The Bogle Blurb
By Eric Bogle
18 March 2002, South Australia
Bonjour Mes Amis,C'est moi, Ricky. And that's about the limit of my French vocabulary, so I'll continue in my usual boring ungrammatical English. I'm just about to disappear into the bowels of a recording studio for the next two months or so, therefore I thought I'd better write another blurb just in case I do not in fact ever return from those bowels, or, as is more likely, emerge a broken and changed man.
I've been fairly busy over the last two months or so writing songs, and now have a grab-bag of eighteen new songs to choose from. Some of them are not new in the sense that a couple of them were actually written a year or so ago, but none of them have been recorded before, and very few of them have been performed at any of my live concerts. At least I think very few of them have, my memory is not what it was, in fact it never was what it was. I will not be recording all eighteen songs of course, but I want to put them all down in a studio environment and give them all an equal chance, I'm an equal opportunity songwriter. Then I'll sit back and have a good listen and decide what songs to keep and which ones to cut. I won't make any decisions about the songs without input from other people, the Producer, the participating musicians etc. As I've stated before in one of these blurbs, I'm far too close to the songs to make any clear objective judgments about them, so I'll be listening to other peoples' opinions. But of course the final say will be mine, I can only hope my ears and heart don't have too many disagreements.........
And the songs themselves? Well, they're the usual confusing Eric Bogle mixture, designed to give musical directors of music programmes a severe headache, and who deserves a headache more? Some of them I've already told you about, the one about the little girl Elizabeth, and the Anzac horses, and a couple of others (which others? Look in the archive, that's what it's for!). Of the others, the bulk of them were written during the last two months and range from a song about my visit to Graceland, called "Elvis'n'Me" to a Baptist-type hymnal sort of thing called "From the Cradle to the Grave." That one came out of nowhere, and has me a teensy bit worried. In between those two extremes are songs about refugees, junkies, the global economy, September 11th, politicians, personal journeys, blah, blah, blah. I love them all, and they are without doubt the best bunch of songs I have ever written,or at least will be until I get into the studio and start recording them, then it will be wholesale depression time and "why did I ever write this bunch of crap" type of self flagellation, the usual sort of reaction in fact.
Most musicians love recording studios. They can't wait to get into a studio and start playing with all the techno-toys, and twiddling knobs and that sort of thing. I don't like studios much. They're fairly unforgiving, sterile places. Any musical or vocal shortcomings are mercilessly exposed and amplified under their pitiless electronic gaze, and your ego is shredded to pieces by the weight of the dispassionately recorded evidence that proves without a shadow of a doubt that you are in fact a musical klutz with a voice like a coke bottle being crushed under a door. And they're expensive places to practice aversion or regression therapy in as well, there are cheaper ways to have your whole life and reason for living torn to pieces. Apart from that though, I don't mind them too much.
So why bother? A very good question, and one that I'm unsure if I can answer, least of all to myself. Ego of course, footprints in the sand, that type of thing, none of us is immune from the occasional ego-attack, least of all songwriters. Optimism - a childlike belief that you have learned from past mistakes, that you won't repeat them and that this CD will be a lot better than the last fifty you have done. Monetary gain - I am, of course, joking. Poor memory - like a woman who wants to become pregnant again, you tend to forget about the pain and discomfort the last birthing process caused you. And so on ad infinitum....
But the main reason I suspect, at least in my case, is habit and expectation. Writing songs and then recording them is what songwriters do. And I'm a songwriter, it says so on my passport. Ergo, I write songs and then record them. But by the process of recording, my songs are entered into the public record, and hopefully many people who might never get a chance to see one of my concerts will at least get to hear the songs. Because, if you haven't already guessed, that's what it's all about, the songs. Self-deprecating I may be at times to the point of being a pain in the ass, but I confess I love my songs, and I love the process of creating them. I never have made any great claims for them, and never will, but I love 'em all, unashamedly and unabashedly, if for no other reason than that they are mine. I never thought someone like me would ever be able to write songs, and every time I finish one I just get this incredible buzz, and one that has never diminished over the years. Even if recording this CD will cause me some pain (it will, but not as much as I've intimated - I tend to exaggerate a bit), writing the songs remains the incredible high it has always been.
I'm glad I cleared that up - on to other things - there's been a bit of a change on the Bogle band front. Mainly dictated by economics of course, isn't just about everything? I will be touring USA and Canada from September 27th to 7th December this year, as some of you already know. The cost of overseas touring, even for a small band like mine, has become more and more expensive, especially over the last 5 years, so I have had to reluctantly cut the number of musicians down from four to two. The upshot is that I will be touring North America with my old partner-in-crime, John Munro. For those of you who don't know John, he's a brilliant guitarist and mandolinist, and a very good singer and songwriter as well. To cap it all off, he's originally a Scot like me, he comes from Maryhill in Glasgow, so it's a dose of double Scotch for all you lucky North American fans! (What an original witty bon mot).
Not that I won't be working with Jon, Ian and Dave at all in the future, I have 3 gigs with them in April, and they will be involved in my CD. Not only because they're good musicians, but they're reasonably cheap as well. And if economics and geography are favourable, they may well join me again in a future overseas tour. In the meantime Dave O'Neill is going to tour USA and Europe with an Irish fiddler called Liz Doherty, a very good fiddler indeed. Ian is in Finland as I write this, and his recording studio in Canberra is heavily booked as well. While Jon is doing percussion for just about everybody, so they're all fairly well occupied, although they are all understandably disappointed about not being part of the North American tour.
Between now and the North American tour in September I only have about 6 gigs lined up, and that's how I'm going to keep it I think. As I say I'll probably emerge from the recording studio a broken man, and I'll need a recuperative period. Also, I've had a pretty busy last couple of years and need to recharge my batteries a bit. Given the recent band changes I need as well to rethink some future plans, if I can dignify those half-formed, nebulous scattered thoughts in my head by calling them plans. Anyway, it looks like a Winter hibernation for this slothful songwriter.
Not that I'm going to get much peace and quiet, mind you. Three weeks ago Carmel & I aquired a couple of puppies, miniature schnauzers called Ranger and Radar, 4 months old and cheeky with it. Cute as hell though, which has already saved their asses a few times. I'm allowing them a little more time to be puppies, then I'll have to show them who's boss, and I will once I figure it out myself. Anyway, they only have 2 more months to be rumbustious and cheeky, then they're getting The Big Snip. That will slow them down a bit, it certainly slowed me down I can tell you
We've had a few overseas visitors recently, friends of ours finally carrying out their long-delayed threats to visit us in Australia. We've had 3 visitors from USA and two from Canada, and two from New Zealand, which I still regard as an overseas country, although they're just across the pond from us. It was really great to see them all, and reminded both Carmel & I what a precious resource friends are.
And on that note mes enfants, I will say au revoir. Please think of me kindly over the next two months or so as I'm toiling at the coal-face, trying to hew diamonds out of the gray slag-heap of the recording studio. (You can tell I'm a songwriter, can't you?)
All the best
Eric
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