The High Wood

A haze of a weekend after working with Foss the previous 4 days and mapping out a new song “The High Wood” based on the story of battles and events around WW1.
It’s quite an epic and sometimes I get the nerves jangling when I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with this.

It already has 5 sections the first being “High Wood” about the present day and the fact that after all that has been and gone the wood remains in pretty much the same size and state that it was pre-1916. However it contains the bodies of over 8000 men from both sides that have never been found and weapons and munitions are still amongst the trees with no one allowed access as it is privately owned.

The section so far is “meandering keyboard”.You can get an idea of the history and the place itself from here.The second section is “Crucifix Corner” and is about the last cavalry charge on the Somme against machine gun positions near the High Wood (shown in dramatic detail in the film “War Horse”).
It has quite a celtic/folky theme at the start and builds from an unaccompanied vocal into a full on musical “charge”.

The 3rd section is “The Gathering” and is about the raising of the regiments and has what Foss calls some Debussy moments.

4th section is “Thistle Alley” and as yet has no musical ideas in place but is about the men on/in the ground during the terrible assaults on the wood in 1916 and the ensuing carnage.

the 5th section, “The Leaving”, will have a musical make up of themes from the previous sections and will be about a soldier about to embark on a tour in Afghanistan thinking about his grandfather after discovering his medals.

As you can read it’s a huge task and I have been collecting notes and researching putting words in place as I try and construct my part of the writing bargain.

I’ve not attempted anything of this scale for quite a long time and as I said it’s pretty daunting.

Hopefully Frank will be joining Foss and I this week as we move forward with Steve joining us this weekend.

Calum Malcolm is now firmly on board and we will be recording here from 19th November through until Christmas and mixing the album first 2 weeks of January for release in February.

Even as I write this my heart skips a beat. My work is now cut out.