Songs

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to be honest, I'm a rip off merchant. I take perfectly good songs, and re-write them at the expense of some very good friends. God knows why they let me get away with it.

Freedom Originally written by Wham in the mid 1980's, it was the first song I rewrote. I've based it on Matt Lambe, circa summer 1999, when the pheromone's were flying. It is true, by the way, that the first verse and chorus were written on the way home from Eros one night. That explains the quality of it all...

Eternal Flame Michal's favourite song, at the time of writing, (Difficult sod. If he thinks I'm doing another song for him...) so fittingly the one I rewrote for him. Not quite as nice as the Bangle's original. My version is a homage to hungover early mornings the world over. I wrote this on Christmas Day after a heavy Christmas Eve, which explains the theme. Michal, meanwhile, was sunning himself on a Goan beach. That may explain the tone...

When You Say Nothing At All Judith's 19th birthday was rapidly approaching, and I had no money. It seemed fitting to rewrite a song for her, although trying to find virtues for the chorus was a pain. Eventually Terence and Matt helped out. Technically, they're due co-writing credits for this one. By the way, Jude has many virtues,(1, 2, errrm...) I needed Matt and Terence's help paring them down to three, that's all. No, really. My thanks to Ronan Keating for the original version.

Jay pays the penalty for too many retellings of the 'White Knight with the Black Horse and the Silver Spoon' joke.

Love Me For A Reason Lucy is Jude's best mate, and it seemed fitting to write song's for both of them. The roots of this song can be found in endless discussion's with Lucy around Christmas as she tried to convince me to go to confession, or at least stop cursing and insulting people so much. Fat chance, I'm afraid. Even after re-writing this song, I wasn't happy with it, and decided to try again with another Boyzone song a few weeks later.

I Never Loved You Anyway Before that, though, there was the small matter of Terence leaving early to go to university after Christmas. The day he left, I composed this in his honour, before taking it up to Leeds when I visited him. The Corr's wrote the original, and I'm a big fan. generally accepted as my best re-write, especially the fade out at the end.

No Matter What Lucy's second song, and the first person to have two song's written for them. Essentially the same basis, but the song was a lot more fun to work with. I think it work's better.

Angels Written for Jonathan, in honour of the many night's he's put a roof over his head. Also a slight mickey-take of his love for Maria, so all-encompassing is it, that nothing else matters. Obviously it can't compare to Robbie William's original, but hey. Another one that was fun to write.

Off screen, Michal directed the others in the recreation of the Nataly-aaaah!!! incident...

Rollercoaster Stemming from a conversation myself and Matt had about B*Witched's lyrics, this re-write is possibly the most obscure of all the ones I've done. There will be people who will not recognise the true meaning of this song, coming as it does after an incident at a party we attended that neither I, nor Matt are ever likely to forget...

American Pie The last song I'll be trying for a while now. I could never write anything as meaningful as Don McLean's original, but I'd like to think that it's more interesting than Madonna's cover. She doesn't even do the full version of the abbreviated song. What's the point in that? Anyway. This covers the last two year's or so of my life, in extremely abbreviated version. Some people I would have liked to have included didn't make it. Sorry about that. It's actually the poorest rewrite I've done, because it's hard to be funny and/or meaningful about my own life. Strange, that.

Gerry's Song (AKA I Wanna Be...) I have severe reservations about this one. It's Matt and Jay's concoction, rather than mine, having been adapted from a song made up about their former teacher, Mr. Quinlan. (Hence Gerry's nickname.) It's rude and offensive, but also extremely funny. I'm placing it here under warning that it has some slightly adult content, and therefore should not be viewed by anyone, ever. Even in saying that, I've had to change the lyrics slightly because Gerry would probably not appreciate the original version. (Actually he probably would. Other people wouldn't.)

Get On Up 5ive's seminal disco song, with a fantastic tune, and great lyrics. Do I like this song a bit? Is the Pope a Catholic? (No, he's Jewish. Says Jay, anyway.) Anyway, this is the song performed by the 5ive tribute act, 5ive point 5ive, at the Kintbury cabaret. As I was singing in this act, it has a special place in my heart. While it would be a little self absorbed to include my own performance in my Top Ten songs, I see no problem in adding it, in it's slightly rewritten version to this page. So, for Cat, Vicky, Sarah, Ed and especially Charmaine, here it is.

Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It Jay finally gets his own song, (taken of course, from Will Smith's original) after a long wait. It is ridiculously hard to rewrite a song whose beat changes every 4 or 5 lines, so this wanders a little, but it celebrates many facets of Jay's top blokeness, including that which lets us load up his car after we keep him company at a Disco. Also managed to fit in two references to Lucy in the song, as the two of them have hit it off big time over the last couple of months. Just remember, you only met because I keep on making people meet up, OK? ;-)

Copacabana Blame Jay and Lucy for implanting the idea of Eros in my head. This led to me remembering the fantastic routine the dancers there had for this song. A green light from Terence and Jonathan later, I got to work on the song. Hope you like it, gents, and that your better halves aren't offended. They shouldn't be, I hope. Barry Manilow performed the original.

Copacabana If they are, however, they're likely to mildly apoplectic when they see this. I decided to write a song about the Three Amigo's significant others. Terence, of course, is set to become a priest, so for the first time, possibly ever, I present to you 'God: The Manilow Remix'. Thanks again, of course, to Manilow.

What's My Age Again? Diana's song, bought on by intense sniffiness at their engagement party. I should point out that it in no way relates to the age gap (Matt's a toyboy, y'see), rather it was another one of those inspirational moments that seem to be happening more and more regularly these days. Blink 182 wrote the original, and it's an excellent song.

Amazed One wasn't enough. With my last rewrite for Matt and Diana came a request: Can you do 'our song' please? Despite severe misgivings -let's face it, they'll never like it as much as they do the original- I agreed to give it a go. Less than an hour later, here it is. Lonestar wrote the original, as I'm sure many of you will know.

Livin' La Vida Loca Hmmm. Bitter much? Maybe a little. As I watch nearly all my friends cavort with their other half's, here I am presenting an ode to the unthinking destruction a woman will cause in a man's life. It's not fair that we don't get to do it to them. Ricky Martin's original version of this was a damn sight sexier, but he had the right idea. Woman = Devil.

Mambo Number Five In my mind, this song and Livin' La Vida Loca are the same. Latin inspired dance tunes that rocked the floor in the summer of '99. It's taken me 18 months to rewrite them. Poor. It was originally supposed to do this song about Matt, but it never quite worked out, because he has no manners. Instead, Jay took up the mantle, and here it is. Lou Bega, of course, provided the original.

Lay All Your Love On Me Someone, somewhere, probably Michal, gave me a reputation as someone who made a good person to talk to with your problems. In the last few years, I've listened to everyone's woes, and collected the worst of it for future blackmail/wedding speeches. However, I really am honoured that so many of you have seen me as a good enough friend to talk to in that manner, and now you're all sorting your lives out, here's a song to say thank you. ABBA did the first version, but I think it lacks the panache of this one. *G*

Mamma Mia For the last two years, Michal and myself have been convening regularly to shoot, stab, blow up and generally slaughter one another and our friends. Problem is, Michal and I are too good at the games, no offence to anyone else, and tend to end up being far ahead of the rest. Between us there's little or no difference, so this could go on forever. ABBA, again, did the original of this song, and while searching for the lyrics, I found a Spanish version which I've also included here.

Phantom of the Opera In a sense, this song returns me to my musical roots, no pun intended. Certainly, before the Beautiful South changed the way I looked at music, I was sharpening my musical milk teeth on Andrew Lloyd Webber's theatrical extravaganza's. This is one of the pieces from the hugely successful 'Phantom of the Opera' musical, a tale of lost love, betrayal, grand passion, and prejudice. Who else but Matt and Diana, then, to write this one about?

Your chronicler, and friends, on a big icecube. It was nothing compared to the cocktail we put it in, though...

Copacabana Breaking from tradition, I present a song entirely written by someone else. This song, the full title being 'Star Wars Copacabana' is distributed freely by it's author at Napster, so if you have any interest in Star Wars, check it out. Apparently the author's name is Weird Al Yankovich...

Copacabana Here is the definitive version of Copacabana, featuring every verse I've ever written for it. Those covered are now: Michal, Matt, Terence, Jonathan, Diana, Catherine, Maria, Lucy and God. As always, thanks to Barry Manilow.

Back For Good As some of you may know, my current state of singleness occasionally dwells on my mind. Here, then, is an optimistic look at what lies ahead for me. Gary Barlow and Take That are responsible for the original, of course.

The Lover After Me Savage Garden's beautiful love song meets occasional insomniac. Unsurprisingly, a whole new song emerges. I get bored very easily, and I've had a lot of experience of insomnia (I can't get no sleep...) to draw upon to write this song.