A new song, not yet recorded. I wrote it for someone in my life who was suffering with chronic anxiety, and the misery and lack of self-esteem that comes with it. Anyway, she's cured now, so I'm gonna make millions from this song when I release it…. :P

You got no known weaknesses
Don’t you know your broken armour 
Still fits you

It’s not you against the universe
No but if it was then I would
Bet on you

When you get the fear
A song appears
Ask yourself to dance

Rage and tears
That’s Radical Happiness
Give yourself a chance

We all break promises
But so long as you make new ones
That will do

Each morning you wake astonishes
Can you try to live like you are
Someone new

When you get the fear
A song appears
Ask yourself to dance

Rage and tears
That’s Radical Happiness
Give yourself a chance

This is my cover of the Chaka Khan dancefloor classic from 1982. When I was a kid, I played gigs in pubs in Blackpool, and often my audience was mostly elderly ladies spending their pension money on bacardi! Quite often they'd tolerate my original songs and blues covers for only so long, and eventually a representative would be sent over to remonstrate with me. "Excuse me young man, please can you play something we can dance to?" So this is my emergency disco song.

This one's new. It's inspired by the work of The Swan Song Project, who help people facing the end of their life to create their own original song. I'll be releasing it as a charity single ASAP.

Please stop listening, these are useless words
Hope they disappear, soon as they’ve been heard
Oh but my mind refuses to turn itself off 
I take the deepest breath but all the air is lost

I will not say goodbye
Not leaving you behind 
So look me in the eye
And hear my silent song

TIME IS MOTION AND I CAN’T STOP,
TIME IS MOTION AND I CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC STOP THE MUSIC,
THE INCANTATIONS ARE CALLING ME CALLING ME CALLING ME, 
DON’T LET THIS BE THE END

Recall the clearest night, that you have ever seen
A trillion different worlds, a trillion different dreams 
Just pick your favourite one, I’m waiting for you there
I’ll keep the kettle on, I’ll keep the weather fair

I will not say goodbye
I’m not leaving you behind 
So look me in the eye
And hear my silent song

DARKNESS IS A DISTANT LIGHT
DARKNESS IS A DISTANT LIGHT
THE CONSTELLATIONS ARE CALLING ME CALLING ME CALLING ME 
WON’T LET THIS BE THE END

I will not say goodbye
And leave you all behind 
So look me in the eye
And hear my silent 

This tune is the only instrumental on Hypertension, and I wrote it shortly after leaving music college where I studied for a degree in Jazz, which is why I never got a real job.

It's so-named because when I was a kid, I went through a long phase of playing nothing but blues. I wanted to be Walter Trout. Or Bob Brozman if I was on an acoustic day! But then I went on to study modal rock, then jazz. After all that when I went back to trying to compose blues, I'd learnt too many chords and couldn't keep things simple anymore, to my great frustration. So this song is one of those Stupid Blues - it starts out like a blues, but pretty soon it gets VERY stupid.

Miscarriage is devastating. So difficult to understand. It’s like grieving in reverse: Instead of memories, you have hopes to hold on to. Who are you mourning?

I believe in a soul - I have to now - in as much as something to represent the difference between being alive, or inert. The force that is at the source of every person, the fundamental burning core. That place inside us where, when we are totally alone and in darkness, we are all the same. And, being the same, never truly alone.

This music was written in a blur after driving home from an abandoned tour in Germany to collapse inward in grief. I'm sorry to everyone I let down then. I can remember the hour or so it took to write only as a single snapshot from outside myself.

It is dedicated with constant love to a life never lived. I wish we’d got to meet you.

I came from a tiny community of weirdos, huddled together in dark, loud nightclubs, in a freak of a town. When I moved to the big city, and was suddenly buffeted in immense clouds of faceless people and traffic, it was really scary. Every face I saw, whether static, opposite me on the train, or smearing past in a millisecond from the window - I was acutely aware that they were all someone I would never know. Feeling alone, but aware of so many lives, all affecting each other in unknowable ways. That’s what this song is about.

Butterfly
amplified
into a
hurricane
And again it lifts me off my feet and blows my mind

Follow the
human herd
against a
spinning world
Until it turns so fast they're walking past themselves

Don't beat your wings in my direction
A victim of unnatural selection
That could be me
Floating down

Stand atop
mountain high
shouting out
"Why do I
Have nothing at all to say, I crawl from day to day"

Sticks and stones may bust up my bones
But silence never leaves you alone
And when I jump I'll be
Floating down

Kisses blown
overflow
into a
hurricane
And again it lifts me off my feet and blows my mind

Don't beat your wings in my direction
A victim of unnatural selection
That could be me
Floating down

My take on the ancient Ukrainian ‘shchedrivka’ folk song, known in the West as a Christmas classic. The original lyrics are about seeing the first swallow of the year, meaning that winter must be nearly over and spring is coming. The music is built around a polyrhythm - three beats in one voice overlap with two beats in the other - generating a powerful ritual chant or dance, which was believed to bring strength and courage to anyone who heard it.

I reinterpreted the music a fair bit, so when I play it live I introduce it with a different title - Shchedryk v Hrad. Hrad is the Ukrainian word for hail or hailstorm, so you can think of it as A Swallow In A Hailstorm. Hrad is also the name the Russian army gave to their rocket-launcher tanks, which shoot a hailstorm of destruction, like those which totalled the apartment of my friend Serhii Radzetskyi and his family. This piece is dedicated to him, and my other Ukrainian friends Inna Engstrom and Vlad Chernyshov, and all those that have suffered as a result of the war.

Telepathy is dedicated to anyone who's been so afflicted with doubts and fears that it affects the way they interact with people and ends up in the nightmare of insomnia. The moral of the story is a simple one: Never go to bed on an argument. (Don't, FFS.)

Say, say what you want,
Cos I, I can't read your mind,
Please, please teach me Telepathy.

I can't get to sleep,
My thoughts are my enemies,
They sing to me
A carousel song
Revolving around my head,
With what you said...

I'm so tired but so awake,
Solutions come but much too late.

Say, say what you want,
Cos I, I can't read your mind,
Please, please teach me Telepathy.

I'd die for your sins,
We both cry in sympathy
With our cruelty,
And nobody wins,
But I lose more expertly,
So you turn and flee...

The saints come marching in,
I sing myself to sleep again.

Say, say what you want,
Cos I, I can't read your mind,
Please, please teach me Telepathy.

I can't get to sleep, my songbird captivity,
Oh sing to me!

This song is about I plant a grew in my 10-feet-square backyard in the Leeds inner city. I put the seeds in a tiny tub, but it grew like a Roald Dahl story until it took over the whole yard, then one day the sun shone extra hard and 100 flowers all went "Pop!". It was amazing, so I wrote a song for it.

Born in your tiny prison cell
A million times smaller than you are
One single drop, and you're risen up
Afraid of the dark

Bloom
Bloom

You crack up through the pavement
In super, super slow motion
Though your back is gently breaking
You reach for the light

Bloom
Bloom

We can see everything
We can hear everything
We can see everything
We can hear everything

Weakness is not your weakness
You are what you grow into
You're not what you were

Bloom
Bloom

It's a twisted love song. It's about obsession. It's the song I had the most comments about from the album, which really surprised me, just because it's so prog - nearly ten minutes long, two time signatures, shreddy guitar solo, even cameo appearances from other songs...

I'll tell you all of my fears
I'll tell you all of my shame
If you'll just lend me an ear
That's all I want

There is no word I can say
There is no chord I can play
To make me more of a man
And that's all I want

That's Everything...

Take my hand I'll lead you and we'll never be alone
Take my hand I'll lead you and we'll never be alone

The city's making you ill
It's like you're running uphill
Let's jump off the treadmill
Just close your eyes

I'm gonna build you a house
I'm gonna build you a wall
To keep you safe from it all
Just close your eyes

That's Everything...

Take my hand I'll lead you and we'll never be alone
Take my hand I'll lead you and we'll never be alone

Back at the dawning of time
When god made Everything
He had but one thing in mind
To make you mine

You're everything to me....

I chose to cover this song for two reasons: ONE: I love it. A lot. Vince Clarke is a genius and Andy Bell is an icon. TWO: It's the ultimate anthem of pride. My hometown is as queer as folk, as we say in the north of England, and so it's always been very accepting in that sense. I believe that the more you accept others, the more accepting you make your world, and the more you'll be accepted yourself.

This song is by my ultimate guitar hero, Michael Hedges. It's one of his simplest songs, guitar-wise, but it was the first of his I ever learned, by ear from the CD, and I decided to relearn it after I broke my arm this year. It's like my musical security blanket. 

The woman of the world turns slowly
Days are drawn, seasons start to change
She finds that natural boundary
Her eyes change colour, sounds begin to fade
I slowly turn away
From the woman of the world

The woman of the world holds me
To colder courses farther out to sea
Where no one really knows me
If the anchor's out, boarders love and leave
She is waiting on the beach
For the woman of the world

No one hears the wind
She whispers every changing season
Through every falling rain
I listen without reason
Without reason

'Til the woman of the world shows me
The secret seed she planted in my heart
Her breath is cool to sway me
Roots shoot down, her eyes begin to shine
My love runs leaf and vine
Through the woman of the world
Woman of the world

This song is about a runaway girl from Glasgow I met while volunteering at a homeless refuge.

It's got easier to play the shred solo since I had Steve Vai sign the back of my guitar. He wrote "To Wilma, be good to Jon. Love Steve."

Hey child wearing somebody else's shoes
What's the matter, got your feet dirty on the ground?
You look funny, wearing your mother's heels
Working nights, and then later you're taking to ground

Buy you dinner just to put something on your bones
Give you money, expect nothing in return
I don't love you, but somebody surely should

I wrote this song about a Hindu goddess named Saraswati. She lives at the bottom of a waterfall, legend has it.

She's the goddess of music and discipline among other things, a combination which seems strange to some people, but not to me. So I wrote this tune as a kinda instruction manual for myself on how to perform. That's why I often open concerts with it.

The second verse is in Urdu - thanks to Mohammed Abbas for the translation help.

When faces surround you and seem to see through you
Show everything, show everything
Just try to forget them they’ll go if you let them
Don’t know anything, don’t know anything

Just blow through the static it’s all automatic
You’re thinking too much, you’re thinking too much
And don’t concentrate let the force of it claim you
Are you feeling enough, are you feeling enough?

As Sarasvati plays, the smoke lifts from the haze
I listen for her call from down the waterfall
Her silver melodies are rising on the steam
I listen to her call from down the waterfall

Jab lowg tumhare pas ho nazarshanass
Dekane do unhey, dekane do unhey
Bus bhool jao ke koi dekhta hai
Jesay tumhaien kuch yad nahinhai

Bus sab phook do har ek ruut key silsiley ko
Aur ziada mat socho, aur ziada mat socho
Ab ghor mat khar must ho iis jharney ki dhara mein bekhar
Aur mat soch ehsaas kar, aur mat soch ehsaas kar

As Sarasvati plays, the smoke lifts from the haze
I listen for her call from down the waterfall
Her silver melodies are rising on the steam
I listen to her call from down the waterfall

This is a trip-hop / jazz tune about... erm... intimacy.

The guitar solo is tough - it's real-deal 8-finger-tapping, Stanley Jordan style. Or at least as close as I can get to that on a jumbo acoustic guitar strung with 15-68 gauge strings! Scary on-stage moments galore.

In the morning the unforgiving sunlight tears the night apart
Then in the evening, a day of living later, you’re bruised and battlescarred

When the truth hits you, she softens the blow
And you still fall down like you always did, but she never lets you hit the floor...

The world melts down into my pillow
I’m wading into the Afterglow

The seed that I’ve sown, now it has grown and it curls its vines around me
The flowers bloom, their thick perfume intoxifies me

But she breathes new oxygen
And the mouth to mouth sends us flying south to where the weather’s warm for sure

The world melts down into my pillow
I’m wading into the Afterglow

Gloria was my first proper girlfriend, I was about sixteen. When I was a kid our world was tribal, you had to be either a "townie", or a "mosher", or you were nothing. Gloria was a townie, I was a mosher. So it was a forbidden love, crossing the mosher/townie divide, frowned upon by friends and even family, very much like the situation of Romeo and Juliet. Except that Gloria's family was more... violent than Juliet's family. It's a country song, really, and a waltz. Pure romance. Kinda.

I remember that kiss, It was a moment of pure bliss
My stomach went tight, My head set alight, And I thought “hey what’s this?”
I remember your arms, And a few other bodyparts,
And I knew I’d make sure, That nothing of yours, Would go unexplored

And I sang...
“I don’t need no food, Just give me Gloria
And I don’t need no music, When I’m with her”

I remember your dad, Cos he had a skinhead
And he had a tattoo, That the years had turned blue, It said “don’t fuck with me”

I remember your house, In the yard was a kitchen sink
And your mum would make tea, And Benson’s for three, And tip me the wink

And I sang...
“I don’t need no food, Just give me Gloria
And I don’t need no music, When I’m with her”

I remember your kiss punch, Cos you nearly brought back my lunch
But the most painful part, Was I knew that you’d hate me for evermore

But I think of you still, In fact you’re actually in my will
I leave you my car, It’s been pretty far, And it doesn’t like hills

And I sing...
“I don’t need no food, Just give me Gloria
And I don’t need no music, When I’m with her”

I can't play slide guitar, but I do anyway. Sorry.

Blind, blind, I’m throwing punches in the dark
Blind, blind, I’m throwing punches in the dark
You launch a heart attack, And my defense is blown apart

You found the secret I can’t keep
You found my weakness underneath
I surrender

Run, run, a river's running out your mouth,
Run, run, a river runs right out your mouth,
You love to push me in, Just so that you can fish me out

You found the secret I can’t keep
You found my weakness underneath
I surrender

Please, please, there must be something I can say
Please, please, there must be something I can say
You sting me tenderly, Then take the antidote away

This song is an angry metaphor about Western anti-terror propaganda, with a president or prime minister represented as a Wild West snake oil salesman, striking fear into the hearts of the townspeople with tales of scary invaders, and using that as an excuse to send The Weather Machine to far-flung poverty stricken regions in the East. SPOILER ALERT: The Machine is supposed to bring rain to the desert to transform it into a Western paradise, but instead it rains down fire and destruction.

Musically it's a metal-heavy Arabic-influenced onslaught. It might offend the sensibilities of some of my acoustic purist fans (sorry folks), but to me being a songwriter is sometimes about more than painting pretty pictures.

It’s high noon at the Last Chance Saloon
Second home to racketeers
Where magic man sells his masterplan
He’s a global pioneer

He says “Villains roam towards our homes
And they’ll burn away the clouds,
But my new invention, my weather engine
Is already eastward bound”

Terraform the desert into paradise
With our weather machine
We’ll perform the necessary sacrifice
With our weather machine

So the giant device spewing liquid ice
Is flown to foreign lands
Where the locals curse their forever thirst
And the neverending sands

But the rain falls hot with a kilowatt
Of the magic man’s bloodlust
And funny little rivers form
Black ribbons in the dust

Terraform the desert into paradise
With our weather machine
We’ll perform the necessary sacrifice
With our weather machine

Spinning words at the hungry herds
He’s twisting a new truth
It’s the magic man and his faithful gang
Dreaming of eternal youth

He says “Villains roam towards our homes
And they’ll burn away the clouds
But worry not cos I wrote the plot
And I know how it turns out”

I have many mental health diagnoses, worn like medals earned in a war against myself. When depression grips, I hide in worlds sheltered from human emotion. One time I was hunkered down watching a documentary about fish. This was new footage, of undiscovered creatures who live in the very deepest parts of the very deepest oceans. Down there it's cold, bleak, there's no light, and almost no life. The fish that roam this wasteland alone are hideous beasts with terrifying fangs and luminescent lures.

Thinking about these tragic monsters left me pretty upset. For days. Until eventually I realised, they must come from somewhere. There must be a daddy hideous sea monster, and a mummy hideous sea monster, and, despite the odds, they must meet, and fall in love, and make little baby hideous sea monsters.

And is that so very different from us? So I wrote this love song.

Loneliness is living
When you're swimming in the gloom,
Everywhere is silent,
Nothing is ever new.
An underwater comet,
I fly so gracelessly,
Open my eyes for a moment,
Just to check I still can't see

We are deep sea fishes
Beautiful to nobody,
We are navigating nowhere
Blindly through infinity

A single point of glowing,
A beacon in the dark,
The signal of the hunter,
I carry the same mark.
The distant shape is growing,
A ghostly yellow light,
O, water slowly flowing,
Take me to my love tonight

We are deep sea fishes
Beautiful to nobody,
We are navigating nowhere
Blindly through infinity

I hide myself from vision,
My strange and twisted form,
You see your own reflection,
I see myself in yours.
A fluttering of thermals
Holds us warm and close,
The things that seem eternal
are the things that change the most.

We are deep sea fishes
Beautiful only to we,
We are navigating nowhere
Together through infinity

If it’s your job to protect another person, and that overwhelms you with anxiety sometimes, remember that the most important job a cocoon has, is to break open and let the being inside it go free. And if you’re a cocoon for yourself: Remember that the caterpillar has to dissolve itself into mush to become a beautiful, rule-breaking moth. So if you're a sobbing mess wrapped up in your bed right now: Keep going, you're gonna turn out amazing.

This song is for my intrepid daughter, Indigo. “Stop worrying dad.” - Indi, aged 3. I will try.

Wrap up her limbs so she can lie
Spinning silk around her
Watch her inhaling fireflies
Illuminate her from inside

Got to
Cocoon her
Construct
A new womb for her
But will I
Teach her my fears
If I try
To protect her

Unfurl her wings so they can dry
Open to the sun
I cannot bear to watch her fly
Reduce my singing to a sigh

Got to
Cocoon her
Construct
A new womb for her
But will I
Teach her my fears
If I try
To protect her

Gigs are my safe place. To be in a room with someone giving their most direct expression of their secret selves. Sharing that with an audience in blissful, reverent communion, whether of peace or chaos. It’s sacred.

Pop Idol. The X Factor. [Your Country]’s Got Talent. The Voice. I hate them. They take my place of safety and love and reduce it to a place of fear and judgement. They take a kid who loves to sing. Tell them - You’ve got 60 seconds to make your dreams come true. Fail and it’s back to irrelevance. So they sing, eyes wide with terror and hope. And a celebrity hands down their judgement, like some spoiled, bored god.

It’s the perfect example of how everything is commodified: Not just music, but us and our lives, our dreams - it’s all taken, remade and sold back to us. Whether or not you enjoy this pop song, appreciate the fact that nobody told you to.

Don't wanna be nobody's idol,
Don't got no X-factor inside me,
Don't wanna be another wannabe,
Or a production line facsimile,
I see a single feather floating on a river, floating out to the sea

They make our dreams in factories,
So we don't aspire to what we can't achieve,
So take your fire and take your belief,
And burn, burn, burn, burn,
Burn the factories down

I live in a house built for a seamstress,
I house with half a million Siamese twins,
But now the seamstress lives in India,
She makes us Che Guevara shirts to wear,
She is a single feather floating on a river, floating out to the sea

They make our dreams in factories,
So we don't aspire to what we can't achieve,
So take your fire and take your belief,
And burn, burn, burn, burn,
Burn the factories down

This song was written by my beloved friend Jonny Walker, whose death in 2018 cracked me open and let in the light.

A human whirlwind, Jonny Walker seemed to live two days for every one of mine. Performing, activism, and endlessly helping others. He was loved as a street performer for his emotional openness and honesty, which was entirely genuine. You could be feeling down and he'd just knock the wind out of you with a smile that beamed love and optimism.

He was the most frustrating but rewarding guitar pupil I ever had: Trying to teach him was always like trying to hit a moving target, but what he did with that knowledge was take to the streets and create special moments in people's lives.

His last 18 months were the most painful and scary I have seen anyone endure, and the strength and kindness Jonny showed throughout were an inspiration to me, but in the end it was too much for him, and he took his own life. I desperately miss the support we gave to each other.

I love you mate. I got the last line from this song tattooed on my left forearm. I wish I could show you.

The rain falls harder than before you came,
The rain falls harder now you’ve gone away

I never knew you well, but I knew you more than most,
You’re haunting my dreams like a lingering ghost,
I wait to see you still walking down dark corridors

The rain falls harder than before you came,
The rain falls harder now you’ve gone away

We had it in our hands, but we couldn’t hold on,
For I had seen you there, but when I turned you had gone,
And all of everything was not enough for you

The rain falls harder than before you came,
The rain falls harder now you’ve gone away

I bent my ears to hear all the stories that you told,
You promised me beneath your sheets we’d never grow old,
But like all empty words, you simply slipped away

The rain falls harder than before you came,
The rain falls harder now you’ve gone away

All the things that you said were just lies in your bed,
There are no monsters underneath cos they were all in your head,
And the more that you take the less you get to keep.
 

My cover of the Radiohead classic. I worked out this arrangement about 25 years ago. I played it on my first solo gig, and have been playing it ever since.

Two jumps in a week
I bet you think that's pretty clever, don't you, boy?
Flying on your motorcycle
Watching all the ground beneath you drop

You'd kill yourself for recognition
Kill yourself to never, ever stop
You broke another mirror
You're turning into something you are not

Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Drying up in conversation

You will be the one who cannot talk
All your insides fall to pieces
You just sit there wishing you could still make love

They're the ones who'll hate you
When you think you've got the world all sussed out
They're the ones who'll spit at you
You will be the one screaming out

Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry

Oh, it's the best thing that you've ever had
The best thing that you've ever, ever had
It's the best thing that you've ever had
The best thing you have had is gone away

So don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry