Category: Music

Listen on SoundCloud or BandCamp

A lot of the lyrics to my songs come out ad lib when I have a go at recording a first-pass demo of a new tune. I usually then edit them into shape as the song evolves. But, sometimes they have a bit more of a story, and although the basics just emerge as I’m putting it together, they do get more craft occasionally. My latest conflates a couple of encounters Mrs Sciencebase and I have had with Paris over the years. The most recent encounter was from a high altitude, a few years ago we were flying back at night from a trip to Croatia and could see Paris from the airliner. The Eiffel Tower was illuminated and looked like a tiny golden dagger poking up from the cityscape.

The earlier encounter was a cold and snowy winter trip to the city back in the very early 1990s. We did all the usual sights including a trip to the top of the tower during the day. That evening we searched for a nice restaurant near our lodgings and stumbled upon a rather rustic place near the Bastille and shared a table with a couple of French gents. Neither of them spoke a lot of English and our French was Franglais at best, but we had a chat over a couple of carafes of red wine and ate some food. One of the things they were keen to know was what we thought of living in a monarchy…how we interpreted that conversation I don’t know, I think we lost the thread at one point, but basically, they wanted to know what we thought of The Queen. It was funny.

The airport race was our return from wintry Paris, we almost missed the flight, we hadn’t heard it called, and I think actually at the time they didn’t call flights at that airport. An airport attendant sought us out, mooching in the bucket seats, and chucked us on to the back of a luggage trailer and drove us like baggage to the aeroplane, threw us up the steps. The business travellers were might irritated that we’d delayed their flight home, but we thought it was funny and we didn’t miss our takeoff slot, so no harm done…and a story to tell.

I waited until we visited Greece the following year before I offered a proposal of marriage to Ms Sciencebase, who as you know accepted, long before Sciencebase was even a thing. Incidentally, the lock with T&D wasn’t ours, but it was clipped around a fence on a walk way in Dubrovnic we spotted on our visit to that beautiful city.

This song is for her, a rarity. Its tongue-in-cheek working title was Parisian Nights and then it became C’est la Vie but both phrases have been used a lot, so I’ve not settled on it being called People we can be.

You can listen on SoundCloud or BandCamp

People we can be

You remember how we flew home at night?
Head full of memories, I could tell
You shone when we caught sight of Paris
and smiled at the lights of La Tour Eiffel

It was so small, a golden dagger
In a playground of street life and bars
Full of the memories that make me stagger
A flashlight on streetlights and cars

Oh, how I wish I could find a way
To take us back to those nights, we’d see
The secret to happiness isn’t time or place
It’s the laissez faire of the c’est la vie
The secret to happiness isn’t time or place
It’s the finding the people we can be

The mighty drinkers in that old cafe
Who asked us all about The Queen
We shared their wine and spirit, I have to say
But we lost the thread, I felt so mean

We headed home along the banks of the Seine
I headed out on a limb
The easiest thing to do was to stake a claim
But, my mind was dulled and my eyes were dim

Oh, how I wish I could find a way
To take us back to those nights, we’d see
The secret to happiness isn’t time or place
It’s the laissez faire of the c’est la vie
The secret to happiness isn’t time or place
It’s finding the people we can be

We chased the plane in an airport race
Entangled in our own youth
Although I’d held back just to check out the place
What more did I need, in truth?

Just in from the critics: “Great song! Beautiful lyrics and melody, and it’s always good to hear that stripped-back acoustic guitar sound.”

Blessed Release

You whispered to me just days in the past
It was the last time, now forever’s holding fast
I turn to music this moment cannot cease
But, I skipped a beat before the blessed release

The chords seemed faked, the melody obscure
There was give and take, but nothing too secure
Unchained, as they say, you’re free to find your peace
But for those left behind, there is no blessed release

Blessed release, it comes to us all
Obscure but unmoving
Our backs against the wall

Blessed release, the end of it all
No cure, no approval
You have to take the fall

I heard a sound, it was the sighing of the night
Cut through my breath, because the binding was so tight
There is a feeling, the growing mystery of that peace
I tried to write it down before the blessed release

For my late Mother

Listen on SoundCloud or BandCamp

A friend suggested that after posting my 9 albums in 9 years update, I should put together a “greatest hits”. I suspect they were being ever so slightly facetious, but I took a look at my BandCamp stats covering all the time I’ve been posting songs there and pulled out a Top 10, so here it is:

1. The Silent Spring – The amazing Emmazen on backing vocals
2. Push the Button What if Peter Gabriel did a song about cybersex?
3. Burning the Candle at Both Ends – Too much, too young, too soon?
4. In Transition – Are the times a changin’?
5. Bait and Switch (Mono Stone Remix) – Contrarywise
6. White Line Warrior (Bradley, Schwaegler & Tropp) – Rush’s Tom Sawyer meets the Digital Man heading home from Bangkok
7. Who is Really Fooling Who? – If James Taylor had been a gambling man
8. Escape to the Stars – Featuring Eddie Bryant on saxophone
9. Time to Unwind (It’s Over) – At the end of the day…
10. Complications – Lo-Fi lockdown woes

Of course, this Top 10 goes up to 11 and a track from earlier musical incarnation on BandCamp looks like it did better in terms of streams and downloads than the No. 10 song on this list by a small margin – Golden Light.

Some time between joining a community choir in its opening month more than 14 years ago (September 2007) and helping set up a local “Arts Night” about 9 years ago (April 2012) that ultimately evolved into my gigging band C5, I started writing and recording music in earnest. None of the youthful noodling that led nowhere back when I was a youthful noodler, these were meant to be proper songs and instrumentals with an intro, middle-eight, and a coda. The works.

Well, several years on I seem to have amassed around 200 or so songs and instrumental many of which are on my BandCamp and SoundCloud pages. The BandCamp stuff is under two different names – davebradley and sciencebase, my SoundCloud stuff is all under the username sciencebase.

I think there are about 135 songs on the 9 collections pictured above…back in the day a 40-minute vinyl album would usually have 10 or so tracks (prog rock excepted), so I reckon some of these are double albums, and that older “If at First…” album (the spider’s web one) which has 25 songs is almost a triple album!

If you’ve been to any of my solo gigs, the CCC Arts Nights, or even early C5 gigs you may well have heard a few of these songs live, among the ones from the collections that I remember singing in a pub, at a party, in a community hall, festival, or other venue are: Winter Warmer, Sunny Days and Rainbows, White Whine (First World Problems), Bedding Down the Roses, Too Old to Die Young, Grace, Give My Love to the Waves, Bridges (Crossed and Burned), It’s Never Too Cold to Snow, Christmas Present, Burning the Candle at Both Ends, The Mighty Fall, Wild Honeysuckle, The Silent Spring, Turncoats, Burning Out etc etc

Obviously, none of the Lockdown LP nor the After the Lockdown songs have had a live airing. Moreover, while some of these songs fit the C5 format of – lead vocal, acoustic and electric guitar, drums and bass, and backing vox, it’s been a long time since the band ran through any of my material and we’ve not had a chance to rehearse the party cover songs we do ready for upcoming autumnal gigs, so it may be some time before they get that live treatment.

UPDATE: As of, 12 Nov 2021, I have written four new tunes since late September 2021, that are now part of my Lifelines EP.

A (hopefully) soothing instrumental inspired by a peaceful trip on a narrowboat along the Old West River on a midsummer’s dawn, “composed” by David Bradley. Synth strings, French horns, oboe, clarinet, and glockenspiel played on AKAI keyboard, Taylor six-string for the pseudoclassical guitar, mixing and production by David Bradley.

I don’t hear anyone else’s melodies or snippets of melodies (and usually with my music I can hear all the influences outloud), so I think I’ve avoided copying the tropes of the wonderful new world, big country, deep south stuff from the likes of Copland, Dvorak, Gershwin, and Moross. Nevertheless, it’s a big sloppy slice of Americana from a Geordie daarn saarf in England rather than the deep south US of A. The sea refuses no river, as they say.

You can stream or download the latest version of the track on BandCamp. I’m still working on it and remixing.

“I pondered whether this wandering refrain heralded dawn or dusk till I realized it was all the same. The Mobius strip of life ties light and river movements through music to eternity, [Dave] moves my soul again”
— Kae, via Twitter

Gradually building my After the Lockdown EP into an album. 10 tracks at the moment, 8 originals, plus a horny remix of one of those and an instrumental version of an older song.

The latest song was inspired by a throwaway line from my musical and spiritual guru – Clive-upon-Sea whose album Fragments I recorded and produced and played on (electric guitar, bass, percs, and BVs). Oh, the line:

He makes friends in an empty room

I pulled together some random thoughts on that line, made the he a she and then built the song from a basic acoustic chord progression, rearranged it from a folky singer-songwriter version, and then settled on something not unlike the early days of The Police, but with a Rushesque edge and plenty of harmonies as usual.

Empty Rooms

You hear her talking in the afternoon
But, come the evening, well it’s all doom and gloom
She’d make friends in an empty room
They’re gone by morning, not a moment too soon

Though she finds it hard to understand
The callous feeling of your open hands
She’ll come to you when she needs a friend
Won’t give up hope until the bitter end

Knowing only that the pain will grow
She’s praying harder for the light to show

She hides her feelings in plain sight
Fearless moments in the still of the night
Time will come when she gives up the fight
Sees the day when there will be no morning light

You see her heading for her velvet cocoon
In the evening, well she sings another tune
She’s got no friends in that pale empty room
She dreams of stardust and the rising of a crescent moon

She’s gone walking in the afternoon
Come the evening dances to a different tune
Found no message in that empty womb
All done by morning, to her feelings she’s immune

Heal this moment in the heat of the night
Seize the day

My “After the Lockdown” EP/LP was meant to hum a positive note as we seemed to be emerging from the covid pandemic, not that that will really be a thing, this disease is with us forever now, it will become endemic with its endless variants (there are more than 10000 of those by now) like influenza…

…so, my latest song didn’t end up quite as positive as the allusions of ones written and recorded earlier in the year. Once again featuring Taylor acoustic six-string guitar, Fender Telecaster electric guitar (always on the neck pickup), Yamaha electric bass guitar, percussion and synths played on an AKAI MPK-mini keyboard and pads, and my usual Geordie & Western vocals. Free to download as part of the After the Lockdown 8-track

Last Dance

There is no mystery to the grander scheme of things
Just simple truth revealed and the love that it will bring
We take the warmth from wherever it may spring
Don’t let the cold in. To the memories, you must cling

It’s not the time and place for absolving those who sin
There is no season in which we cannot begin
To find the rhyme and reason to take it on the chin
Just let me know and I’ll inform the next of kin

Here we go, last drink before the show
Down in one and then it’s on you go
Here we go! Last dance, for all you know
Spin around, you’ve got to go with the flow

The tide is turning against the treachery of kings
Beyond the waves deceptive traces on the wing
We find the truth in the strangest places, that’s for sure
We’re so much older than we admit to, don’t you know?

Here we go, another fix for the show
Shoot it up and then it’s on you go
Here we go. Last chance for you to show
your aching heart in the afterglow

Accidental allusions to Adele’s Skyfall, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, and Terent Trent D’Arby’s Sign Your Name, Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing.

Chords: Bm7/Bm(add4) GM7/GM13/Em(add9) F#7s4/F# E7s4/E/Es4

Struggling with the positive vibes, to be honest, but if 2020 gave me my Lockdown LP, a bunch of songs written and recorded from February onwards about how awful stuff has been, then my After the Lockdown LP is to be the flipside of the angst and anxiety, hence this latest song added to the roster – Tideline (current version available for free on Bandcamp, one of six songs so far on this LP).

Think: ebb and flow of time and tides, circle of life, the full moon, the new moon, dusk and dawn. Events and happenstance, the mark left on the shore by the high tide swept away by a bigger storm surge, then relaid as the tide turns again, the waves being mindful of their place in the world, creatures imagining a world beyond the brine. The seaspray reaching way beyond the tideline.

TIDELINE

As daylight settles like a distant retreat
You pull on emotional chains
The shingle rolls under your aching feet

The hopes you had are dashed against those distant rocky shores
Stagger to see the pain The tide turns with barely a pause

If the water looks cold
It’s only a tale that’s told
The waves imagine a world beyond the brine

If your dreams aren’t so bold
It’s not because you’re old
The seaspray chases way above the tideline

Tideline
Breakers from the storm
Broken at the full moon at the time that you were born

Tideline
The memory of the norm
Reminder of a new moon before the dawn

As morning wakes, the darkness slips away
Failure all forgotten now the light is holding sway

A million more regrets on the tide washed away
The secrets we forget, there’s nothing more to say

Reminder of a new moon before the dawn

UPDATE: 2021-03-23 Tightened some of the lyrics, tweaked the chord progression for the pre-choruses, and recorded the whole song again, from scratch. Third remix of the re-recorded song just completed and now streaming.

Soldiers on guard are trained to watch out for the absence of normal. If the normal is the bustling of the market, children playing, old folks chewing the fat on street corner benches…then when these things are missing, there may be trouble ahead…

This new song of mine was inspired by this phrase and is the latest track on my After the Lockdown EP. You can stream it via Soundcloud or stream and download from Bandcamp.

THE ABSENCE OF NORMAL

The lines are cut, not a single word can get through
The dust builds up, covering the world with a desert hue
If flag as rags are burned, don’t blame the former
Stay on the watch, be on your guard for the absence of normal

The streets are still, only a few old souls around
The guards are smoking. Nobody make a sound
If notes and coins are exchanged, it’s nothing formal
The headlights flash, the blast comes fast in the absence of normal

Don’t you see how it goes day after day?
Creature comforts on the breeze, all blown away
You kneel alone attend your prayers, no one to share
Waste no time telling trouble, you’re not the one to care

And yet the time is right, time to play another tune
Blow back the dust, rebuild the past, nothing can come too soon
Freedom on the wing, wonder so informal
Keep up the pace, find your grace in the absence of normal

Won’t you feel how it grows day by day?
Hear the suffering on the wind, all borne away
You stand alone telling us to pray, no one will dare
To check the time, call you out in trouble, like you’d care

Don’t you see how it goes day after day?
Creature comforts on the breeze, all blown away
You kneel alone attend your prayers, no one to share
Waste no time telling trouble, you’re not the one to care

And yet the time is right, time to play another tune

Words and music, instrumentation, vocals, and production dB/

I seem to have written quite a few songs during the last decade or so…many of them emerged from Arts Night discussions others written on a whim, some of them put together for my band C5, and others for a variety of other reasons.

I’ve summarised the essence of the lyrics of a clutch of them in a single word. The musical style may well not be that suggested by the word…who knows? Have a listen and do report back with any thoughts.

Violence – Helium Heart
Homelessness – Bridges Crossed and Burned
Drugs – White Line Warrior
Hope – A New Memory of Music
Compromise – Meet Me Half Way
Mourning – Place the Pennies
Fishermen – The Stormy Petrels
Fishwives – The Spate Gatherers
Chicago – A Northern Boy
Greece – The Oleander Fires
Refugees – Bridge of Sighs
Guncrime – Shooting Waste
Dancing – When the Beat Hits Your Heart
Humanity – For the Love of People
Beach -  The Long Sands
Christmas – Seasons of Love
Fascism – The Last Witchhunt
Heroism – Grace
Betrayal – Turncoats
Acceptance – The Sea Refuses No River
Gambling – Who is Fooling Who?
Espionage – Lost to the Weather
Trouble – In Deep Water
Stubbornness – The Tide that Never Turns
Devil – The Oldest Trick in the Book
Transitions – Mercury in Transit
Illness – Too Old to Die Young
Bowie – The Day that Bowie Died
Regret – Nothing to Be Sorry For
Fraud – Switch and Bait
Overindulgence – Burning the Candle at Both Ends
Hubris – The Mighty Fall
Cybersex – Push the Button
Sex – Wild Honeysuckle
War – Collateral Damage
Pleasure – Dopamine and Desire
Revolution – The Silent Spring
Homesickness – Sail Me Back
Eternity – Golden Light
Dictatorships – Put Them on Hold
Money – Gold and Silver
Relationships – Dawn Chorus
Perspective – Point of View
Patriotism – Foreign Shores
Loss – It Could’ve Been You
Radio – Radio Love
Abandonment – Escape to the Stars
Retribution – Dead Man Walking
Escape – A Flight of Fancy
Positivity – Sunny Days and Rainbows
Indifference – When Your Love’s Offline
Depression – Polarity
Security – Security High
Addiction – Winter Warmer
Disappointment – You Don’t Get What You Pray For
Funk – Funktastic!
Alcoholism – A Word to the Wise
Environmentalism – Pale Blue Dot
Ambition – Dreamcatcher
Faith – Faith in Humanity

Violence, Homelessness, Drugs, Hope, Compromise , Mourning, Fishermen, Fishwives, Chicago, Greece, Refugees , Guncrime , Dancing, Humanity, Beach, Christmas, Fascism, Heroism, Betrayal, Acceptance, Gambling, Espionage, Trouble, Stubbornness, Devil, Transitions, Illness, Bowie, Regret, Fraud, Overindulgence, Hubris, Cybersex, Sex, War, Pleasure, Revolution, Homesickness, Eternity, Dictatorships, Money, Addiction, Relationships, Perspective, Patriotism, Loss, Radio, Abandonment, Retribution, Escape, Positivity, Indifference, Depression, Security, Disappointment, Funk, Alcoholism, Trying, Environmentalism, Ambition, Faith…