be in a band and soaked up that special spirit, hoping that even at my age i can reform that atmosphere of joy. Who knows. Live and loud, great songs, a kind of electricity only available for the ready. Its so hard tracking the ambitions of a younger person trapped in the jumpers of an older man, but here we are, and if i don’t aim to be positive and hungry the best that is yet to come, wont. Loud could be the new quite you might say. Or am I just going deaf! I hope so. I love my life with its twists and turns, i have few regrets and even fewer clouds in my sky. Yellow.
From the stages of summer i can see the faces of people who bathe in the words of songs i have co written, its a lovely feeling, its with them i have a contract with and it inspires me to want to give more. Hyde Park, Cornbury, both stages covered in the dust from the past, swept up in one moment. Loved by the many, dissected by the few. And in more other news, I have started writing my own songs in my head again, the first since 1972, basic but i hope full of hope and story. I cant wait for you to hear them as i plan 2019 and all who sail in her. This summer has been so hot, each day a challenge in my jeans, and the dust bowl that is home seems to suffer as nature takes its battering from the dryness. Golden fields of wheat are faded now, yet the crop looks healthy. As i drive out of the farm the dust covers the car as i head up the A27 to another stage, the dust of home comes with me everywhere. Like the dust from the past, and its important to own the past with its great memories and slightly obscured ones too. Dust.
This weekend I have been on the road in the car, nothing new there, up to Yorkshire for a book read, and then two weeks of full on to follow. At The Deer Shed festival i received a standing ovation, how wonderful and unexpected. Coming up two sold out shows on the Wirral, Port Eliot festival, and a night with Jools, plus some fine time with Mrs D on a few recliners. Our break away sadly has to include a few motorways, the only way we can afford the rest is for me to work. Its been a very tough few months and without Louise and the kids supporting me I may have been in a right old state. Inside I feel like I still could be were it not for the program that carries, the old serenity prayer lifts me every time. One day all this will seem like cheap cheese and the real cheddar will mature for all to taste. So this coming week will bring some much needed balance to the table. The nippers are away and therefor the cats can play. I hate cats. After our break on the welcome we will head to Edinburgh for the festival run, please come and see the show, its going to be fun, and its going to be everything I hoped it would be on the night, well day.