About The Songs

Not all the songs listed here will necessarily make it onto the finished album, but just in case they do, Jim has provided notes to the writing of each song.

Demo versions of each song (in MP3 format), will be added as they become available.

Baby, I (Click to Hear the Song)
This actually started life as a maudlin love song written not long after I broke up with my partner some years ago. About a year after I first wrote it, I decided to turn it into a completely different type of song, and this is the result.

Barbarous Rituals (Click to Hear the Song)
This song began as an imaginary conversation between myself and the American singer-songwriter, Ani DiFranco. It all started like this…
When I first started surfing the Internet, I made lots of interesting discoveries along the way. One name I discovered on this journey was that of the American singer-songwriter, Ani DiFranco. One day I went looking for her Internet site. Searching for the obvious one like; anidifranco.com I found a site that had been cyber-squatted by a carpetbagger who was no doubt hoping that one day Ani might pay a substantial amount of money to buy the site’s name back.
I remember wondering at the time whether Ani knew about the cyber-squatter. I imagined having a conversation with her about the matter, and her reply was the basis for the first verse which went something like: "There’s not much I can do about it. People will choose you, and use and abuse you, and then cast you aside like dust on the wind."
That was pretty much the extent of this imaginary conversation. The piece of paper containing this first verse draft sat next to my bed for days, if not weeks, before I started to seriously write what eventually became Barbarous Rituals.

Dance Like No-one is Watching (Click to Hear the Song)
The story behind this song is far too involved to encapsulate in a few paragraphs here, so I have added a separate page which details the background to the song. Go to that page here...

Dance The Night Away 
Not sure were this one came from. I vaguely remember conceiving it as a late 50s, early 60s type of pop song. Nothing too deep and meaningful here, but it may turn out OK with right sort of treatment.

Fashion Pages (Click to Hear the Song)
Jim's Note: Hmm, this one goes w-a-y back. So far back that I can't even remember what triggered the song now. Clearly I had a 'bee in my bonnet' about the fashion industry when I wrote it. But I was also writing about the pointlessness of pretending to be other than who we really are. 

Good Days, Better Days 
Jim's Note: My older brother, George, is an eternal optimist. If you ask him, he will tell you there are only two kinds of days - "Good days, and better days". I woke up out of a dream early one morning with elements of the chorus drifting through my subconscious. Thanks for the inspiration, George, this one's for you.

I Call Your Name 
Ending a relationship is guaranteed to provide any songwriter with enough material to fill several notebooks. This is one I wrote, following just such a break-up.

It's Not Love (Click to Hear the Song)
On Saturday, May 23, 1998 in my notes with this song I wrote: "The phrase ‘It’s not a song until someone sings it’, has been kicking around in my head for a while, now. The first phrase especially seems pertinent because I have been sitting on my songs for so long, and doing nothing with them. One could adapt the phrase to many things; It’s not a book until someone reads it; it’s not a car until someone drives it; etc, etc." Of such obscure beginnings are song created!

I Have To Dance (Click to Hear The Song)
I was listening to my favourite community radio station (3DDD-FM) one morning, and heard them play a song with a very funky beat. I remember thinking, That song has a great groove to it - I should write a song that also has a groovy beat to it too. And I Have To Dance is the result. It really was that straight forward. In fact, I started the song by describing exactly what happened: I heard a song with a groovy beat/made me want to tap my feat, etc... 

Let’s Go to Buenos Aires 
I was in the city, and just as I was passing a travel shop, a couple of women walking in the opposite direction, also passed directly in front of the business. One of the women said to the other, 'Let’s go to Buenos Aires', and I immediately thought to myself – that sounds like a song title to me. And what do you know? It was...

Miss Julie (Click to Hear The Song)
This song was triggered by another completely different song. Like I Have To Dance (above), I was listening to not just the same radio station, but the same program (although about two weeks apart), and this decidedly strange song seemed to materialize out of my subconscious.

Some People (Click to Hear the Song)
Written in response to a short residency I once had in a well known city venue. It had the potential to be quite soul destroying, but thankfully, after four weeks the owners didn't ask me back! At least I got this song out of it, so the experience wasn't totally wasted.

The Future is Yours (Click to Hear the Song)
I can't remember what triggered this song, but it was conceived as a song for children, and young adults. At the time, I was working with chronically ill children and adolescents with cancer, and this was my attempt to write a positive, upbeat song that might appeal to them. 

The Stars Are Singing (Click to Hear The Song)
A song that originally started out as a poem written by my long-time friend, Deirdre Mills. I heard Deirdre recite the poem one time and immediately thought it had possibilities for being turned into a song, and this is the result. 

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