Alan Chapman teaches song-writing as a healing therapy, and is a member of International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine and the Sound Healers Association
https://www.iphm.co.uk/directory/find-a-professional-practitioner/alan-chapman/
Here are a few of my finished and recently started songs. Very many more are further below, with song notes. I’ve been a song-writer for over 50 years. The songs on this page are all written since about 2015, mindful that the previous decades of my life (I was born in 1957) and my ancestry (including past lives I believe) are the energies of the soul that enable the creativity. Everyone has songs in their heart, in many different ways.
Please note that my phone dems are a very inferior sort of recording compared with the many professionally produced songs further down the list.
Drops (Just Like A Bulb In The Snow) – Rough phone dem. Written 11-16Feb 2026. Song #89. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/drops.
Light – Rough phone dem. Written 8-11Feb 2026. Song #88. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/light.
Healing To Be Done – Rough phone dem. Written 6-8Feb 2026. Song #87. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/healing-to-be-done.
Whoosh – Rough phone dem. Written 1-6Feb 2026. Song #86. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/whoosh.
Rubbing Shoulders With Nature – Rough phone dem. Written 31Jan-1Feb 2026. Song #85. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/rubbing-shoulders-with-nature.
The Texture Of Our Tides – Rough phone dem. Written 28-30th Jan 2026. Song #84. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/the-textures-of-our-tides.
Note To Self – Rough phone dem. Written 27 Jan 2026. Song #83. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/note-to-self.
Onions And Chips – A rough phone dem song about the coastal pollution in the winter storms of 2025/26. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/onions-and-chips. This is song #82.
And This Song, Emerges, Through Me (I’ve Been Away) – Rough phone dem, 20th Jan 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/and-this-song-emerges-through-me. This is song #81.
Force Of Faith – Improved rough phone dem, later 18th Jan 2026, see below. #80
Force Of Faith – Extremely rough phone dem, 18th Jan 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/the-force-of-faith-my-new-song (The first decent new song to emerge through me since the end of 2024.)
Bend Me Some Space Time – finished Rick Willson production, Alan vocals and guitars; all else Rick Wilson – #54 below
Wait And See – finished brilliant Rick Willson production; Alan lead vocals and guitars, Rick Willson backing vocals, guitars, bass, Dave Anderson drums – #2 below.
Is There A Moment – rough phone dem 20 Dec 2024, perhaps the final version – #79 below.
Property of Bliss – finished brilliant Rick Willson production Nov 2024. James Campbell on brass and woodwind (saxophones, clarinets, etc). Rick Willson bass, elec guitars, drums, percussion, Dave Anderson drums, Alan guitars and vocals. #4 below.
But I Know These Flames – finished brilliant production (and lap steel slide guitar) by Rick Willson Sept 2024, inc Danny Willson’s brilliant 12-string guitar work. #50 below, with musicians credits and alternative finished production.
Show Our Children – finished brilliant Rick Willson production Sept 2024. #5 below, with musicians credits.
Probably Loving You Always (She Kept The Letter) – rough phone dem 12 Nov 2024. #77 below. It’s a true story.
The Inside Of Our Heart – rough phone dem 6th Oct 2024 – another true story of sorts. #76 below.
Darlin’ (Do You Want Me?) – rough phone dem 5th Sep 2024, #74 below.
Cowboy Song – rough phone dem 21st August 2024, #73 below.
Almost Packed – rough phone dem 9th Aug 2024, a song I started just before I moved to Peacehaven, and finished in Peacehaven. #72 below.
Just Another Angel (Another Strange Old Thing) – it’s a simple rough phone recording made on 25 Nov 2023. #63 below.
And here’s Pink Bungalow, written in a few days Dec 2023 – this rough phone dem including mouth trumpet playout 30 Dec 2023 – this song (#65), initially as just the first two verses, manifested where I’m going, see the notes for ‘Peacehaven’ (#64).
Here’s a big-production finished mix (12th Oct 2023) of my song It’s Okay, song number 1 below.
And here’s my raw live single-take of my song Best I Can Do – from the Sept 2020 Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions.
If you’re interested in my metabolic health coaching and educational work, my music and creativity, and especially my growth to fearlessness via lived experience, these are my songs and stories – learnings and teachings – in progress.
Many of my songs are finished or nearly finished. It’ll be at least a quintuple album initially 🙂 because besides what’s here, I’ve other songs, and they keep coming.
I’m gradually adding more song notes, explaining how they were written and recorded, which is for my own understanding, and anyone interested in songwriting.
The songs explain my own story and quite a lot else, from my point of view, and in my experience.
Aptly, song number 48, ‘A Simple Man’, is a sort of life story up until 2017. Maria took/takes me to the stars. Liane is the borrowed angel.
Also, IMHO/experience, my brief Substack podcast/article featuring and adding further context to William ‘Bill’ Tillier’s paper at the 1996 Dabrowski Congress, about energies, realities, consciousness and subconscious, and what we make real for ourselves, explains a lot. Bill Tillier’s brilliance, compassionate sensitivity, humility and resilience, despite and perhaps because of his health condition, are transcendent. Bill and I met in 2015/16, soon after his wife and my partner Liane died by suicide. Bill saved my life, and I believe I helped Bill too. Bill’s work aligns with the works and compassionate humanity of Sharon Drew Morgen and Robert Temple, and with my own ideas about infinite universes and my experiences and increasing use of existential and plasma energies.
Also IMHO/experience Einstein was wrong about virtually everything. We can look to aboriginal ancient wisdoms for deeper truths about realities, energies, life, death, pre-conception, the nature of the ‘soul’, nutrition and health, everything else too. Do we know who and what we are, when we explore consciousness and subconsciousness, individually and collectively? Do the world and ‘universe(s)’ change, or instead do we change, in how we see and sense ourselves, and therefore how we see and sense all else?
Stories of healing and growth are often very helpful, because stories and songs – like dance, laughter, nature, pure water, sunshine, nutrition, sleep and other vital lifestyle factors – are how we’ve evolved, via natural holistic immunity and healing, via past traumas of the mind, body and soul.
Anyway, we each find our own ways to make our own truths, sense, light and joy of life. Happy days, even the traumas, because that’s how we grow to absolute fearlessness. “Do we make life hell because we fear death that is not?” Perhaps so. We each make our own universes, and in many ways we are all one, and with everything. Are the healing energies of neuroplasticity and collective consciousness and subconscious infinitely more powerful than we imagine, or are they actually what we imagine 🙂
Again, some songs are nearly finished. Most aren’t. I’m still adding songs and increasingly more song notes, explaining how they were written and recorded.
Songs completed are:
- #1 It’s Okay
- #2 Wait And See
- #4 Property of Bliss
- #5 Show Our Children
- #11 Being Held
- #9 One Door (Slipping Away)
- #50 But I Know These Flames
- #15 to #22 (The Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions)
- #77 Probably Loving You Always (She Kept The Letter)
- #78 Naked In Bed
- #54 Bend Me Some Space Time
New songs are being added after #50. Before #50 it’s not chronological. So, to hear the newest songs go to #50 and beyond.
Rick Willson is the genius helping me among others, notably Dave Anderson (drums and percussion), and Daryl Kirkland (Coalville sessions/raw dems) to make this music happen. Rick’s been helping me, beyond words, since 2015, and also 2010-15 (Ploughed Heart).
More genius players/instruments/info are being added.
If you are a singer/musician and want to be involved, or interested in song-writing or anything else, please let me know.
Thanks all 🙂
RW = recording/producing by Rick Willson, Anstey, Leics.
DK = recording/producing by Daryl Kirkland, Coalville, Leics.
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1 It’s Okay – Final mix, 12th Oct 2023 – Alan vocals, guitars, Rick Willson guitars, bass, guitar-banjos; Adam Seymour guitars; Dave Anderson drums. (RW)
It’s Okay – with Dave drums, smoother mix (RW)
It’s Okay – Adam guitars high in mix, before Dave drums (RW)
It’s Okay – earlier balanced mix before Adam guitars (RW)
Coalville session version below
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2 Wait And See – finished version 10 Feb 2025, with Rick Willson’s backing vocals, mix/production (RW).
Wait And See – with Rick telecasters and basses (RW)
Wait And See – with Dave drums high in mix (RW)
Wait And See – Alan guide vocal, guitars, Rick BVs and lap steel slide guitar – Rick guide programmed drums (RW)
Coalville session version below
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3 Best I Can Do – This is a final version, after I nailed a few decent vocal takes on 9th Oct 2023. This mix 16th Oct 2023. The long instrumental playout is intentional because it’s so beautiful. Rick Willson guitars, bass, Nick Murphy drums. There’ll be other alternative versions of this to come. (RW)
Best I can do – Alan rubbish vocals, just a guide. Rick Willson guitars, bass, Nick Murphy drums. I wrote this in 2016 and still couldn’t sing it properly 🙂 hence the different takes to try put together a decent guide vocal – more explanation in the notes at the end of this page (RW)
Best I Can Do – raw single take version from the Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions that is my best recorded vocal so far (DK)
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4 Property of Bliss – Finished version Nov 2024, James Campbell brass and woodwind (saxophones, clarinets, etc), Rick bass, elec guitars, drums, percussion, Dave Anderson drums, Alan guitars and vocals.
Property of Bliss – Rick’s bass added (high in mix) and with new lead vocal, take 1 followed by take 2 to breakdown 🙂 (RW)
Property of Bliss – Dave drums x 1 centre, Rick drums x 2 panned left and right, high in mix plus drums only track (RW)
Property of Bliss – Rick drums high in mix (RW)
Coalville session version below
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5 Show Our Children (Paddle In Your Socks) – Brilliant finished Rick Willson production Sept 2024. Dave Anderson drums, bongos. Rick Willson basses, electric guitars and other magic. Alan guitars and vocals. (RW)
Show our Children (Paddle in Your Socks) – Dave drums + bongos high in mix. (RW)
Show Our Children (Paddle In Your Socks) – earlier version with horns/choir/BVs guides (RW)
Coalville session version below
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6 Beauty of The Flaunch – with Dave drums, high in mix (RW)
Beauty Of The Flaunch – before Dave drums added (RW)
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7 Hard Wired To Cry – Finished version Sept 2024. Rick drums, elec guitars, bass, Alan vocal and guitars (RW)
Hard Wired To Cry – Rick drums, bass, Alan guide voc take 2 no echo (RW)
Hard Wired To Cry – Rick drums, bass, Alan guide voc take 1 no echo (RW)
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8 There is This Tree (Look After) – Alan guide vocal and guitars (RW) – big instrumental parts imagined for the long playout 🙂
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9 One Door (Slipping Away) – This is the final version. Masterful production and instrumental additions including multi-layered backing vocals, guitars and much else magical by Rick Willson. Rick kept this song alive for many years when (aside from my rough Coalville Session version in 2021) I believed it should be forgotten. It was among the first songs that I was able to write in the early years after my partner Liane Ashberry’s suicide in 2015 and completing our band Rude Angel’s Ploughed Heart album, which we wrote and recorded together 2010-2015, crucially with Rick Willson and Sharon ‘Shaz’ Collier. ‘One Door’ began to emerge in my solo song-writing in 2016, and the words are very much about my life with Liane and my life and grief processing shortly after her death. It was when my soul – in music and life – became alive and I was reborn, amidst the carnage, having survived my own suicide attempt in Autumn 2015. I began to find a voice of my own.
One Door (Slipping Away) – Rick drums and much else recorded Jan 2020, with my guide vocal from c2017. Instrumental track follows the vocal version. (RW)
One Door (Slipping Away) – Coalville session 2021 version (details below in the Coalville Session songs).
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10 You Thrill Me – improved mix by Rick 1st Nov 2023, with added strings and vibes orchestration by Rick. (RW)
You Thrill Me – vocals and mix improvements 13 Oct 2022 – definitely getting there 🙂 (RW)
You Thrill Me – vocals improvements 7 Oct 2022 – not finished yet but a step along the way (RW)
You Thrill Me – written c2017, Dave drums, Rick bass, smoother mix, 21 Apr 2022 (RW)
You Thrill Me – guide vocal and guitars, before Dave drums and Rick bass – (RW)
You Thrill Me – my rough live single take version from the ‘Daryl Kirkland Coalville Sessions’ below, song #11 (DK)
Thanks Maria for the simple chorus lines, which made the song happen. It was stuck until then.
Coalville session version below
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11 Being Held – 2nd Oct 2022 perhaps the final mix 🙂 – see notes below for more info (RW)
Being Held – Danny Willson’s magical guitar solo very high in mix – fuller explanations and other song notes below – the ending is a lovely record of how the song was made before the fade version above including the natural collapse of recorded parts and ideas (RW)
Being Held – Rick and Alan joint lead vocals and new mix, 26 Aug 2022 (RW) – a lot more is now recorded for the playout, and harmonies throughout the song, and an updated version will be added soon – this song is featuring in a significant international training course with an audience of several millions of people 🙂 – Being Held Songsheet
Being Held – lots added: electric guitars, bass, Rick Willson, John Hopper, plus Dave Anderson drums – vocal Alan and double-tracking, Rick backing vocals and lots of Rick’s magical engineering, this version 22 Aug 2022 (RW)
Being Held – how I wrote it (April 2022) on my junkshop 1970s nylon string guitar and the start of the recording process – two guide vocals and guitars versions (RW)
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12 Another Love – very rough dem vocals and guitar with very rough way too long playout and adlib (RW)
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13 Just A Kiss – Dave drums, Rick bass v1 and v2 – version 16 May 2022 (RW). I wrote this in 2016, from emotional seeds in April 2015. It’s about kissing and touching my partner Liane when I visited her in her cardboard coffin at the undertakers. It’s taken until now (28 June 2023) for me to be able to write about this song, and its part in my own healing. More in the notes below.
Just a Kiss – written c2016 – this early version recorded and developed c2017 (RW)
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14 One Day (If I Could Have Just One Day) – finished Rick Willson production Sept 2024, without echo. Rick Willson organs. Alan vocals and guitars. (RW)
One Day (If I Could Have Just One Day) – finished Rick Willson production Sept 2024, alt version with echo. Rick organs. Alan vocals and guitars. (RW)
One Day (If I Could Have Just One Day) – started c2016 with guitar pattern and first 4 lines, until this emerged 2021/22 (RW)
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Musicians on songs above:
Alan – vocals and guitars (and just vocals on the Rick and Nick version of Best I can Do)
Rick Willson – joint lead vocals on Being Held, BV’s, guitars, bass guitars, slide guitars, banjo, drums, keyboards, programming, recording, other genius engineering 🙂 on all the RW recordings as credited per song.
Dave Anderson – drums/percussion – It’s Okay, Wait And See, Property Of Bliss (with Rick’s drums), Beauty Of The Flaunch, Show Our Children, You Thrill Me, Just A Kiss, (and #50 #51 below) But I Know These Flames, Seven Years, and more recorded yet to be updated here.
Adam Seymour – electric guitars – It’s Okay.
Nick Murphy – drums – Best I Can Do.
John Hopper – acoustic and electric guitars on Being Held.
Danny Willson – lead guitars solo on Being Held and 12-string electric guitars lead/solo and throughout But I Know These Flames.
James Campbell – James Campbell brass and woodwind (saxophones, clarinets, etc) on Property Of Bliss.
Neil Burditt – piano on Wait And See final mix (not yet added to this page at 29 Oct 2023).
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Other songs written, being added/recorded/re-recorded follow below
These songs (down to and including #22 ‘There is a Love’) recorded by Daryl Kirkland were all (except Speck) recorded in one afternoon (Coalville) session Sep 2020. Speck was recorded Mar 2021. I was rough as hell, and in hell too 🙂 and Daryl helped me do a few things that sound okay to me in the rawness, miraculously, for which I’ll always be grateful beyond words. I would not have been able to rescue the earlier recordings I’d done with Rick after Liane died, nor myself, nor start new recordings with Rick, unless Daryl had helped me get started again Sep 2020.
These songs are already listed above or further below, as fuller versions/recordings in progress with Rick Willson.
It’s Okay – (DK) #1 RW recordings
Wait and See – (DK) #2 RW recordings
Best I Can Do – (DK) #3 RW recordings
Property Of Bliss – (DK) #4 RW recordings
Show Our Children (Paddle in Your Socks) – #5 RW recordings (DK)
One Door (Slipping By) – #9 RW recordings (DK)
You Thrill Me – very rough vocal 🙂 – #10 RW recordings (DK)
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15 Maria Loony Toons – part of Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions – Alan guitar/voc together one live take no clicktrack (DK)
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16 Speck – recorded by Daryl Kirkland, Coalville Mar 2021 – Alan guitar/voc together one live take, no clicktrack – video nearly done, by Jim Tetloe (DK)
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17 Run Out Of Tears – part of Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions – Alan guitar/voc together one live take no clicktrack (DK)
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18 Somewhere In The Middle Lies The Truth – part of Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions – Alan guitar/voc together one live take no clicktrack (DK)
Slow
Reggae
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19 In The Breakdown (I Will Find You) – part of Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions – Alan guitar/voc together one live take no clicktrack (DK)
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20 Is There A Place (I Belong Without You) – part of Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions – Alan guitar/voc together one live take no clicktrack (DK)
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21 Copious (Connus Addictus) – part of Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions – Alan guitar/voc together one live take no clicktrack (DK)
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22 There Is A Love – part of Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions – Alan guitar/voc together one live take no clicktrack (DK)
I wrote this in 2019 for Michael and Yvette, whose love Maria and I cherish. Michael’s daughter Anna’s 2015 suicide was a fortnight after Liane’s. Earlier Yvette lost her lifelong friend to suicide. Michael and Yvette’s Silence Of Suicide, and all else they do for a compassionate world, are beyond my words. See the SOS (2015) video, esp. Michael at 15mins.
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23 To The Corner Of The Field – written Apr 2021 – “phone dem to be uploaded. Huge song for me; too big to get to yet,” is what I believed was my reality until I dared to look on my phone on 23rd August 2023. See much more about why this song is so huge for me in the notes below.
Here’s the 6th Aug 2022 ‘To The Corner Of The Field’ lyrics/chordsheet PDF
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24 Dancing Hearts (Weaving Wonderful/Wedding Song) – written after a friend’s wedding invitation 2021 for their wedding – phone dem to be uploaded
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25 Simply Chickens – written Jan/Feb 2021 – crazy phone dem recorded 16 April 2021 – the 31 Mar dem below this one is perhaps mostly the best/simplest version of lyrics and structure, but elements of both will be in a future recording
Simply Chickens – earlier phone dem recorded 31 Mar 2021, with vibrating message interruption at the start 🙂
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26 Starry-Eyed (A Hundred Years) – started Sep 2020; nearly finished 🙂 – phone dem to be uploaded
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27 Fruit Flies and Rubble – written 2021 – phone dem to be uploaded
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28 Knowing You Are There – written 2021 – phone dem to be uploaded
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29 What’s To Say – written 2015, very soon after Liane died – RW recording to be added
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30 Standing In The Fire – written 2016 – this is the very much-developed version mixed 5th Dec 2023 with added vocal harmonies by Alan, percussion by Rick (cymbals) and a very clever slide-guitar-vocal effect by Rick that I can’t really explain at the moment. A lot of the sounds have been removed from the version below recorded and mixed Feb-Jun 2017. (RW)
Standing In The Fire – this is the version I recorded and produced with Rick Willson Feb-Jun 2017 – Alan vocals, Spanish and electric guitars, percussion; Rick bass and drums; Alan and Rick keyboards programming. (RW)
Below are the earliest song notes I have for Standing In The Fire (early/mid 2016 I think – and interestingly: “And what the flames make of me,” not “do to me”), and here’s the Standing In The Fire 10Nov2023 songsheet PDF
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31 For Ever Is It Paradise (Four Minutes) – written 2016 – RW recording to be added
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32 Gratitude – verse written Oct/Nov 2018 – chorus written Nov 2020 – not sure if this is finished yet
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33 New Life Song – written 2017 – an instrumental, likely to remain so
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34 Everything Is Meant To Be – written 2016/17 – mostly instrumental
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35 Become the Braver – written 2020 – phone recording 8 Feb 2022
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36 The Festival Of Life And Death – phone dem to be added
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37 Look In My Eyes (Are You The Sword) – written Mar 2021 – phone recording 11 Mar 2021 – this song is about my deep distrust of my business partner who, were it not for my extraordinary resilience, would have killed me, and in some ways did, several times. I forgive him, because I believe he is possessed and sent to me as a lesson. Note that we manifest good and bad in our life, via plasma energies. Unwitting reckless incompetence that exploits and harms another person is no different in outcome to the consequences of wilful malevolence and the intentional destruction of another human being. He is the founder and owner of Accipio. He is the maker of many broken promises to me, a bullying manipulative child, and a manifestation of evil that I allowed into my life when he first approached and began to use me for his own ends, several years before my partner (of 2010-15) Liane Ashberry killed herself; in the aftermath of my marriage collapse in 2007. He emailed me, saying he was a ‘fan’ of my work, and showing off about his own work. Due to my own sensitivities, my unquestioning trust in people, and my lack of self-love, I was far too vulnerable and I was a very soft and lucrative target for an agent of criminally deranged narcissism, which seeks to justify itself as being good, kind, expert and self-aware, when the opposite is true, according to any definition of love and compassion. I now channel and manifest strength and energies for myself, and others, that are infinitely beyond what any devilish manifestation can threaten.
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38 Life Goes On (My Sunshine Is Your Rain)
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39 And The Band Played On (Kiss Me, Hold Me)
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40 Is This Light (Gravity’s The Moment)
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41 Red Toe Nails – an Appalachian dulcimer song
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42 And So You Come To Be – (Universes Looking After Us) – an Appalachian dulcimer song
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43 Emoji – co-written Shaz Collier – earlier recording by Rick to be added
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44 Holding On For You – a re-write of an unfinished song called Clinging On
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45 Last Time – co-written with Shaz Collier 2015-16 – an early recording by Rick to be added
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46 Hope And Faith – co-written with Liane Ashberry, Shaz Collier – maybe an early recording by Rick to be added
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47 Cowgirl Song – co-written with Liane Ashberry, Shaz Collier – maybe an early recording by Rick to be added
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48 A Simple Man (Is All I Am) – written 2017 and sort of life story up until that time in my life, about two years after the suicide of my partner Liane Ashberry (the ‘borrowed angel’ – see RudeAngel.co.uk) – this is a lone surviving original phone dem that I found c.2022 on a computer file. It was recorded on 25th April 2017, a few days after the second anniversary of Liane’s suicide, and was among many other recordings and lyrics/chords sheets now seemingly lost for ever in a phone collapse, and once stored, now lost, on the hard-drives of old long-gone computers; all collateral damage in my traumas since 2015. Hence the surviving lyrics/chord sheets do not precisely match this recorded version, although I’m confident I’ll find more of my original songsheets somewhere. Guilt and blaming myself, spurred by Liane’s suicide, became conscious drivers of potentially fatally destructive subconscious realities. I believe these tendencies were also an embedded part of my personality from childhood until very recently. The song is perhaps to be recorded afresh one day. This version also features Nel Kirkland my daughter (Nel Chapman then), singing completely impromptu backing vocals, recorded in our kitchen at our farmhouse (FeelgoodFarm.co.uk), before I was cleared out financially and emotionally by divorce and fraud. This is a long song and perhaps will be shortened and recorded in B, a tone higher than this version in A, or it might remain unfinished as is. Songs, rather like everything else, have lives of their own. Energies can best be understood at the level of the soul. Music is by nature a soul thing 🙂 See also my Substack article about this song, story, background, energies, etc., at https://alanchapman.substack.com/p/a-simple-man-is-all-i-am
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49 Running To My Place In The Sun (Running Man) – written 2017 – to be recorded afresh – this early rough single-take phone dem probably May 2017, on an amazing luthier-built special Lloyd Edward baritone acoustic, tuned to C (two tones , i.e., 4 frets lower than standard E tuning) with C minor harmonica.
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50 – But I Know These Flames – Finished (WOW!) beautiful Rick Willson production Sep 2024 (and musicianship by all). Rick bass, electric and lap steel slide guitars, Danny Willson 12-string electric guitars, Dave Anderson drums. Other percussion/effects Rick Willson. Alan vocals and guitars. (RW)
But I Know These Flames – Alternative finished production, Sep 2024, with Dave Anderson drums in from the beginning. As above credits. (RW)
But I Know These Flames – Dave Anderson drums (high in the mix) recorded 8th Jun 2022 (RW)
But I Know These Flames – recorded with Rick Willson 27 Apr 2022, 156bpm, guide vocal and two guide guitars that will probably stay in the mix as the song develops. There’s an instrumental section in the middle that’ll have guitar/piano/mandolin over it instead of my mutterings 🙂 (RW)
But I Know These Flames – less rough, becoming clearer, phone recording 26 Apr 2022, quicker c160bpm, much shorter and tighter. Better intro and end 🙂
But I Know These Flames – extremely rough early version phone recording new song that came today, 22 Apr 2022 c140bpm. Lots to be improved.
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51 Seven Years (Healing My Believing) – Dave drums, Rick bass, keyboards b/vs. Alan new vocals, b/vs, elec guitar. This magical rough mix 4th Aug 2022. More to be added.
Seven Years (Healing My Believing) – Dave Anderson drums recorded 8th Jun 2022. Rick bass, and additional guide vocals. (RW)
Seven Years (Healing My Believing) – Just a start. Lots more to happen with this. So far just two classical guitars and my voice. Still rough, esp the first chorus (eek), but beginning to take shape, faster verse and chorus sections (waltz 6/8 now 65bpm). The second vocal version is better (at 10:10). It’s a 4min song | plus 3min rock instrumental (4mins to 7mins) | plus the 3minute song reprise = 10mins. (RW)
Seven Years – first very rough and long dem/structure. It will take better shape. Big song in many ways. Emerged suddenly 16 Apr 2022, mapped/timed/beats/etc sorted 21 Apr and 22 Apr recorded. This is just the basic mapping/timings/patchwork, voice and guitar together to clicktrack verse and chorus parts waltz/6/8 132bpm 60bpm, rock instrumental part 4/4 148bpm. Might end up half the length or stay 10mins+ depending on how it grows (RW)
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52 Stone’s Throw – vocal and guitars recorded 22-23 Sep 2022, rough mixed with interim programmed drums – written w/c 15 Sep 2022 – (RW)
Stone’s Throw – phone dem recorded 17 Sep 2022 – (later in the studio, 22 Sep, Rick helped me realise the song should be in E, not D)
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53 Song of Gods and Mirrors (Higher Human) – 1st Oct 2022 improved (lyrics, structure and Em key, from Dm below) – Robert Temple’s NewScienceOfHeaven.com is very significant to me 🙂 See song number 57 also. These musical stories are morphing and emerging with my book, perhaps, together called Kintsugi: A Light Switch Manual. Here’s the Song of Gods and Mirrors (Higher Human) songsheet PDF.
Song of Gods and Mirrors (Higher Human) – rough phone dem recorded 27 Sep 2022 – perhaps needs an instrumental bridge after the 2nd or third verse – it’s a story song about realising the we are our own god and meaning.
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54 Bend Me Some Space Time – final mix, with extra magic from Rick – 2 Mar 2025 – (RW)
Bend Me Some Space Time – this is still the guide vocal, but now with added magic and a rough mix 26 Oct 2022 (RW)
Bend Me Some Space Time – guide vocal and four Spanish Guitars 19 Oct – fab basis – gonna be beautiful (RW) – songsheet
Bend Me Some Space Time – written early Oct 2022, this is the second phone dem I recorded, 16 Oct.
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55 Many Orbits – better phone dem 2 Feb 2023 with proper G Gm ending
Many Orbits – emerged 31Oct 2022 – phone dem 2 Nov 2022
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56 Love, Songs and Words – Written during several weeks Oct-Nov 2022
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57 Many Ways To Heaven – rough phone dem – besides the bridge section this was written in my head, while I was singing and walking, in a just a few minutes in the afternoon 20th March 2023, while I was walking back from the gym in the next town – the bridge part of the song emerged very quickly later in the evening. Inspired by Robert Temple’s NewScienceOfHeaven.com. See also song number 53. These musical stories are morphing and emerging with my book, together called (working title) Kintsugi: A Light Switch Manual.
Here’s the Many Ways To Heaven songsheet PDF as at 5th Sep 2023.
Many Ways To Heaven – the further emergence of the song, with the F major 7th chord (shown in the only songsheet that I used in recording the phone dem versions of this song) instead of the simple F that I eventually settled on. This version also has a G7 after the G chord, which the final version does not.
Many Ways To Heaven – This is the actual the emergence of the song as I was writing it in the afternoon of 20th March 2023. This is fascinating to me and I imagine also to other people interested in how song-writing can happen. Of course songs are written in many different ways, and personally I experience many different ways. This song emerged extraordinarily rapidly, so that the songsheet doesn’t even have a title on it 🙂
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58 All We Can Dream – this is very nearly the finished song; still a ‘monitor’ mix, including added bass by Rick, electric guitar/effects by Alan, and chords via piano effects keyboard by Alan. See notes below. (RW)
All We Can Dream – The best of my two recordings at Rick Willson’s studio on 4th Sep 2023. No clicktrack. It’s my voice and guitar ‘live’, plus an additional track overdub of the same guitar and part, and the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th lines of the playout to enable the overlap. See notes below. (RW)
All We Can Dream (We Can Make Real, And More) – Probably the best/final phone dem (recorded 1st Sep 2023, with further improved 2nd line of 2nd verse), prior to going into the studio with this one. The lower octave chorus sits better, and the higher octave voices and instrumentation will be added to the studio recording, and the playout multi-tracked, probably. See notes below.
All We Can Dream (We Can Make Real, And More) – rough phone dem 31 August 2023 with slightly improved lyrics and also the chorus and so also the title All We Can Dream, instead of What We Can Dream. See notes below.
(originally) What We Can Dream (We Can Make Real, And More) – rough but excellent phone dem recorded 18 Dec 2021, which I’d forgotten completely. See notes below, referring also to my more authentic South London accent. There is a second verse to be added, written on or a few days before 18 Dec 2021.
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59 – Whether Or Not (You Find In Your Heart A Love For Me, When I am Gone) – reggae version rough phone dem 6th Mar 2023, attempting to lighten the feel of the song.
Whether Or Not – second rough phone dem 6th Mar 2023 – this is a very personal version referring to my son. I imagined then that the final version of the song will not refer to ‘my son’, so that the song can be meaningful for anyone who is parted from someone they love, and wants there to be mutual forgiveness.
Whether Or Not – first rough phone dem of the idea or ‘hook’ of the song, 27th Feb 2023 – the quietness is because this was late at night and I didn’t want to wake my neighbours 🙂
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60 – My Heart Was Like An Arrow To Your Shield – the full title – vocal ‘comp’ double-track (from the previous four vocal tracks) which Rick and I produced on 26th Oct 2023. The 4/4 beat ‘click-track’ will be replaced by real percussion. Vocal harmonies, acoustic guitars and other instruments to be added, and perhaps the instrumental section halved. (RW)
Arrow To Your Shield – this is the first Rick Willson studio recording 20th Oct 2023: four vocal tracks and four electric guitar tracks by Alan – a fabulous foundation on which to build a truly epic song 🙂 Here’s the Arrow To Your Shield songsheet I took into the studio on 20th Oct 2023. Here’s the revised (reflecting the studio session) Arrow To Your Shield songsheet PDF, whose full title probably will be My Heart Was Like An Arrow To Your Shield. (RW)
Arrow to Your Shield – a love song and break-up song, second phone dem, 6th May 2023. I made a very rough piano accompanied version too, which has good potential.
Arrow To Your Shield – first rough phone dem 5th May, including faster dance version at about 3mins 30seconds.
(See notes below, and my handwritten songsheets for other notes about the emergence of this song, and variations, inc dance rhythm and riffs.)
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61 – Have You Seen The Sun? – an example of an earlier version being better than a later version – this makes much more musical sense, including a 4th verse, 12 Sep 2023. This is a faster version, better playout and IMHO much better than the 16 Sep version below. The song could be better a little faster than this. Maybe the intro (C F Gsus7 G7) of the 16 Sep version below is better than the brief C-chord-only intro of this 12 Sep version. See notes below.
Have You Seen The Sun? – this 16 Sep 2023 version is too slow. This song started to emerge 5th Sept 23, and went through several twists and turns of structure and order until these last two (12 and 16 Sep) greatly improved versions of writing, recording and phone dems – this one slower with shorter playout and IMHO not as good as the 12 Sep version above. See notes below.
Have You Seen The Sun? – made more sense, including a 4th verse, 12 Sep 2023. This is a faster version, better playout and IMHO much better than the 16 Sep version above. I imagine the song could be better a little faster than this. The intro (C F Gsus7 G7) of the 16 Sep version is better than the brief C-chord-only intro of this 12 Sep version. See notes below.
Have You Seen The Sun? – These three phone dem recordings below were all done in the morning of 7th Sep 2023. See notes below. This is my vocal with third verse, which was the verse that actually came first to me on my walk, 5th Sep. Reviewing these with hindsight they seem messy but they got me to where the song ended up musically and lyrically, especially the 4th verse added above.
Have You Seen The Sun? – First vocal phone dem, without the third verse, over the ‘loop’ track I recorded (below).
Have You Seen The Sun – The 1st phone dem of the guitar ‘loop’ track.
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62 – Leaving This Place (Gonna Find Me Another Time And Space) – 29 Oct 2023 – here’s the Leaving This Place Songsheet – the first recording is to come, after the studio session – Leaving This Place songsheet PDF 29 Oct 2023 – and here’s the revised song/songsheet in G (Capo 2nd fret) – Leaving This Place 1Nov2023 – emerging in/from that first studio session on 1st Nov 2023 – and the revised songsheet transposed into the key of A – Leaving This Place (in A) 2Nov2023.
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63 – Just Another Angel (Another Strange Old Thing) – here’s my best, and most recent song, that I’ve ever written (15-23 Nov 2023) – a simple (improved) phone recording made on 25 Nov 2023. It was for quite a few days the most difficult song for me to play and sing that I’ve ever written. To me, songs are mostly about the soul and the freedom, not about ‘perfect’ production, while I’m mindful that life and everything are different for everyone.
Just Another Angel (Just Another Strange Old Thing) – the first decent phone recording made on 23 Nov 2023.
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64 – Peacehaven – Dec 2023 – quite a good phone dem of a tricky song to play and sing, especially the riff – manifesting where I’m going – extending #62 Leaving This Place
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65 – Pink Bungalow – written over a few days Dec 2023 – this rough phone dem including mouth trumpet playout 30 Dec 2023 – the song initially as just the first two verses manifested where I’m going more specifically, extending #62 Leaving This Place and #64 Peacehaven – here’s the pdf songsheet: Pink Bungalow
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66 – What Colour Is The Wind? – written from 11am 27 Dec 2023 – 11pm 28 Dec 2023 – first rough half-decent phone dem complete with my F-word expletive at the breakdown in the final repeat at the end – I recorded it late evening 28th Dec and didn’t want to wake the neighbour’s youngster, so the quality of the sound and playing/singing is not the best. Please forgive the bad language at the end of the song.
The title/hook line, “What Colour Is The Wind?” is a quote from Kitty Kelley’s (IMHO) brilliant unauthorised biography of Frank Sinatra, in which Kelley writes that Sinatra swept the hair of a young blind girl from her eyes while she sat on his lap during his early 1960s international tour, to raise money for disadvantaged children, in a PR attempt to improve his increasingly toxic and violent reputation, notably arsing from his connections with organised crime (Mafia and hoodlums, etc) and his violent temper. When I read the line (small hours 27 Dec) I thought immediately it would prompt a new song for me. It did, and it’s one of my fastest ever to emerge. Here’s the songsheet pdf: whatcolouristhewind-dec2023
I subsequently discovered (thanks Maria, when I sent her my dem above on the 28th Dec – Maria knows so many songs) that the Irish folk singer Charlie Landsborough must have had a very similar idea, because in the early 1990s he wrote and recorded a song with the same title. My song and Charlie’s are very different musically, although both songs are deep, about existential matters.
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67 – Happy Days – written through Dec 2023 and finished to this rough phone dem stage 8th Jan 2024.
Here’s the songsheet PDF: Happy Days
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68 – Stoked And Humbled (Now We’re Healed) – this rough phone dem 22nd Feb 2024 – written in the few days prior, inspired by Lonnee Rey (Rattled Awake)
Stoked and Humbled PDF songsheet.
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69 – The Path Of Souls – rough phone dem – 17th Jun 2024.
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70 – The Thunder Of Our Dreams – rough phone dem 17th Jul 2024.
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71 – Nobody’s Truth But My Own – rough phone dem 17th July 2024 (with a very dodgy first “Nobody’s” and a couple of other weak tuning and timing elements).
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72 – Almost Packed – rough phone dem 9th Aug 2024, a song I started just before I moved to Peacehaven, and finished in Peacehaven.
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73 – Cowboy Song – rough phone dem, 21st August 2024, emerged a few days prior.
‘Cowboy Song’ – rough phone dem, longer version, 19th August 2024.
‘Cowboy Song’ – rough phone dem, first short version, 19th August 2024.
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74 – Darlin’ (Do You Want Me?) – rough phone dem 5th Sep 2024. A re-write and huge improvement of a song which emerged suddenly 25th Aug, ‘Clearly You Don’t Want Me’, which became increasingly obsolete within a couple of days. Energies are very interesting. Deep love seems to have a life of its own. It refuses to die. Even when all hope is lost. This is probably the most challenging song I’ve had to learn to play and sing.
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75 – Float Away – rough phone dem end Sep 2024 – includes the double-meaning ‘divine/the vine’ – see lyrics below in the song notes.
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76 – The Inside Of Our Heart – rough phone dem 6th October 2024. The flash of light refers to the scientifically measured moment of conception when the sperm enters the ovum, and this is the entry of the soul to the physical realm. There is also other evidence that the soul has a weight which can be measured when leaving the body at the moment of death.
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77 – Probably Loving You Always (She Kept The Letter) – much better dem, in a higher key, 12 Nov 2024. It’s a true story.
Probably Loving You Always (She Kept The Letter) – rough phone dem 24th Oct 2024 – very difficult to play and sing finger-picking 🙂
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78 – Naked In Bed – rough phone dem 27 Nov 2024
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79 – Is There A Moment – rough phone dem 20 Dec 2024 and perhaps final version – Guitar (as version 18 Dec) is tuned down a semi-tone (to Eb) and there’s a capo at the 4th fret, so the key is Eb too. Dedicated with love and gratitude to Celia Farber, along with every other soul and ‘The Great Spirit’.
Is There A Moment – rough phone dem 18 Dec 2024 – I thought perhaps the final version, but not so.
80 – Force Of Faith – Improved rough phone dem, 18th Jan 2026.
Force Of Faith – Extremely rough phone dem, 18th Jan 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/the-force-of-faith-my-new-song (The first decent new song to emerge through me since the end of 2024.)
81 – And This Song, Emerges, Through Me (I’ve Been Away) – Rough phone dem, 20th Jan 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/and-this-song-emerges-through-me.
82 – Onions And Chips – A rough phone dem song about the Sussex England coastal pollution in the winter storms of 2025/26. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/onions-and-chips
Note To Self – Rough phone dem. Written 27 Jan 2026. Song #83. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/note-to-self.
The Texture Of Our Tides – Rough phone dem. Written 28-30th Jan 2026. Song #84. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/the-textures-of-our-tides.
Rubbing Shoulders With Nature – Rough phone dem. Written 31Jan-1Feb 2026. Song #85. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/rubbing-shoulders-with-nature.
Whoosh – Rough phone dem. Written 1-6Feb 2026. Song #86. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/whoosh.
Healing To Be Done – Rough phone dem. Written 6-8Feb 2026. Song #87. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/healing-to-be-done.
Light – Rough phone dem. Written 8-11Feb 2026. Song #88. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/light.
Drops (Just Like A Bulb In The Snow) – Rough phone dem. Written 11-16Feb 2026. Song #89. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/drops.
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—–[Alan retain this gap below – it contains the webpage page coding for the ‘songnotes’ bookmark ]—–
Notes about my songs:
These notes are really to help me assemble all the info but anyone can read them.
I’m still completing this section, given that there are over 50 songs and new songs are still emerging.
Stories within stories, and about the writing and development of the songs.
We each have our stories.
I’m very lucky I can try to make sense of my own here.
01. It’s Okay – My handwritten notes for this song say, “30.8.20 (waltz) emerged midnightish and early hours then basically complete 2.9.20”. The song did not end up as a waltz 🙂
02. Wait And See – This is about my Dad; part of my processing and remembering him after he died in 2016. He taught me very young that there’s always another option, to do nothing; leave things as they are, and wait and see. It was a lesson in uncertainty and courage that I’m still learning. Rick Willson’s brilliant musicianship is all over this song, with Dave Anderson’s brilliant drums. I played the basic rhythm guitars and sang lead vocal. Rick is the harmony vocal. All the vocals are to be re-done, although some of the guide’ vocals might remain in the mix. Finished version 10th Feb 2025, with Rick Willson’s backing vocals and final mix/production.
03. Best I Can Do – One of the first and biggest songs to emerge for me after Liane died in 2015. It came very quickly to me one morning when I was getting ready to leave my house to catch a train, where I was living in Eynsford in Kent after my (ten year) divorce started to become life-threatening to me.
24/04/22 – Rick Willson guitars, bass, Nick Murphy drums – I wrote this in 2016 and I still need to record a proper vocal 🙂 hence the different takes to put together a decent guide vocal. The raw single-take version in the Daryl Kirkland Coalville sessions is my best recorded vocal attempt so far. Singing this song to the extraordinary backing by Rick Willson and Nick Murphy is interesting and joyfully challenging. Thanks Shaz Collier for help with a few very important words for a few of the lines, and esp ‘Curl the Y’, and I thank Rick for one particular chord improvement. Especially thanks Rick for making this song happen; it was too much for me to handle for a few years, and wasn’t even in my vocal range when I wrote it. The explanation for my best vocal being the raw Daryl Kirkland Coalville session is that singing and playing my guitar to silence has so far been easier than singing with the big beautiful arrangement of Rick and Nick, which moves me so much, along with being in the studio where Ploughed Heart was made, so that I can’t channel the feelings and keep control of my voice. My vocal for the big arrangement will come good eventually when I can channel the overwhelm 🙂 Writing these notes seems part of the process for me to be able to sing these songs properly.
04. Property Of Bliss – From the first lockdown, 22 Apr 2020. Shaz Collier told me about a lockdown exercise she was using with her students to create a song using a few randomly given words: Property, Fun, Mirror, Dismiss, Cotton. The song came to me during my walk in the countryside that early evening. I sang it to myself while walking over and over again so that I’d remember it when I got home, then found the chords to fit. Shaz’s own song is good too; completely different 🙂 I hope she finishes and records it. Dave Anderson’s drums were recorded on 4th May 2022, and Daves two ‘takes’ (recordings) sit beautifully one each side of Rick’s original drums. So unless there’s good reason to change it, this song will be completed with three separate full drums tracks.
05. Show Our Children (Paddle In Your Socks) – A small boy was paddling in his socks in a puddle in Bradgate Park, and I spoke briefly to his Mum about the joys of children and natural play in nature, and puddles. I was on a run or walk – summer 2020. The song came from that. It’s about the processing and letting go while walking and running in nature, and especially in the extraordinary Bradgate Park, about 15 mins walk/jog from Anstey; incredible beauty, history and the oldest accessible rock in the world, which was 30 degrees south of the equator before the Pangea continent split. So about 250 million years before the dinosaurs.
06. Beauty Of The Flaunch – started 6 Oct 2020 – original phone recording to be uploaded – ‘Flaunch’ is a term used by builders referring to the sloping angled cementing/mortar to keep rain from a perpendicular joint, for example between chimney and roof flashings tiles, or similar weatherproofing by mortar. The origins of the word are a ‘slope’. The song came from the idea of a flaunch meaning a slope to the top, after a discussion with some beautiful builders who worked on my house who used the word. I’d never heard the word flaunch before then.
07. Hard-Wired To Cry – I think this was the first time that I began to realise that I could write decent songs. Daryl Kirkland said he liked it very much.
08. There Is This Tree – There is actually a real tree that is ‘This Tree’. It’s a silver birch that affected/affects me, from which this song emerged quickly early morning 19th Oct 2021. The tree was and is something that can hang us or block our sun, or shelter and heal us; like the other ideas in the song; although as the song grew it became much more about hope and light and love. For me also the tree is something we can accept or blame, and this is like the other relationships in the song; including the relationship we have with our self. I can choose to accept and get on with my life and try to make good of the dark.
09. One Door (Slipping Away) – Rick drums and lots else. Guide vocal from c2017, which is when the basics of the song were first recorded. It remained dormant for years until I was ready to start working again on my recordings and I’m grateful to Rick for keeping this song alive and working on it so passionately and brilliantly. Like much else here, I doubt it would ever have surfaced again without Rick.
10. You Thrill Me – written c2017 – Dave drums, Rick bass, smoother mix 21 Apr 2022 (RW) – Thanks Maria for the simple chorus lines when I was stuck and the song was stuck too indefinitely. Having a chorus made the song happen. I wrote the song about Maria but it’s a love song for the thrilling magic of love, and being in love, and also being apart and dreaming one day of being together.
11. Being Held – this song and spoken words emerged very quickly in April 2022, very soon after my Mum died. It’s a long and complex story, and about more than my Mum, like many other stories. As with all my songs here that are produced (and lots else) by Rick Willson, Being Held grew to be music far beyond my songwriting and playing and singing, because of Rick’s genius as a player, singer, engineer, arranger and coach, and much more than I’ll ever be able to put into words. I love that Rick sings the lead vocals and harmonies with me. On 28 Sep 2022 we thought perhaps we’d completed the song – this was the note I added for the mix at the time – “11 Being Held – Danny Willson guitar solo on the playout – this version 28 Sep 2022 is perhaps a final mix 🙂 – this is a pre-mastered version so it’ll sound better on a decent sound system, rather than a phone or tablet with inadequate speakers for hearing the mid and bass frequencies. The collapse and natural ending is intentionally kept, because it’s real 🙂 (RW)“. As often however making such decisions is tricky after several hours working on anything, and the next day it was clear the mix wasn’t right. It perhaps is now. The song features Rick and me joint vocals and harmonies, Dave Anderson drums, Rick’s bass, fuzz bass, and Gretsch guitar, John Hopper electric guitars and 12-string acoustic guitar, Danny Willson’s magical guitar solo, and my acoustic guitars and spoken section. Rick also added some string sounds in the high register on the chorus that I’d been suggesting (as a glockenspiel, which didn’t work) on 28th Sep. (RW)
12. Another Love – very rough dem vocals and guitar with very rough way too long playout and adlib (RW)
13. Just A Kiss – I wrote this in 2016, from emotional seeds in April 2015. It’s about kissing and touching my partner Liane when I visited her in her cardboard coffin at the undertakers. It’s taken until now (28 June 2023) for me to be able to write about this song, and its part in my own healing. Antidepressants cause some women to grow little moustaches, Liane told me, when I began to find it difficult to kiss her. She loved kissing. This was a few weeks before she hanged herself in her Mother’s garage, in April 2015. Like most people bereaved by suicide, I didn’t see it coming, and Liane was among those who kill themselves very secretively; they have a plan, and keep it to themselves, and people fail to spot the clues, and dare not ask the questions. Parents and schools do not teach this sort of thing. My vocal and backing guitar was first recorded in 2017 at Rick Willson’s studio. More instruments and production followed in May 2022. I suppose five years is a long time for a song to be dormant, and the song’s meaning probably explains why it took so long. So this song is my processing of my soul-shredding grief, after my partner Liane Ashberry’s suicide in 2015 (see RudeAngel.co.uk). Liane was being medicated for her own grief after her daughter Ella’s very rapid dying, age 11, from bone cancer in 2009, about which Liane found it almost impossible to cry. Incidentaly I’ve just started (end-June 2023) to write a new song about ‘the medicating of grief’. Grief changes us for ever, in ways that we continue to discover; I think probably until we die. Anyway, back to the story: Doctors, psychiatrists, family, work-demands, a mistaken inflammatory high carbohydrate vegetarian diet, and catastrophic failures in Liane’s local NHS mental health crisis treatment combined, so that Liane’s own intuitive preferred recovery via nature, music-making, friendships, laughter and dance, was hijacked and diverted to the hell of ‘Big Pharma’ antidepressants and sleeping tablets. Liane had weaned herself off antidepressants in 2013-14, but her work situation became unbearably stressfu. She worked with troubled teenagers and their families, and was designing a training course for the NHS CAMHS – Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services – and attempting, very successfully, after several years training, to become a self-employed Forest Schools teacher, which she sabotaged in March 2015, having secured a wonderful new position working for the Charnwood Forest. I remember her making the phone call to pull out. She said, “I know I’m sabotaging this,” and I said, “Yes, I know you are.”
14. One Day (If I Could Have Just One Day) – started c2016 with guitar pattern and first 4 lines, until this emerged 2021/22 (RW)
23. To The Corner Of The Field – I first wrote, or more accurately this song first began to emerge through me, between 18th April 2021 and 5th May 2021. I then revisited/developed it 27th March 2022, and again on 6th Aug 2022. The song is in some ways the most significant of all my songs to date (as at 23rd August 2023) because: ‘To the corner of the field’ is about (my and anyone else’s) daring to go beyond what I (and/or we) imagine to be ‘reality’. It is about how my and our ‘stated conscious intention(s)’, especially when ‘published’ and pronounced and shared with others, is/are the ‘starter-motor’ for fuelling and enabling the infinite power of the subconscious or unconscious, individual and collective, to alter our own realities, and also to alter the ‘external’ realities, i.e., realities for other people and the ‘infinite universes’ that we inhabit. Personally I have been experiencing ‘inexplicable’ phenomena of energies (‘manifesting’, as some describe it, among other ‘supernatural’ experiences) since 2015, and specifically immediately after the suicide of my partner Liane Ashberry in April 2015 – see RudeAngel.co.uk. ‘To The Corner Of The Field’ is both a physical story of my climbing barbed-wire fences and wading through thorny brambles and stinging nettles, and also a metapohorical and emotional story of my very intense exploring of my own ‘daring to be’, at the level of my own soul and ‘rebirth’. My rebirth is becoming increasingly powerful, as I learn to ‘rewire’ my neural circuits; to create new ‘pathways’ and synaptic connections of my conscious/unconscious/subconscious brain. Sharon Drew Morgen, with whom I’ve collaborated for over 20 years, refers to these synaptic connections as ‘superhighways’, as a way to explain that we can alter our realities, by ‘reprogramming’ how our brains work for us, rather than against us (which sadly is a sort of addiction and fearful state in which many people become stuck). Increasingly as I dare to believe and consciously express my ‘conscious intent’ and ‘fearlessness’, so ‘rewiring’ my neural circuitry, my own (and collectively externally others’) unconscious/subconscious energies are fuelled and enabled, I am realising and achieving things (i.e., making real) that were beyond my wildest imaginings just a few days ago. Notably this concerns my health and strength and resilience and peacefulness, and my rebuilding of my financial independence and security, which actually now (at 23rd Aug 2023) reveals only a tiny part of the scale and significance of my work and connections. When we dare to explore the corner of the field, sometimes we need help, from industrial equipment to make our way through; other times, the corner of the field reveals a pathway or some very easy way to move into the next field; or anything between these two extremes. Other references in the song are also deeply profound in conveying that we are all angels; both ‘alive’ and ‘dead’ and ‘pre-conception’ as souls, and this aligns with Robert Temple’s work on plasma energies, also with William ‘Bill’ Tillier’s work on realities, with Sharon Drew Morgen’s work, and with my own ‘Theory of Infinite Universes, All Inside Our Heads’.
30. Standing In The Fire – written in 2016 when I was renting a duplex flat in Eynsford, Kent, from a psychopathic multi-property-owning reverend, and travelling back occasionally and deeply traumatically for my divorce ‘mediation’ meetings to my ‘Feelgood Farm’ farmhouse (occupied and run in my absence by my daughter) in Leicestershire. The 2017 version I recorded and produced with Rick Willson (Feb-Jun 2017) is Alan vocals, Spanish and electric guitars, percussion; Rick bass and drums; Alan and Rick keyboards programming. This is quite a dark and deathly song, because that’s what was happening in my life at the time: the completing of my 10 year acrimonious divorce; the catastrophic redevelopment and theft/destruction of my website business and earnings; the grieving for Liane and her suicide aftermath; my surviving a very determined suicide attempt end-2015; my caring for my Dad through to his dying in 2016 and my being present when his rigor-mortised corpse was put into the black plastic body-bag by the undertakers; too much trauma, despite how much I grew from it all, which I did. I recorded some new vocals end-Nov 2023 to add to the 2017 double-track vocal, and Rick added more cymbals and a slide effect that sounds like actual guitar with a voice. My uncertainty is because I’ve paused the recording work while I move house. I’ll forever be grateful to Rick for what he does for my songs.
Below are the earliest song notes I have for Standing In The Fire (early/mid 2016 I think), and here’s the Standing In The Fire 10Nov2023 songsheet PDF
46. Hope and Faith – co-written Liane Ashberry, Shaz Collier – This is a particularly good song from Liane and Alan’s songwriting originally 2013/14. Shaz added to it. Liane sang this; it was intended to be on the Ploughed Heart album but Liane died before this could happen. I don’t think any original rough dem/rehearsal recordings survive. A rough version by Shaz Collier and Alan, recorded with Rick Willson after Liane died, might be helpful to explain the beginnings. The song needs recording from scratch. It’s a really good song and perhaps the best that Liane co-wrote. Liane’s lyrics, and so the song too, were inspired by learning that her youngest sister Ingrid’s cancer had returned. Ingrid a couple of years after Liane.
47. Cowgirl Song – co-written Liane Ashberry, Shaz Collier – Liane and Shaz sang lead vocals on this story song; Alan BVs and guitars. It was intended to be on the Ploughed Heart album but Liane died before this could happen. Recorded with Rick Willson in 2014. It might be a basis for finishing the song, or it will be re-recorded completely afresh. Alan and Shaz refined, shortened/simplified the song and performed it a few times after Liane died, in something of a blur 🙂
48. A Simple Man – tells some of the story of my life succinctly, especially when I can upload the lyrics file 🙂
50. But I Know These Flames – this is another song that came to me very fast and I recorded very quickly (unlike other songs that develop over many years and their recording and production takes ages too). This song is about becoming fireproof – a sort of happy sister-song to Standing In The Fire #30, which is very dark and unhappy (2017 version), but also about euphoric rebirth (2023 studio version, when I re-record it with a new vocal). As for all my songs produced by Rick Willson I’m grateful beyond words for the work of Rick and other world-class musicians (in this song especially Danny Willson’s wonderful 12-string electric guitars solo and throughout the song, and as many other songs Dave Anderson on drums).
51. Seven Years (Healing My Believing) – Big song in many ways. Emerged suddenly 16 Apr 2022. 15 Apr was 7yrs since Liane died. Song initially mapped/timed/beats/etc and recorded 21/22 Apr, but that was just the basic mapping. Then we improved the timings and re-recorded the guide guitars/vocals, and later the song began to come to life with Rick’s fabulous bass and Dave Anderson’s fabulous drums. Rick added keyboards early August 2022 and Alan re-sang it 3rd Aug, plus backing vocals Alan and Rick and Alan electric guitar. Rick made magic with this 4th Aug mix, to which we’ll add more parts, vocals, guitars, and whatever else emerges 🙂
52. Stone’s Throw – the main vocal melody and imagined chords/feel came to me when I was out walking in the local countryside, rather like the sudden emergence of Property of Bliss #4 and Show Our Children #5. The fact that I remembered it when I got home suggested to me that it would be a memorable song. It was easy to record as well at the basic stages, initially in two sessions: double-tracked electric guitar and two vocal takes 22 Sep, then vocal mix and adding 12-string acoustic 23 Sep 2022. The phone dem recorded 17 Sep 2022 is in the key of D (I’d experimented in E with a capo at 2nd fret and gone back to D, being unsure I could make the vocal work a tone higher) and as often in the studio with Rick, he helped me realise I could improve it, in E.
53. Song of Gods and Mirrors (Higher Human) – this is a ‘story song’ I started on 15 Sep, helped by a message from Maria on a Saturday soon after “on the train back to the future”. Perhaps needs an instrumental bridge (like the intro) after the 3rd verse. It’s about looking for god/meaning then eventually realising this is oneself, seen in the mirror of our soul, after enduring and surviving many explorations and traumas, until one day, the student is ready, and the teacher (oneself) appears. Here’s the Song of Gods and Mirrors (Higher Human) songsheet PDF.
Here are the lyrics:
Song of Gods and Mirrors (Higher Human)
A higher human than free,
We are now rising to be,
I cheer for you and you cheer for me,
Now is our magic energy,
Back to the future now we see,
Back to the future come with me.
A long train running it’s the breeze,
A song playing beautiful to please,
We shake our hips and we be at ease,
We are the ships on the rolling seas.
Back to the future now we see,
Back to the future come with me.
Imagine you’re the mirror of your soul,
Reflecting that you are born whole,
Projecting light beyond what’s told,
Transcendent life from new and old.
Back to the future now we see,
Back to the future come with me.
We search for our gods and our belief,
Let go ourselves, let go of grief,
Come to a door, we have the key,
Open, there’s a mirror, there is me, and you.
Back to the future now we see,
Back to the future come with me.
54. Bend Me Some Space Time – this deep love energy song emerged early in Oct 2022, prompted by a brief video of sunny skies and clear Greek Island sea sent to me by Keely, and (despite my doubts until 16th Oct) it soon had a life of its own, and kept repeating and developing in my head. As with some other songs, I went to bed thinking about it and woke the next day with it clearer and better. Sleep and creativity are incredibly powerful. It was originally in C. I performed it in D at my local Mash and Press craft ale/cider microbrewery bar 16 Oct, where for the past year I’ve played mostly cover songs for a couple of hours every Sunday evening (except about three Sundays). I finalised the lyrics in the 30mins before the gig. Having performed it I realised it needed to be in a higher key, and then made a couple of quick phone dems in E (capo 4th fret) when I got home, and the second of those dems is on this page. On 19 Oct at Rick’s studio I recorded a guide vocal to a click without music, and added four Spanish guitars. Quite challenging because it’s easy to get lost in the song and the rhythms and chord changes are complex, and/or very quick in places. Anyway, it’s a great basis and I’m looking forward to layering more guitars next time. This is a big love song, and I love it. Thanks Rick, again, for giving me the space and time to start getting this song properly recorded. Thanks to the lovely people in the Mash and Press who said they liked it 🙂 It makes me wonder how much wonderful work by other people is never attempted or completed because they don’t have people encouraging them.
55. Many Orbits – the first three lines of lyrics and vocal melody emerged in a few minutes while I was driving, very near to returning home from visiting Maria in the last weekend of Oct 2022; the first time we’d seen each other since June. As I parked outside my house I recorded a couple of lines before I got out of the car, to capture the idea. It’s a love story with different meanings beyond my personal experiences – about destiny and hope, and who we are and who we meet and love and perhaps live with along the way. Maria and I were young in love 1979-80 and then found each other again in 2015, in many ways worlds and lifetimes apart – certainly life-stages – but closer and more grown. Perhaps one day we’ll be more closely together geographically and in other ways. Whatever is meant to be. Each of us becomes one after this life, with stars and dust and nature, besides the oneness with everything and everyone when we are alive.
56. Love, Songs and Words – This song developed very unusually via many different iterations rhythmically and lyrically, and only really became real and finished as a composition on 11 Nov 2022. The lyrics finalised (especially the line ‘hole of ambiguity’) when I was walking (back home after exercising in and joining a gym) about 5pm. And this enabled the song to settle and firm-up as a slow piece, rather than rhythmic/swing, which it had been for several weeks since it first emerged in October. The song did not work nor feel as if it could ever be okay until 11th Nov. Now it does. Songs have a life of their own, like babies and people. Some die as babies because they are not viable or because the knowledge/energy required to help them grow has not been discovered; others grow into adults and take a place in the wider world and consciousness. This song is an expression of consciousness making reality rather than sensing reality, which is a belief that firmed for me also on 10th November, after several years trying to make sense of energies, matter, infinity, etc. It’s also a love song and about the timeless infinite nature of love and the connection between souls, that is all without start or end.
57. Many Ways To Heaven – Besides the bridge section this was written in my head, while I was singing and walking, in a just a few minutes in the afternoon 20th March 2023, while I was walking back from the gym in the next town. The bridge part of the song emerged very quickly later in the evening. The song emerged fastest of any song ever for me, beginning as I approached the part of the footpath through some fields that goes under the busy A46 dual-carriageway, and which at night especially is vibrationally magical, to sing or make other sounds in the tunnel, and also looking up approaching the tunnel experiencing/seeing the wonderful energy-shifting different realities of lights on traffic bouncing away from each other rather than passing by each other. Inspired by Robert Temple’s NewScienceOfHeaven.com. Here’s my first and only handwritten songsheet, with the Fmajor 7th chord that was an experiment (the final version of the song reverted to a simple F chord). There are other notes about this song with the recordings above, for example the experimental G7 chord, which doesn’t happen in the final phone dem, and (at time of writing this, 3rd Sep 2023) is not intended to be in the final studio recorded/produced version.
Many Ways To Heaven songsheet PDF.
58. All We Can Dream (We Can Make Real, And More) – originally What We Can Dream (We Can Make Real, And More) – I discovered a rough and excellent very first and (as at Tues 29 Aug 2023) the only phone dem of this song, which I’d forgotten completely, recorded 18 Dec 2021 (I was at home in Anstey). I discovered it accidentally on Monday 28th Aug 2023 while looking for other versions of To The Corner Of The Field (I Had A Dream I Was Alive) (song number 23). I was searching my phone voice recorder for the word ‘dream’. I also discovered on Tuesday 29th Aug 2023 my original full (I’m certain) handwritten workings for the song’s chords and lyrics, so that I could piece together a finished version on 29th August 2023 and upload the first dem to this page. I recorded two ‘live’ takes, no clicktrack, overdub guitar part, and overlapping vocals on the playout at Rick Willson’s studio 4th Sep 2023. Thanks Rick for suggesting the 4/4 timing of those vocal playout lines, 2, 4, 6, 8 (‘All we can dream’ and ‘We can make real and more’). The best take (the 2nd) is above. More layers will be added. The finished song contains a second verse, and resolves to E rather than hangs at B7. It’s very interesting, as to how our realities alter, especially during a powerful rebirth, as my own. Also, I was intuiting some very profound ideas about ‘consciousness and subconscious energies’, before being able to articulate them in such terminology, which I am doing now. My South London accent in this song is more authentic for me, because I’m originally from South London, born in Kennington close to Brixton and the Oval cricket ground, genuinely from slum stock. My Mum, 1931-2022, was raised from birth in the slums of Waterloo, SE1. My Dad was from a very slightly better-off self-made parents (his Dad, my Grandfather owned a small tobacconist shop), notwithstanding that his Mum, my grandmother (family name Rosenberg, altered to Rose by her parents or grandparents, to be less obviously Jewish) was from the Ukrainian-Polish Jewish diaspora that fled the persecution of Jews in Europe, a decade or two or more before the First World War, and at least two generations before Israel was created soon after the Second World War and its Nazi Holocaust. I’ve done a lot of holocaust reading; and of course the Nazi Holocaust was not, and is not, the only holocaust. In the early hours of this morning 31st Aug 2023 I woke and worked on improved words, notably the second verse, and this continued after I’d slept some more and started my waking day, so that I finalised the words and chorus, and so also revised the song’s title, and also the song’s transitions and playout. I further revised and improved the song, specifically using a lower octave voice for the chorus, and also improving the 2nd line of the 2nd verse. All will be a lot clearer, with different layers of sounds in the eventual studio-recorded and produced version. Aside from shortening the title of the song, the 18th Sep version is the nearly finished song, although still a ‘monitor mix’. It includes Hofner Bass by Rick, additional electric guitar chords by Alan (using a borrowed Fender Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar) played through an effect called Cascade 8, enabling separate mixing of the effect sounds and the electric guitar; and also some very simple organ-like keyboard chords (notes E and B in two octaves) played by Alan, via an effect called ‘Sombre Winds’.
59. Whether Or Not (You Find In Your Heart, A Love For Me, When I’m Gone) – While the ‘hook’ and basic guitar parts emerged quite rapidly for this song, end Feb 2023, this is challenging song for me to write and finish (and to play technically, unless I opt for a reggae version). I have the guitar parts and melody but the lyrics are taking longer. So I have for certain a first line – the ‘hook’ of the song – and then many other possible lines, rhymes and tender ambiguities. Line one is: Whether or not, you find in your heart, a love for me, when I’m gone. (Whether or not, When I am Gone.) The dems I made in March 2023 offer ways to simplify the song, to make it universal about loss and forgiveness, given that I’ll change and remove the references to ‘my son’.
60. Arrow To Your Shield – A love song and break-up song, mainly to/for Maria, written when we broke up (5th May 2023), after a romance that stretches back to 1978. It’s also a love and break-up song with a conscious energy of reconciliation one day. It extends to Liane in some ways, notwithstanding that she died in 2015. The song is also about me and my son and other people who ‘break-up’ and will reconcile lovingly and forgivingly. It’s mainly about me and Maria, and it’s our break-up that made the song emerge very suddenly. The first rough phone dem of 5th May includes a faster dance rhythm version at 3mins 30secs into the recording. There is a piano accompaniment version too (somewhere on my phone) which has potential. on 20th Oct 2023 I recorded the song in Rick Willson’s studio. Here’s the revised Arrow To Your Shield songsheet PDF, whose full title probably will be My Heart Was Like An Arrow To Your Shield.
61. Have You Seen The Sun? – It began as a melody/vocal hook in my head while walking, and then progressed via a repeating cycle of C, F, G7sus4 G, and the first guitar backing is not ‘looping’ as such; instead I played it continuously and then trimmed to enable looping, which ultimately wasn’t appropriate. I’d written that the “…next stage for this (after 7th Sep, besides perhaps some more verses and maybe a bridge) is the studio…” which was wrong, because I managed to improve the structure and add a 4th verse and make a much better dem on 12th Sep. This song started to emerge 5th Sept 2023 walking towards Bradgate Park when I saw the bright glinting reflection of the setting sun on a wooden bench memorial name plate, from a distance of a mile away or more. On entering the park I got involved in a deep discussion with three people about the reflections of the sun on bench name plates (which I’d observed several times before the 5th Sep), the sun and energies, and other existential (and socio-political-health-realities) matters. The first three phone dem recordings were all done in the morning of 7th Sep 2023. The third verse was the verse that actually came first to me on my walk, 5th Sep. The 4th verse had been emerging with other possible extra verses and lines and themes on other walks, in the days up to 12th Sept, but the connecting of ‘the sun, child, eyes, reflecting god and self’ happened quickly as I typed it all onto the screen shortly before making the 12th Sep dem. There is no doubt to me that walking in nature and sunlight was hugely significant in processing my feelings/thoughts via the song. The 12th Sep dem excludes the idea for a key change and different chord structure ending. The 16th Sep is slower and IMHO not as good as the faster more upbeat 12th Sep version, but working on it enabled me to develop some lovely guitar/chord riffs, and a better intro, which will be in the studio version.
Have You Seen The Sun? by Alan Chapman songsheet PDF
62. Leaving This Place (Gonna Find Me Another Time And Space) – This song came just after dusk on 25 Oct 2023 in my head walking up Bradgate Rd after passing the Farmhouse (where I lived and worked from Sep 1991 to Feb 2020) after seeing the new pub manager John Monro smoking a roll-up outside back door of The Old Hare and Hounds (he was just ‘there’ when I walked around the back) – I’d been discussing playing and helping to schedule live music, which he’d told me he would be arranging soon. ‘The Balance of Being Born’ emerged 27 Oct as a ‘hook’ or title of a song, without a melody, and merged like magic as the start of the bridge part for the Leaving This Place song (ref my email from RABgmail to ‘spinning babies dot com’ introducing Robert Temple’s plasma work to Gail, after searching ‘balance of being born’, and so finding ‘spinning babies’). This is another example of a very fast-emerging song, and also of a song that goes immediately into the studio, leapfrogging the phone dem stage. Here’s the ‘Leaving This Place’ Songsheet that I took into Rick Willson’s studio on Wed 1st November – Leaving This Place songsheet PDF 29 Oct 2023 and here’s the revised song/songsheet still in G (requiring capo at 2nd fret to be in the new key of A) – Leaving This Place 1Nov2023 – that emerged from that session – I suggested we mapped the song on the Fostex with a church organ sound. We then corrected my songsheet timings of the Dsus end to the intro, and the Dsus transition into the final three bars of G. Then very last thing, Rick rightly suggested I was naturally playing it at 81 not 80 BPM, and it should be in A not G. I duly I tried the higher key using a capo at the second fret, and this with the 81bpm makes the song brighter and in a better higher vocal range for me. This is the power of working with a genius like Rick, who can help me see and hear and understand things that might seem obvious to others, but which elude me perhaps because I’m so close to what’s emerging through me, and because my confidence is still building. Here’s the revised songsheet transposed into the key of A – Leaving This Place (in A) 2Nov2023.
63. Just Another Angel (Another Strange Old Thing) – IMHO my best song to date in very many ways (because to me, my songs are mostly about the soul and what we make of ourselves). For quite a few days the song was to me the most challenging song for me to play and sing that I’ve ever written. Technically the 25th Nov version is a revision to the songwriting, because the first and second verses end (resolve) very pleasingly to E, via a #5th equating to a flattened 6th (I think, because my music theory is not perfect) rather than staying on the E7+7, as the 23rd Nov songsheet has it. Whatever, here’s the PDF songsheet for the 23rd phone recording: justanotherangel23Nov2023
64. Peacehaven – manifesting where I’m going (this is really true, about manifesting a future reality) – extending #62 Leaving This Place – Peacehaven is where I bought and moved (with my ex-wife) to a chalet bungalow in 1983, moving from and selling a one-bed flat in Selsdon, Surrey, now in Croydon Greater London. My life, like everyone’s life in different ways, is a circular journey. The Pink Bungalow (song #65) is about 10mins walk from the 1983-85 bungalow where in all probability my first-born, my son Alex, was conceived. To ‘go home’ further back in my ancestry I’ll revisit (one way or another) the ‘Fertile Crescent’, and the Bohemian path of the Sinti Romany of the flamenco and travellers. My oldest known family names are Chapman (a ‘cheapman’ tinker, gypsy travelling salesman of pots and pans); Rosenberg (Sinti Romany), and Pitham (Kentish, from pytt + ham = hollow or valley village, dating to the Norman conquest 1066 and settlement). My Pitham ancestors were very dark-skinned. My DNA and appearance are substantially from Mediterranean Europe and further East, via the Ukrainian-Polish (Sinti) corridor and upheavals. I love the sun and heat.
65. Pink Bungalow – manifesting where I’m going more specifically – extending #62 Leaving This Place and #64 Peacehaven
66. What Colour Is The Wind? – written from 11am27Dec2023-11pm28Dec2023 – Here’s the songsheet pdf: whatcolouristhewind-dec2023
67. Happy Days – this took about a month to emerge, via many different ideas, until it finally found its shape. It’s another of the Peacehaven songs, about manifesting and optimism, and which I’ll record raw, live, no clicktrack, very much like the Coalville sessions, after I move, at Blue Dot Studios in Hastings. Sometime in the future it would be wonderful also to record and produce versions of the Peacehaven songs with Rick Willson and other musicians. We’ll see.
68. Stoked And Humbled (Now We’re Healed) – this song emerged and finalised very fast, after I first met Lonnee Rey online 8th Feb 2024. Lonnee is the genius ‘Angel on Earth’ creator-author-publisher of the international best-selling anthology book series Rattled Awake, and I’m ‘stoked and humbled’ to feature in volume 7 of the series. Lonnee Rey used the term ‘stoked and humbled’ in our discussions, referring to her own feelings. From original loving soulful creativity, wonderful things emerge, especially the Rattled Awake book series. My thanks also to the genius John Lukach who introduced me to Lonnee. Human evolution is a beautiful thing for sure.
69. The Path Of Souls – first began to emerge as a near-finished song early 2024 or perhaps late 2023; it became too complex and long. This final version is short and sweet. It’s deliberately not recorded at ‘concert pitch’.
The path of souls, d’you hear me calling you?
Are we not whole, where are we going to?
Open for you, the view, we are free-flying birds.
Doors of the sky, our milky way of love,
We wonder why, drawn by the stars above,
Open for you, the view, we are free-flying birds.
Open for you hoo oo.
Chords:
Am7 Dm7 G7sus4 G7 Cmaj7
Am7 Dm7 G7sus4 G7 Cmaj7
E7 Am /G /F G7sus4 G7
Am7 Dm7 G7sus4 G7 Cmaj7
Am7 Dm7 G7sus4 G7 Cmaj7
E7 Am /F G C
D75 C Cmaj7 G7sus4 G7 C
70. The Thunder Of Our Dreams – emerged very quickly in a few days to be the rough phone dem 17th Jul 2024, leapfrogging another more complex song in development Jun-July, number 71 ‘Nobody’s Truth But My Own’ below:
71. Nobody’s Truth But My Own – at 17th Jul 2024 – lyrics approximate.
Nobody’s truth but my own. Nobody’s truth but my own, am I all alone with you? And all that we’ve been through.
Nobody’s truth but my own. Nobody’s truth but my own, am I all alone with you? And all that we’ve been through.
Fifth Avenue clearance, would be an easier song to sing. Having you near us, let go, light come in.
Fifth Avenue clearance, would be an easier song to sing. Having you near us, let go, light come in.
Nobody’s truth but my own. Nobody’s truth but my own, am I all alone with you? And all that we’ve been through.
And all that we’ve been through, and all that we’ve been through, and all that we’ve been through, and all that we’ve….
Fifth Avenue clearance… Song to sing. Having you near us, let go, light come in
Fifth Avenue clearance… Song to sing. Having you near us…
Nobody’s truth but my own Nobody’s truth but my own Nobody’s truth but my own Nobody’s truth but my own.
Let go, light come in. Let go, light come in. Let go, light come in. Let go, light come in.
72. Almost Packed – I started this song when I was packing for my move from Leicestershire to Peacehaven, and before I knew of the last-minute obstacles that almost prevented my move altogether. It’s recorded in my conservatory at Peacehaven, which has a lovely natural echo/acoustic quality. The sea-swimming references emerged after I began swimming in the sea at Peacehaven and at the extraordinary beach of ‘forgotten’ town Tide Mills. Sea swimming , and my move to Peacehaven, has been a spiritual rebirth for me.
73. Cowboy Song – One of the first songs to emerge after my move to Peacehaven in 19th July 2024. This song has echoes of ‘Cowgirl Song’, written by Rude Angel (myself, Liane Ashberry and Shaz Collier). It’s a significant statement for me, being solo and reborn in a new life and home, 180 miles away from Leicestershire and the traumas of that place. The song is still taking shape (as songs continue to do) and ‘finalised’ here, 21st Aug 2024, because other songs are emerging, and I want to move on.
74. Darlin’ (Do You Want Me?) – Phone dem 5th Sep 2024. A re-write and huge improvement of a song which emerged suddenly 25th Aug, ‘Clearly You Don’t Want Me’, which became increasingly obsolete within a couple of days. Energies are very interesting. Deep love seems to have a life of its own. It refuses to die. Even when all hope is lost. This is probably the most challenging song I’ve had to learn to play and sing.
75. Float Away – phone dem 25th Sep 2024, which took about two weeks to write and re-arrange. Probably the best I’ve ever written and literally physically arranged a song by cutting out and moving around the different sections of the song. The playout includes the slightly dissonant B2 chord instead of Bm7.
76. The Inside Of Our Heart – phone dem 6th Oct 2024 – this song emerged quickly in just 3 days or so. It’s about love and connections at the level of the soul. The reference to the ‘flash of light’ alludes to the evidence that at the point of human conception in the female, when the sperm enters the ovum (egg), there is a flash of light, and this is the soul entering the baby human body being created. There also seems evidence that the soul has a weight, which has been measured when the soul departs the human body at the time of death.
77. Probably Loving You Always (She Kept The Letter) – phone dem 21th Oct 2024. A true story.
78. Naked In Bed – Phone dem and finished version 27th Nov 2024. Based on a series of whatsapp messages between Maria and me, and our individual and connected work in writing, publishing, healing and energies.
79. Is There A Moment – Rough phone dems 20th and 18th Dec 2024 slightly different – 20th better, slightly faster and much better phrasing and singing – the first basic shape and words of this song emerged 13th Dec 2024. Guitar is tuned down a semi-tone (to Eb) and there’s a capo at the 4th fret, so the key is Eb too. Dedicated with love and gratitude to Celia Farber, along with every other soul and ‘The Great Spirit’.
80. The Force Of Faith – Rough phone dems 18th Jan 2026. The first decent song to emerge through me since the end of 2024. 2025 was not a year I’d want to repeat, to say the least. If trauma is the mother of creative output, I’m due some wonderful new songs or other productivity.
81. And This Song, Emerges, Through Me (I’ve Been Away) – Rough phone dem, 20th Jan 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/and-this-song-emerges-through-me.
82. Onions and Chips – Prompted by the appalling pollution affecting 90 miles of the English south coastline and seas, from over 20 shipping containers lost at sea in the wonter of 2025/26 storms.
83. Note To Self – Written in a day, beginning with my beach walk collecting sea-glass this morning (27 Jan 2026). Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/note-to-self.
84. The Texture Of Our Tides – Written 28-30th Jan 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/the-textures-of-our-tides.
85. Rubbing Shoulders With Nature – Written 31Jan-1Feb 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/rubbing-shoulders-with-nature.
86. Whoosh – Rough phone dem. Written 1-6Feb 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/whoosh.
87. Healing To Be Done – Rough phone dem. Written 6-8Feb 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/healing-to-be-done.
88. Light – Rough phone dem – Written 8-11Feb 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/light.
89. Drops (Just Like A Bulb In The Snow) – Rough phone dem. Written 11-16Feb 2026. Lyrics at alanchapman.substack.com/p/drops.
—–[Alan retain this gap below – it contains the webpage page coding for the ‘lifestory’ bookmark ]—–
Notes about my life story:
More personal notes for me or anyone else interested…
We each have our stories.
I’m very lucky I can try to make sense of my own here.
A summary of my life so far, is that from birth (1957) I was traumatised (as so many of us are in different ways), and yet also raised lovingly as best as my parents knew how. I inherited some genetic addictive tendencies (notably towards decades of alcohol abuse) and also many natural powers, emotional and physical, especially in sport and arts, creativity and adaptability. As a sensitive young boy and teenager, through school and six decades of adulthood, I became addicted to responsibility and reward, as if I needed validation to exist. Until recently I carried a self-destructive self-loathing; a sort of guilt or shame at being undeserving of anything unless I paid for it. I was very much governed by what others thought of me. I would, and nearly did, destroy myself completely, rather than imagine that I’d upset someone else. I felt responsible for the wellbeing of everyone else. The foundations of this lack of self-love were laid in my childhood. Despite and because of this I worked at very high levels, at a young age, in the employed corporate and later the consulting and coaching sectors, including nuclear defence and computer technology industries. From the mid 1990s I began building a vast educational resource which became Businessballs.com (1999), which was probably the first free global English-speaking work/life education ‘portal’ for ethical leadership and development (self, others and organisations). It was holistic, innovative and internationally renowned, and ranked about 10,000 of all websites in the world in the early 2000s. I built it on a single desktop pc and maintained it during its peak popularity. I experienced and was immersed successfully in the computer age as it developed from military and mysterious beginnings, from when people used pen and paper and manual typewriters (which in the 1970s I used to sell to City of London businesses) to become a virtual digitised version of life that many believe to be real today, while also offering a global connectedness and transformational power beyond imaginings. Yin yang. Life and death.
Following my marriage breakdown, age 50 in 2007, my life and work began to disintegrate; which I realise now was the disintegration of who and what I had been conditioned to believe I was. The suicide of my new partner Liane Ashberry in 2015, after nearly five years together, began a series of life-threatening traumas, which I brought upon myself, and this seems common in suicide grief. Rebirth and emerging as a new person seems complex; infinitely dimensioned. 2021 was a major turning point in my recovery, although in many significant ways I’d been recovering since 2007, in which trying and succeeding and failing cannot be differentiated. This seems the nature of disintegration and rebirth, especially when we reframe it as such, which increasingly I do, and try to show others via my life and work. Music, creativity, ‘soul’ and ‘energies’ are what thrill my heart mostly now, especially in the ways I engage with others and wider magic 🙂
– – – – – – – – – –
More detail; the beginnings of a book, or several 🙂
This is a chronology of 7 years’ intense chaotic and traumatic growths since 2015 (my then partner Liane Ashberry’s suicide), my life since 2007 (my marriage breakdown), and also since my birth and raising since 1957.
My life has been a series of growths mainly driven by traumas, which I consider to be gifts.
I’m very grateful that I’ve survived and I now thrive very productively, in wellness, peace and abundance.
I was 65 years old in September 2002, and my best work is just beginning 🙂
1957 – Born, a simple man (Kennington, South London). My Mum was from the London slums and remembered the Jarrow Marchers going past her basement home. My Dad was first-born, son of a First World War under-age bugle boy, who told me true stories of escapades and madness in and over the trenches of Northern France. My Dad’s mother was Jewish from the Ukrainian and Polish Jewish refugee diaspora, whose family name was changed to Rose from Rosenberg, because the Jews were hated so much in England as well as Stalin’s Russia and later Hitler’s Germany. Hitler put the nasty Jews in charge of much of the holocaust. Evil and weakness, and good and loving fearlessness are not matters of race or ethnicity; they are matters of humanity. My Mum and Dad met at the age about 9-10 years old when they were evacuated from London to Dorset. My Mum told me that she narrowly avoided being raped by a soldier when she was cycling back home in the country lanes. He parked his truck across the lane to block her way, and she knew what was coming and managed to ride away. My Mum and Dad both returned to London before the end of the war and lived through the Blitz, during which most of London was bombed to pieces. The V1 and V2 rockets featured, especially the V1 ‘Doodlebugs’. If you could hear the Doodlebug engine you were probably safe; the danger was when the engine cut and the flying bomb fell. Not many people in England were then, or are, aware of the terrible bombing raids that England carried out on German civilians. Wars are interesting. Wars make the bankers, and hidden families behind them, richer, and are designed to make hatred and fear between people who otherwise would not argue. My Mum went to work at 14 despite winning as scholarship to a decent school, because her family needed the income. My Dad became a salesman after quitting the job in a bank that his Dad had secured for him. My Dad’s Dad owned and ran a tobacconist/sweetshop in Kennington. My Mum’s Dad was an alcoholic coppersmith, whose trade meant that he avoided conscription in the Second World War. I’m fairly certain he was too young to fight in WWI. My Mum told me that he would get drunk in pubs with the ‘Irish navvies’. ‘Navvies’ were then road-workers, whose nickname derives from the ‘navigation’ workers who built the Victorian canal system, so I believe. My Mum and Dad eventually got together and became engaged as teenagers. My Mum took the lead in courting my Dad; I recall that she told me she wrote to him sending him a pen, and that was the start of a togetherness that lasted until my Dad died in 2016. My Dad’s parents refused to have anything to do with the two of them for a year or so after they became engaged, because they reckoned my Mum was beneath my Dad. My Dad’s Mum used to make ice-cream for dessert, for which I’d love the recipe now. I was born in a hospital in Kennington in SE London. I was a forceps delivery, which I think would have been quite traumatic, for me and my Mum. In those days Dads tended not to attend the births, and babies were given a smack on the backside to make them cry, supposedly to get the baby’s lungs working. So my first experience of life outside of the womb was being dragged out by forceps, and then smacked on the arse. Being the eldest son among three boys of two aspirational and intelligent and skilful parents, and the eldest cousin in a family of seven aunts and seven uncles and all their children who came along, I was raised to take a lot of responsibility. This made me who I am, and nearly killed me, but I’m not complaining. I also went to an all-boys school that was being run as if it were some sort of Eton. There were some brilliant and quirky teachers; some of whom I owe an enormous gratitude – notably (head of) art and design teacher Owen Frampton (father of 1970s/80s-present globally iconic and successful rock guitarist Peter Frampton), and a deeply spiritual English and drama teacher Patrick ‘Paddy’ Moore (among whose many gifts/teachings for me is Norton Juster’s ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’). I cannot thank them now, for all they taught me, and still teach me. But the school, especially being all-boys and ‘colonial’ ‘elitist’ ‘paternalistic’ in aspiration and style damaged me greatly, is my belief. The head boy Howard Vagg wore a cape. A seventeen-year-old, wearing a cape! Goodness me. The school actually converted to a ‘comprehensive’ the year I started there as an eleven year-old. I suspect I was accepted there because of its new ‘comprehensive’ status. I failed or was ‘border-line’ (I recall my parents use that term) in the ’11-plus’ exam, which was the test then for accessing ‘higher quality’ education. I never discovered if I’d passed or failed my ’11-plus’ exam. I assume/imagine perhaps unfairly that I failed and my Mum and Dad decided to fudge the explanation. Or maybe everything was transitionary then – entrance exams and the nature of certain schools – so that very few people knew what was really going on. It had been Bromley Technical High School, and became Ravenswood. David Bowie was a student there, alongside Peter Frampton, both taught by Owen Frampton, genius mentor, artist, designer, photographer, and beautiful human being. It’s interesting, the ripples of inspiration from a handful of the lovely teachers; that they cascade for generations. We never know most of the lives we transform. At the same time there are ripples of lower vibrations; the guilt, shame, self-loathing, and systemic distortions of up-bringing – deeply unnatural and harmful – that become challenges and opportunities for us, to understand, forgive, reframe, and to use as fuel and lessons for growth and transcendence, rather than seeds of bitterness and resentment.
1978 – I first saw Maria and fell extremely deeply foreveringly in love. This is a love that I’ve carried in me for ever, and in many ways I believe it’s part of energies that are infinite. One day I will be grown and ready for Maria. It’s complicated. Deep love always is. In the Breakdown #19 tries to explain. So too #10 You Thrill me and of course #15 Maria Loony Toons, which is a love song for others I know, and anyone else too. Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata novella explains a lot about my (past) self-loathing as a man who is (still) in awe of women. Until very recently, since I was a young/teenage boy, I’ve seen myself as someone who should pay to receive love/friendship, especially from women. I guess this is due to my growing up without sisters, going to an all-boys school, and doing homework rather than enjoying youth clubs and socialising. I experienced some trauma as a child which I think has been unhelpful to me, especially combined with being raised and rewarded to take a lot of responsibility. Addictions and false beliefs are fascinating.
1979-80 – Maria. I was extremely surprised that Maria would be interested in me. Even more amazed that she would actually love me for who I was. I was far too young for Maria, although I’m more grown now. Interestingly Maria has a metabolic age of 32 (as at April 2022).
1980 – Viv.
1981-2007 – Viv and I married, and marriage was challenging and well-lubricated alcoholically. At times lovingly cooperative and lots of fun, and we managed nearly 30 years together. I was a fool. Kreutzer Sonata explains. Viv deserved a different man and eventually had the bravery to find one.
2007 – My marriage breakdown. We did very well to manage 27 years, or “Twenty-seven…. thousand years,” as Viv would say extremely amusingly when we were asked how long we’d been married.
2010 – Liane. Liane lost her daughter Ella age 11 to bone cancer in 2009. We began making music together; cover songs, then writing what became Ploughed Heart. Liane was the biggest fundraiser for the UK Bone Cancer Research Charity, and for the children’s cancer ward at Leicester Royal Infirmary hospital. Ironically Liane’s suicide was largely due to failings of the Leicestershire health authorities, which was proven in the two-day coroner’s inquest. I realised after Liane’s suicide that I’d been learning a lot about suicide (and the icebergs of health wreckage and political/economic corruption) since meeting Liane in 2010, and also in many ways since I was a young man: like most experiences, meanings change as we do. It’s not our fault. It is our opportunity to reframe trauma as gifts.
2015 – Liane’s suicide, then having to finish the Ploughed Heart album. This nearly killed me. The completing of an album of original music, whose making was cathartic processing of unimaginable grief for Liane, became cathartic but also life-threatening to me in ways that are extremely difficult to describe, so I won’t try. The music for now, speaks. Maria again, after 35 years of not knowing each other, and the start of the end of my ten year divorce from Viv. And yet oddly, magical things start to happen, which I’ll be able to explain very entertainingly in the future I believe.
2016 – Eynsford Kent, renting, horrifically, my Dad died beautifully and horrifically, early Alzheimer’s and his suicide, because he knew what was coming. Ingrid, Liane’s youngest sister died; another story. My hill running, marathons and river water poisoning. I refused antibiotics. Healed naturally. It took three months, then running the hills again. Partly processing, much distracting from suicidal longings, much addiction and self-destruction.
2017 – My divorce finalises, I’m cleaned out, and within six months my business collapses on re-launch in partnership with Accipio, amidst my founding FestivalofLifeandDeath.org (FoLaD) for ‘global suicide prevention’. I was deeply suicidal at this time, but managing to organise some extremely ambitious things, working in suicide grief and suicide awareness and prevention 🙂
2018 – I was defrauded by Willie Thorne (I was his last big fraud/borrowing victim, to support his gambling addictions). I attempted to take legal action (police not interested, except to say it’s a civil matter) and was selling stuff to save my house/home/workbase/life. I agreed the sale of my house to a developer. He says “Leave everything, we’ll burn it all.” Everyone thinks I’m mad. I’m not; I was simply disintegrating, like many people do in repeating traumas, and a cycles of self-destruction. I pull out of the sale of my house (which mostly belongs to the building society anyway) and very slowly I begin to rebuild, but it’s hell and I have more money going out than coming in, and huge re-mortgage debt after the divorce, business collapse and defraudment. I stupidly imagine that things can’t get any worse, and also, interestingly, I imagine that I cannot handle any worse or more traumas, when actually I can. This is just as well, because things get much worse, and better, and worse. I’m teetering on the edge of survival, still, and would be for another four years; perhaps longer; it remains to be seen. So many people live a life that is very safe, and they do not grow. I prefer to live a life that is unsafe, and so I grow, although it is a question of balance, which a deep friend of mine says is a process not a state. “Balance is a process not a state.”
2019 – By a series of strange and fortunate developments, my defraudment by Willie Thorne is picked up – noticed somehow – by the Government Insolvency Agency (initially by their Liverpool office I recall), and even more fortunately the investigation is then allocated to an extremely brilliant officer, who’d had 20 years’ combined experience with Police Fraud Squad and Insolvency Agency (respectively 12 years and 8 years I recall), and after a few more months of nightmarish paperwork for me and then my continuing to gather and assemble my evidence, via equally nightmarish technology, including over 100 phone screenshots of texting between me and Willie Thorne, and also recorded discussion between me and Willie Thorne (that crucially I recorded with his permission) during a visit to his house after he’d admitted to me his deceptions, the ‘Crown vs WJ Thorne’ criminal case begins, to be heard at Leicester Crown Court Oct 2020, subsequently moved to Dec 2020. I’m witness for the Crown (‘Crown’ = British ‘state’ or government). My initial statement is 28 pages long. Many more pages are added. I’ll try to publish it all here eventually. Michael Mansfield QC’s wife-to-be Yvette is the other witness for the Crown. I am throughout all of this deeply suicidal; hollow; like my soul has been scraped out and I am merely a ghost and empty shell (is how I recall imagining it and writing extensive notes about my feelings – I’ve long been a writer, and writing notes and songs kept be from becoming even more seriously at risk – this was not the evidence per se, it was my survival). After Michael Mansfield’s and Yvette’s wedding in Belfast, to which Maria and I were kindly invited (it was an indescribably uplifting experience for me – goodness me, Belfast – what a wonderful city and what profoundly beautiful people) I decide (imagining mistakenly no other option) to sell my farmhouse, and vultures come. Ben and Shawn, high-achieving son and father, are doing their best (why not) to advance their own interests, but I am wide open to being exploited and manipulated, and that’s what happened. It’s been one of my greatest lessons in forgiveness, and a story in its own right. I am self-destructing, without realising it; not fighting for myself; making things mean what they are not; failing to be objective. Very very alone. The clearance takes me from November 2019 to Feb 2020; curtailed due to a breach of trust so that I cannot complete the clearance and buy ‘chain-free’ as agreed. I do not shower or change my clothes for those months of clearance, except for a short break with Maria at Christmas 2019. I ‘freecycle’ and give away almost everything to people in need: furniture and the contents of my wellbeing barn cafe (FeelgoodFarm.co.uk, as was), but I’m still left with far too much for a little terraced house with a garden shed. Prior to this I had found, and had my offer to buy accepted, a lovely semi-detached 1950s house in Matlock, but I pull out because I cannot make the move, logistically, financially, emotionally. I have no spare money, and too proud and ashamed to ask anyone to lend me money.
2020 and 2021 – These times are a little blurry in terms of precisely where/when I was living; sometimes with Maria in Kent. Three times I agreed to sell my house to different developers/builders at a huge loss compared with what I’d paid for it, but each time, having involved solicitors, I pull out, because I found the courage to do so. My exits were in my mind worse than keeping my ‘house of hell’: the first entailed a caravan on a traveller’s site; the second entailed renting somewhere somehow; and the third entailed buying a house in the far north of Scotland. So I kept the house of hell. During this time, 2020, I can now look back and see that I had yet to learn my lessons of looking after myself when a damaged manipulative person seeks to exploit my sensitivity and vulnerability. It’s a small story within many others, which I’ll tell now, because it’s come to me and is part of my processing, to write about it. A chef at a local pub, ‘Chris’, decided to start his own home-based business of making pizzas for local people to order and collect, during the first lockdown. I had come to know and like him (as many other locals did) because in the pub he also ran quizzes and called bingo very creatively and amusingly, and sang a few Karaoke songs very boldly and entertainingly, and was a charismatic and confident young man who could make people laugh. He claimed to me to have been very near to achieving a Michelin star as a chef for a restaurant in East Anglia, prior to moving to Anstey. He was now renting a small flat above a shop in the centre of Anstey, with his young girlfriend. He invited me to share a Sunday lunch with him and his girlfriend, which I did; and although I recall thinking at the time that it was far from Michelin quality, I gave him the benefit of whatever doubts I felt. He told me that the landlord of the pub where he worked knew about his home-based pizza venture. I ordered pizzas from him on a couple of occasions, and also, as he’d asked, I recommended him to friends. I’d also cleaned-up to good-as-new a small counter-top electric oven, which I’d bought a year or two prior, and given it to him. I’d also given him £100 cash to help him start his business. He hadn’t asked for the money, and was puzzled by my gifting it; I’d simply given it to him, and I explained that it was to help him. Madness. Kindness to strangers can be borne of feelings of self-destructiveness and worthlessness. (Incidentally I’d previously lent this little electric oven when completely unused, still in its box, to the world-class luthier and beautiful man Jon Letts, who’d moved into what was my wellbeing barn cafe at the farmhouse, when he was deeply suicidal, having recently survived a suicide attempt. That is another story, including at least one extremely funny incident that will make most people completely rethink what they understand about suicide.) One of the clues that someone could be close to suicide is giving things away. Liane did it, when I did not know the signs and clues; another story. I already knew I was suicidal when I was giving things to the chef, and others, but in the darkness, clarity of one’s own self and situation is almost completely impossible. And I was very alone, as so many others were in these times. Anyway, back to the pizza chef. A friend texted to warn and ask me if this ‘Chris’ is the same ‘Chris’ who’d recently been exposed and revealed to be a convicted paedophile. And this proved to be the case. Chris begged me for more help and money and to transport him out of Anstey to safety. I refused. Lesson learned. I hope he’s okay now, and I assume he was the way he was because he’d been damaged in his earlier life, as (IMHO) Willie Thorne had been, but the point of the story is to help my processing and self-forgiveness, and to demonstrate the power of self-destruction, especially when we are sensitive and trusting. The guilt and shame that accompanies being victim to fraud and deception, is highly dangerous, especially when one is drowning, gasping and aimless, and particularly in the middle of a pandemic psychological operation, as we all were, and to a great extent, still remain (at the time of writing this story, on 27 Dec 2022, within the wider story).
2020 – In more detail: I move to Forest Gate in Anstey, three minutes’ drive from my farmhouse home since 1991. 85 Forest Gate is a wreck that no-one else was daft enough to buy, and truly I had to remove the doors to move anything around. As I peel away the layers of terrible repairs and shoddy building work, the house becomes unsellable except to builders and developers. There is a much bigger story to all this than I can tell until I am not still immersed in it all. As I feared before moving from the Farmhouse to Forest Gate, and projected logically from all my experience, the fire engulfing me intensified. Forest Gate is a staging post; part of my huge clearance; and where I remain stuck for a long time. Willie Thorne died in summer 2020, which is the end of the criminal case, and difficult for me because I’ve never been able to explain: that I was not mad, I was just gullible and vulnerable, and it can happen to anyone. Fraud is emasculating and terrifying. The media would have ripped me to shreds, although I’d have handled it. Standing in the fire we become fireproof. Maria and I became increasingly involved in helping people impacted by lockdowns and restrictions, especially those in suicidal crisis. In 2020 the ExcludedUK Facebook group (for many of the 3million people excluded from government help, like Maria and me) suffered a suicide rate of ten times the normal national average (i.e., 1 suicide per thousand people, vs normal average of 1 suicide per ten thousand people – specifically 25 suicides in a few months among a group of 25,000 Excluded members). Maria and I were both on the ‘suicide watch’ team throughout the Christmas holiday period.
2021 – I moved in with Maria in Kent for most of 2021. We attended four of the huge London protests/marches and became members of many significant protest organisations working for open debate, freedom, transparency, inquiry, justice, etc. For the second time I pull out of the sale of my house and move back into Forest Gate. I repeat this cycle again, and again, until finally committing to moving back into Forest Gate in September 2021, and very gradually start to fix things, especially the house, and myself. The house is killing me but I’m also being strengthened by it. “You cannot kill a dead man,” became my mantra. It strengthened me but my troubled situation and relationships impacted on and upset some people who care very much about me. I started to write, play and record songs much more. On new year’s eve (daytime) I was introduced to the ‘low carbs’ lifestyle/education and low intensity exercise/fitness organisations by Maria, and this began to join a lot of other things together, and notably with the ‘critical psychiatry’ movement, which questions, exposes and challenges the (IMHO and experience) dangerous and catastrophic methods of the ‘mental illness’ pharmaceutical industry and health professionals and authorities which subscribe and prescribe and promote the ‘treatments’; antidepressants and sleeping tablets especially.
2022 – My Mum, 91 in January, and very healthy for her age until summer 2021, becomes much more ill very suddenly, and dies on 2nd April. My own health and fitness are extremely good. I can still run hill marathons when/if I choose, although now I do more frequent low mileage ‘steady state’ exercise – brisk walks or gentle runs, and gym/strength work. I often eat just one meal a day; high protein and natural fats, including extra-virgin olive oil, and mostly above-ground vegetables, plus onions and garlic, and dandelions, nettles, mint, sage, beetroot leaves, and a few other green leaves from my garden. I very rarely get colds, nor any other illnesses, and despite probably having had ‘Covid’ on one or more occasion, I never had to take any painkillers or other drugs. I’ve not any prescription drugs nor other pharmaceuticals since my ‘river water poisoning’ at the end of 2016, when I took Ibuprofen and Paracetamol. After many years’ reducing my alcohol consumption (since the early 2000s) and then complete alcohol abstinence (since Liane’s suicide in 2015, because I knew how dangerous alcohol is for the suicidal) I now drink a little alcohol; weak/mulled red wine or weak ale or mild, but really very little. I say ‘probably’ had ‘Covid’, because I’ve never tested for ‘Covid’ or whatever ‘Covid’ actually is. (Nor have I ever worn a mask.) The two or three, or maybe four times I’ve had ‘Covid’ (end-2019, 2020, and twice in 2022) were when for different reasons I weakened my immune system by over-exercising and not eating enough, not sleeping enough and subjecting myself to too much stress (notably processing my grief and working on suicide prevention). I generally get an average of eight hours sleep every day, in cycles recommended by Nick Littlehales; and definitely longer if I’m processing grief; my own, or counselling and absorbing anyone else’s. I try to be as active and optimistic as possible, working on all sorts of things. I believe I will stay healthy and very fit for all my life, and I embrace my mortality very happily. At the end of 2022 I have experimented hugely with my own mind, body and spiritual energies, especially with nutrition, lifestyle, exercise and sleep. I studied a lot in all sorts of areas, especially nutrition and lifestyle and became quite highly qualified as a nutritionist and holistic health coach, building on my educational and coaching work with corporate leaders since the 1990s. I’ve also engaged deeply with lots of ideas and research and activism, which in many different ways questions what we have been taught about basically everything, and these matters are for another day, as we watch events unfold in 2023.
I am increasingly optimistic about the future, while also being mindful that governments, big business, ‘big tech’ and mainstream media, have been and continue to be responsible for crimes that can reasonably be described (IMHO) as democide and genocide, for the past few years, and actually for centuries and millennia prior.
2024 – I moved to Peacehaven on 19th July and I am reborn. I swim in the sea and I start to run again, alone and with my brother Graham and his new partner. I work pollarding and taking down the many huge overgrown trees in my garden. I work on my house and my soul, for the younger fitter healthier self I am manifesting. I heed the wise reflections of my daughter, to reinvent myself as a guitar and song-writing teacher. I am moving on and letting go. My songs, especially Peacehaven, Pink Bungalow, Almost Packed, and Cowboy Song, continue to tell my story.
2025 – In March, Maria and I agree, very lovingly and mutually supportively, to remain friends and to end our ‘physical’ or ‘romantic’ or ‘sexual’ relationship. If you read above you’ll recall that: “1978 – I first saw Maria and fell extremely deeply foreveringly in love”. Grief and relief rhyme, but the reasoning – the balancing of past and future to find a healing present – is elusive. I wonder what will emerge, internally and externally.