In case you missed it, compulsion, addiction and self-destructive behaviour seem to walk hand-in-hand with the music industry from way before the jazz age right up to the present day. The glass is always completely full, even if it’s half empty. But, some do come back from the brink, thankfully.
Here’s a sneak preview of my new seasonal song – a song of loss.
It kicks off with a traditional pseudojazz-blues progression lamenting the loss, the cold of winter, the almost forgotten warmth of summer, it could almost be a love song or a lament to the end of Breaking Bad even. But, then what is addiction but love and isn’t the loss of love the worst kind of withdrawl. The well-worn path of jazz, rock and blues often alludes to that girl Mary Jane or her friend Lucy. Skin can be golden brown.
As the “chills begin to start” it heads off into a weird, trippy quasi-dubstep world that recalls the seemingly, screamingly endless pain of withdrawal…
The song is called Winter Warmer and will feature in vol II of the David Bradley Uncovered Again playlist.
Winter Warmer
It sounds like winter, The wind is howling
The leaves are growling all along the road
The summer’s over, you left me standing
Left me standing right out here in the cold
All I needed was to hold you, darling
For you to melt the ice within my heart
But, the Sun has gone and I feel misty
The year moves on and now the chills will start
It feels like winter, The wind keeps cutting
Through the trees and stills my aching heart
The distant warmth of summer could mean nothing
If you’d been so cold right from the start
When the green shoots of the Spring start growing
Remember me the one you left behind
The tales you told me of a heart that’s showing
The warmth of summer like I’ll never find
Hand me down my favourite enemy
All the words you cannot say
Hand me down I’m thinking: half as free
I’ll catch the needle and the pain
All I needed was to hold you, darling
For you to melt the ice within my heart
But, the Sun has gone and I feel misty
The year moves on and now the chills will start