WATCH
Song For A Rainy Day
Song For A Rainy Day is the 9th single from the album The Faintest Idea.
The guitar tab is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
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.
Swallow You Whole
Swallow You Whole is the 8th single from the album The Faintest Idea.
The guitar tab is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
This song is weird. It's my attempt at the calm frenzy and cold warmth of Drum & Bass. The lyrics are about being consumed by need. This music captures how weird I feel, all of the time. Always somehow chasing and fleeing at the same time.
Butterfly Hurricane
Butterfly Hurricane is the 7th single from the album The Faintest Idea.
The guitar tab is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
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.
Production/effects/synths: Andy Sorenson (Thanks for making my music beautiful.)
Check You're Still Breathing
Check You're Still Breathing is the 6th single from the album The Faintest Idea.
The guitar tab is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
Nobody tells you before you have a newborn child that they sometimes stop breathing for a few seconds while they are asleep. You don’t even realise you were listening to them sleep, until you notice the silence with a rising panic. You wait for the next inhale, and the wave of relief it brings.
But soon inevitably you’re captivated by the peaceful perfection of your sleeping child. Until you notice another silent stillness... Oh no, the breathing has stopped again. But this time - It’s you.
Until The Sun Destroys The Earth
Until The Sun Destroys The Earth is the 5th single from the album The Faintest Idea.
The guitar tab is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
Once I was sitting in the balcony of a theatre, waiting for a concert to start. Up there you’re near the spotlights, and I was watching the dust particles glowing and flurrying in the hot white beam, and it looked to me like a galaxy but almost infinitely sped up. Each second was a million years.
And I thought of the seconds I yearn to make last a million years, the moments of closest, breath-swapping intimacy, the dropping of your ultimate defences, with the one you love.
To take that small, fleeting moment and make it vast and enduring. That’s what that song is for.
For Natasha.
The Ghost Inside You
The Ghost Inside You is the 4th single from the album The Faintest Idea.
The guitar tab is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
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.
Dream Factories
Dream Factories is the third single from the album The Faintest Idea.
The guitar tab is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
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.
Deep Sea Fishes
Deep Sea Fishes was released on September 18th 2020, as the second preview single from the album The Faintest Idea, out October 16th 2020 - pre-order the album here: jongomm.com/new-album-the-faintest-idea
The guitar tab for Deep Sea Fishes is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
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.
Cocoon
Cocoon was released on August 12th 2020, as the first preview single from the album The Faintest Idea, out October 16th 2020 - pre-order the album here: jongomm.com/new-album-the-faintest-idea
The guitar tab is available here: jongomm.com/guitar-tabs.
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.