Sunshine and Rooks
The Meaning of the Songs
A hard thing to define the moment when you write a song. If the feelings really carry you into a place as you sing it then you know it's right inside. Faking it is like saying "I Love You" and lying just to get your own way.
So here goes...hope you like the lyrics to our new songs Sunshine and Swimming and The Rooks of Kathmandu...(shortly to be released online and as a cd double A sided single).
This is a song about being low waged fodder and being lonely. And dreaming of being free...a universal theme the world over. I based it on experiences of doing 7am shifts in a backpackers hostel as a residential worker on £340 a month, six days a week with one 3 day weekend every month, with a mattress on the floor in an attic bedroom and free canteen food. Plus temporary jobs at major high street stores for minimum wage in different parts of England. In particular a 6am bus to a warehouse near Leeds, West Yorkshire. The alternative dream was a rock pool off the coast of Croatia or the coast of the south island off New Zealand...it's the dream that matters not the reality.
Sunshine and Swimming
I hear the roar of buses in the dark and early morning
It reminds me of the shift that I am on
With a butterfly belly and a sandwich box beside me
eking out the minutes in my comfort zone
I despise the walls of the staff canteen
I'm in an everyday daydream of a life that I'm not lviing...
of sunshine and swimming...
Sitting with a paper, far too young to be wasted
I'm drifting on my dark thoughts again
thinking up new stories as I mop up on the stone steps
remember - to keep the bucket hot
I despise the walls of the staff canteen
I'm in an everyday daydream of a life that I'm not living
of sunshine and swimming...
and loneliness will find me
in a life that has designed me that's our lot
and why did you betray me
I thought you were the finest friend I ever had
maybe not...
Sweeney Astray is
Mike Kneafsey - vocals/guitar
Hannah Dacey - double bass/vocals
Anna Ashworth -drums
The Rooks of Kathmandu
is a mix of themes. Aside from an experience of going through my life slowly while suffering from serious illness in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, South East Asia, in 1989. A place without the medical equipment to have saved me from dying. Weird thing being I experienced a state of understanding that every part of my life involved moral decision making -a right path and a wrong path. I always knew which way to turn even if I chose to ignore it. My entire life. Made me realise that people who behave like arseholes truthfully choose to do so. It is their fault.
I spent a week in isolation ward in Leeds Hospital when I got home and went down to nine stone.
Plus a period spent living in a farm cottage off the edge of Newcastle with a girlfriend writing songs and working on a green magazine, where there was fox, badgers, roe deer, wildfowl and semi ancient woodland. It changed me forever. So the song is about nature and death.
The Rooks of Kathmandu
Calling, the rooks were calling
Flying round my head from tree to tree
There is no understanding
of what it's like to be like you and me
Every scene I'd ever seen was running round my head
Life will never catch you up, so you said.
Roe deer, I saw a roe deer
Walking through a woodland without fear
Silent as the sunlight
My heartbeat was the only sound I could hear
Every scene I'd ever seen was there before my eyes
Life will one day catch you up - surprise
Secrets, there's no secrets
Nothing left to stand between us now
And love is my understanding
of where I ever want to be and how
Every scene I'd ever seen was there before my eyes
Life will oen day catch you up - surprise
Calling, the Rooks were calling
I was lyining in my bed inb Kathmandu
My life was slowly turning
But I made it back to England and back to you
Every scene I'd ever seen was there before my eyes
Life will one day catch you up - surprise
Surprise.
Single Launch Party on Saturday December 20th
Two tracks as a double A side; Sunshine & Swimming /The Rooks of Kathmandu
Featuring Sweeney Astray plus guests Marta Canellas (cello) and George Harris and the Memory Makers. Elliott Dryden of the Remedy will provide us with sounds and engineer the night.
A public party upstairs at the Adelphi in Preston. Doors open from 8pm until 1am. We have a late bar which is upstairs (so no traipsing downstairs for drinks).
Tickets are £5.50 to buy them online google "wegottickets sweeney astray single launch".
Single Launch Party
Here it is. It's finally happening. We are
having a double A side single launch and party on December the 20th, a
Saturday night at the Adelphi Preston close to the University. Myself,
Anna and Hannah will be joined by special guests Marta Canellas
(cello), Elliott Dryden on sound, and the excellent George Harris &
The Memory Makers. There's a bar upstairs and we're running until 1am
providing a night of indie folk and live performance. I've just set the
event up this minute. Come and join us!
Mike Kneafsey
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