Conversations with my younger self

an old photo showing a young Bransby (early 20s I think) on stage at possibly the Highbury Garage
Bransby on stage at (possibly) the Highbury Garage some time in the early 2000s

I wrote my first song when I was 18, I'm 46 now and have written a lot more. In those early days I knew nothing about recording and production and very little about the names of chords. I would hand write lyrics onto an A4 pad, play around with chord structures I couldn't name and eventually come up with a song. Consequently there are old songs that were never recorded, rarely played live and that only exist lyrically on faded bits of paper and musically in my memory. Some of them occasionally reappear in my head to remind me that there was a hook, a lyric, a chord change that was worth remembering. That's happened recently with a song originally called One Chance. I dug out the scrappy bit of paper with the lyrics (written in fountain pen for some unfathomable reason) and tried to remember the chords. Much of it came back to me quite easily, I'd struggle to tell you what I did last Thursday but I can remember songs from decades ago with little difficulty. This has led to a new puzzle for me. It's a song of youthful exuberance (I reference being 19 in the lyrics), optimism and a sense of invincibility and it feels weird to the point of wrongness to sing those lyrics now. The last 27 years have not left me unscathed and I simply don't feel that way or think like that anymore. I'm re-writing it. I'm figuring out a way to respect the original intention and spirit whilst acknowledging with every achy joint that I am not 19 anymore. It's like a conversation between 19 year old Bransby and 46 year old Bransby, fortunately we still seem to be getting on ok.

Bees In My Head is scheduled for release towards the end of April, we're still finalising the artwork but it should be heading into the distributor shortly. Watch this space.

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