Jim's Songs.
Jim played at his first open mic night in August 2016, at a bar called TJ’s in Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. He’d been going there for a few weeks, often after he’d driven his two children back to their mother’s house on a Sunday evening after their Daddy Weekend, and usually he’d sit alone in a corner to watch the young talented musicians play their songs. Although he wanted to have a go, Jim knew that he wasn’t as good as the other performers, and so he wrote his first song, I Can’t Sing Or Play Guitar, to manage the expectations of the audience, when he finally plucked up the courage to play.
Having received some positive feedback and encouragement from the seven people in the crowd for his debut performance, Jim performed his one song at several other open mic nights in and around his home town of Kenilworth, gradually gaining a bit more confidence each time. He noticed that many of the other musicians were playing tunes with complicated chord sequences, and writing lyrics about deep emotional feelings, two things that he couldn’t do. He also noticed that many of the non-musicians watching didn’t seem to care, and just wanted catchy tunes that they could nod their heads to, hence his second song, Keep It Simple, in which he encourages the audience to join in with the chorus, repeating the line “na na na” several times more than necessary.
In a further attempt to encourage audience participation, Jim wrote Always The First To Dance, which plays on the made up theory that the first person to dance is always the most popular one there. Jim will admit that it hasn’t worked often, but sometimes this is the song that starts the dancing, including one time when a ninety one year old lady got up and swayed rhythmically to this tune, prompting her younger friends and relatives to join her, probably mainly for safety reasons.
Famous Engineer is a slight departure from Jim’s normal style of simply strumming a few basic chords, and this song developed as it was being written to become almost autobiographical in places. Like all of Jim’s songs, this is based on real life and is factually reasonably accurate, although Jim’s dad never thought that he was going to be a pop star.
After Jim had been performing at open mic nights around Coventry and Warwickshire for a year or so, a few people suggested that he should record some of his songs and send them to local radio stations in the hope that one of them would get played. Rather than just sending them what he’d already got, Jim decided to write a song specially for that purpose, and so Bucket List includes the line “ I want to hear my song on the radio”, which is sung five times, just in case the people in charge of the play-list missed the first four.
Some of the first open mic nights where Jim played don’t exist anymore, mainly because not enough people turned up to watch the musicians, and with this in mind Jim wrote Keep The Music Alive, to thank the wonderful audiences that come and watch the performances. There is a fantastic local music scene in Coventry and Warwickshire, which is probably not really appreciated by many people, and without the audience, eventually there’d be no show.
One of Jim’s favourite places to play is Stratford upon Avon, which is home to loads of talented musicians, including The Three Brothers, who Jim describes as his favourite Stratford-based musical trio of South African origin. When they’re not standing in the Avon with their rods in their hands, they entertain the locals with their harmonies and their smiles. Just occasionally, one of them isn’t with the other two, and Dylan’s Gone Fishing was a tongue in cheek song to explain his absence. Although this song probably won’t mean much to many people, it has very quickly become an open mic favourite around the pubs in Stratford, with the whole crowd shouting “Where’s Dylan?”, whether he’s there or not.
Broken Dahlia is the closest you’re going to get to a love song on this CD, and is all about getting back with an ex-girlfriend after many years apart.
When Jim heard that he was going to be playing at the 2018 Godiva Festival in Coventry, he wrote Fifteen Minutes Of Fame in anticipation. Ok so it was the microacoustic stage and not the main stage, but it was an appearance at the country’s largest free music festival, and this song makes no apologies for the fact that Jim absolutely loves what he’s doing, and he’s so incredibly grateful for all the support and encouragement that he’s had since he started. He knows that he’ll never be the best singer or guitarist in the world, but as long as he’s making people smile, then he’s happy.
From February 27th 2019 all of Jim's songs are available on iTunes and loads of other digital music platforms. If you click on the little box with the apple in it on this page then you'll be able to swap some of your money for the ability to listen to the songs.