The Forecast Is For Snow

First let me say that I took the chorus line from one of The Murderer poems by Luke Kennard. It’s in a collection called The Harbour Beyond The Movie and you won’t read a bunch of poems better than these probably ever.

Anyway, poets aside, this is probably my favourite of my own songs I’ve written. Are you allowed to have a favourite? Tough, this is mine.

I wrote it after I had a bit of a heart scare last November... there was this talk of a murmur and various tests were being done and ever since the word ‘murmur’ was uttered, I felt my chest and heart tighten up ridiculously. One night, in Manchester, I got so worked up about my poorly heart that I could have sworn it was about to explode in my chest, I couldn’t breathe. It was horrible, I thought something terrible was happening and so I went to see the out of hours doctor at the hospital. Dr Pasard was just about the coolest person I have ever met. He had that old and wise feel about him. He sat me down, talked about the weather and about the government and about my home town and about how much he hated London and then he pretty much laughed at me. He told me there was nothing wrong with me and that I was simply having a panic attack.

Now I am no stranger to panic attacks at all, but I had never encountered that difficulty in breathing and the heavy, tight chest before. When I pointed this out to him he said, quite frankly “your symptoms have been accentuated by the word ‘MURMUR’”’.  And when he said “murmur” he sort of growled it. It was amazing.

So the song is really about chapter-closers. Dr Pasard was in a way and what I felt at the time, a chapter closer. When I walked out of that hospital I felt like I would never get that scared by panic again. I would also like to dedicate a part of this song to (the very talented) Marc Riegelsford AKA Magic Arm who was so kind as to try and bring calm to that night of panic pre Dr Pasard! I think I dragged him out of a gig he was playing to try and bring order to my mind!

So anyway with this song, I started thinking about other times in my life that felt like chapter-closes.

People, places...The way, despite how well or long you know someone for, as that friendship and era passes, they become reduced to almost a single memory no matter how much else you experienced with them. That feeling of being on the edge of something, or rather at the end of something. Like imagine you’re on the edge of a forest and looming in the distant are snow clouds that will fade everything to white... like when you reach one of the typewriters in Resident Evil 4.... end of a chapter, fade to white.... who knows what the other side of that snow will bring....

Spot references to Paul Simon’s ‘Duncan’ in the last verse and musically inspired by a particular MJ song and also the ridiculously good Captain Beefheart song: My Head Is My Only Home Unless It Rains which is one of the best songs I can think of. So I also want to dedicate this song to Paul Rafferty who sent me that Beefheart song in the first place and who’s been generally awesome and very much a part of this song’s process.

This recording is just me and my dad basically. I enjoyed pretending I was in The Drifters and created my own little dance routine to do whilst I was doing the backing vocals in the studio all by myself one night. Bit strange to be laughing at your own dancing when you’re completely alone....

 I discovered this organ sound on this song too, the harmonics are so wintery and whistly I love it. Bob Scott played drums. You’re gonna hear some more of his work really soon, there’s a bit of a treat in store!

I know it’s the wrong time of year to be talking about snow, but the good thing about seasons is that they always come back around.

The forecast, you know, will someday be for snow.