It’s February! This time last year I was in Finland having just got back to Europe from the Indian tour…different times huh?
Anyway…It’s a new month, and that means a new single is out. Nr 6 so far and the penultimate in the series of monthly offerings. There will be more releases this year but not every month (cash flow!)
Another One Knocking
When I was around 24 years old I moved in with my girlfriend at the time into a flat in Ettingshall near Wolverhampton. It was a flat she rented from the council, on a housing estate comprised of a great number of “low-rise” blocks of flats. Each block was 3 stories. The ground floor was (in our block and many others) uninhabited…except for one very feisty lady who refused to admit defeat. The others had boarded up – with steel not wood – windows and doors. It was the early 90’s, and the United Kingdom was yet to know the optimism (and consequent disillusion) of the Blair government…we were shortly post-Thatcher, and unemployment, inequality, desperation, crime and disrespect for the system were at all time highs.
The next door neighbour had broken into the flat shortly before I moved in…the telly was in their hallway when my girlfriend went round to ask if they’d seen anything. Burglary was his main business. As a side-line his wife was on the game. As were the 2 girls upstairs from us. A couple of flats away was the local drug dealer. The song just wrote itself.
At the time I was playing bass in a funky rock band that I think had other names, but that I remember as “Stress”. It was shortly after the break up of Whirly Blues and I was demotivated…busking alone or with whistle player Geoff was main source of income, but I’d got a gig as singer with a Blues band called “Bogus Dago”. The guitarist was fantastic – very authentic blues player with a lovely tone, and the drummer was properly groovy…a fan of Greatful Dead. We did blues covers, mostly stuff no-one else was doing…and at that time there were quite a few blues bands around. Also quite a lot of gigs for blues bands. What we hadn’t done was any original songs. So when I wrote the song about the neighbours I made it a blues based number.
We did a recording of it – along with an album’s worth of stuff – in Guildford. Whole album recorded in a night. I don’t think I ever heard the finished recording. I got a day job at a heat-treatment factory and had to drop out of the band…in the worst possible way. I couldn’t make it to a gig one night as I couldn’t get off work. They played without me and I never played with them again.
The Bogus Dago version may have had some other verses. I know I wrote one about Jehovah’s Witnesses coming round. I think the lady on the ground floor had a verse too. But nowadays I keep it short and sweet…I didn’t play it for about 20 years so it was a bit like starting from scratch. Anyway, here’s what we ended up with.
I’m playing:
Martin HD28V acoustic guitar
Musicman Stingray bass (DI’ed)
Fender Stratocaster through Vox AC30 (no effects)
Harmonica (not sure which one I used on this)
It’s recorded at Avalon (Denmark) and mastered (as everything since “Kettle” has been) by Joel at 6BitDeep.
Lyrics go….
The girl upstairs she works through the night – see the fellas stop at the shade of her light
Between her and her girlfriend they get through six or maybe more
As soon as one man leaves another one is knocking at the door.
The lady next door – her brown eyes blue – her drunken hubby beats her but there’s nothing we can do
He’s out robbing houses, won’t be back til half past four
As soon as he leaves another man’s knocking at the door.
There’s another one knocking (another one knocking)
There’s another one knocking (another one knocking)
There’s another one knocking – another one knocking at the door
This guy 3 doors down’s got all kinds of gear. Everyone knows what they want they can get it here
Punks and skins and hippies come round to see what they can score
As soon as one leaves another one’s knocking at the door
There’s another one knocking (another one knocking)
There’s another one knocking (another one knocking)
There’s another one knocking – another one knocking at the door