“You know? Sometimes you think you know!
But you know?
You wouldn’t know!”
That, is a piece of wisdom I have respected greatly since it was given to me some fifteen years ago. Sometimes, someone’s relatively throwaway line has a greater impact on us than they would have expected. The man who passed that truth on to me wasn’t trying to be profound, he was just reflecting on his own life. A life that had seen many trials and unexpected blind turns. He simply meant that just when we think we know how things will turn out - whether we expect good or bad - something entirely different and unexpected happens. Men plan, gods laugh?
One of the many joys of surviving more than half a century is hindsight. In my rear-view mirror, I can see that what my parents, teachers and peers might have reasonably expected of my future did not occur and indeed, an entirely different set of circumstances occurred to bring me to this point. This continuum of ego-centric predicament is, I believe, not in any way limited to my life experience, but is perhaps the story of us all?
Born middle-class Australian, mine was an easy life of relative comfort, peppered with love and fortuitous circumstance that others might rightly envy, and for which I remain extremely grateful. There were no challenges of misfortune that I had to overcome simply to survive. I had access to education, reasonably regular employment, two beautiful children, two happy marriages, more than my fair share of fun, and excellent health despite my love of Pogues bourbon, Guinness (free plug - pls send much!!) and clove cigarettes! I’ve had a blessed life but nonetheless, it was not the life I thought was coming my way and I admit, dreaded as my “destiny.”
By example, when I was singing in church and school choirs I never thought I’d become a performer. When I became a performer I never thought I’d make a career out of it. After that “career” I became a schoolteacher and dismissed thoughts of ever performing again. After all, I just knew I’d be a schoolteacher the rest of my life! When, some ten years later, I became a performer again, I soon became sure I could continue as a semi-professional for many more years. However, the demands of travel for my “day-job” soon overtook that aspiration and I ridiculed the well-intentioned remarks of friends that I should record the songs I continued to write for my own indulgence.
At no stage did I think I’d have the opportunity to record again. Even more absurd would have been the notion that the recordings from 1975 I thought long lost would resurface! I had even been able to adjust to the fact that not completing a song was acceptable for me to do. Many songs I write come to me in my sleep. Just a few lines of melody and lyric but I had always considered them a gift I should respect. During those ten years I learnt at last to forgive myself for not putting a song idea down when it woke me up in the early hours of the morning, knocking frenetically on the back door of my dreams. I reached the point where I could just wake up, smile, and go back to sleep.
Song-writing has always been relatively easy and enjoyable for me. Unintentionally, I enjoyed the musical heroes of the early rock boom, discovered the blues like a good little bourgeois white boy should, even pretended I “got” them at convenient times. My listening moved on through all the other musical discoveries I made for myself and still like. As the years passed, I just “liked” certain songs, irrespective of whether I was meant to or not! If my daughters had hoped to condemn me for not appreciating “their” music, I must have been a disappointment. I didn’t even realize I was enjoying music outside my generational boundaries until my peers complained when I played that “stuff” in their presence. To me, a good song is simply that, a good song!
Meanwhile, new songs kept arriving in my head without informing me where they came from? Having never progressed much past rhythm guitar and a few chords on piano, I can’t sit down and have my instrument guide me to where a song ought to go. As a result, I’m usually surprised and often flattered when others make comparisons and explain to me another artist or songwriter surely influenced a song of mine. This is especially interesting when I don’t actually know the artist mentioned.
So, when I was approached by Stephen Lightbody in 2005 to record again I was genuinely in disbelief. He had come across some unfinished tracks of songs from 1975 and wanted to complete them. It took him two years to find me in the US. I played him some other stuff I’d written over the years and that resulted in a musical partnership and friendship that I value greatly. Stephen can do all the things I can’t musically (like play instruments?). When he works out he can do the things I can - I’m screwed!
Armed with simple vocal and guitar tracks of songs, and in some cases, just vocal, Stephen has sweated blood arranging, sequencing, playing, recording and producing the tracks on No Straight Lines. Then we asked persons of great and actual talent to add their 2c worth. Ross Ward was found! He had played most of the lead on Tales From The Sun and happily agreed to work on aidan nolan “stuff” again. The sad part for me is - for all Ross has contributed to my recordings, which is significant, he and I have never met. When he was working on Tales I was in London, when he was working on Lines I was/am in New York. One day we’ll sit down, drink beer and reminisce about the “good old days,” completely forgetting that we never had any in common.
In the US we added the talents of Lee-Ann Zarella. What a great voice! I sincerely wish I could sing like that - well for a bloke of course! Lee-Ann must be the easiest person to work with. There’s not even a hint of “diva” and once one explains what is wanted, she gets it first time. For example, the female solo first chorus in Misadventurous Cowboys. I simply told what the song was about. She went back into the studio, did one take, and we fellas stood around in awe. Could someone please make her famous?
Kris Jensen keeps telling me he thought he “sucked” at the session he did for us on sax. I keep telling him if that is him “sucking” can I please have all his out-takes? Sax is one of my two favorite instruments (the other is cello) and I’m very picky about what I hear. Gordon Titcomb - the legend - honored us with some mandolin on Eternity’s Rainbow and again, for my money, nailed it! I strong-armed Matt Fitzgibbons to play a little harmonica on Fine Sucking Bottle - I wanted a studio “jam” feel - Matt plays drums, guitar and keyboards so he was the ideal choice for harp!
Once we had all the tracking done, Stephen and I entered a phase of try, try and try again to find the right engineers to turn our little piglet into bacon. In the end, a combination of the up-and-coming Bernie Wedrat in Australia and the outstanding David Leonard in the US did us proud. Doug Holleley, my ol’ chum, took a few “snaps” as he insists on calling them (I really like the fact that that a world-renowned photographer with two PhD’s calls his art “snaps!”) and put another great CD cover together.
Dave Neil mastered, mastered, mastered and mastered again for us. Talk about customer service! What a champ! He is probably at the point where he wishes he’d never agreed to master both Tales and Lines for us. We will never wish we’d never asked him to.
So, here’s some songs!
We titled the album No Straight Lines, not simply as an abbreviated track title, but also as a reflection that there are no straight lines in nature (a principle of the Art Nouveau movement I'm told) and there were very definitely no straight lines in getting this project complete and, for me at least, there have been no straight lines in life.
These songs are about life’s personal and inter-personal experiences. I think I’d appreciate it if you tapped your foot and hummed a chorus or two in the shower. I think I think thoughts that many other people are also thinking, thoughts other people have thought before, thoughts others will think long after any thinking of me is extinguished. I think I would have liked to have been a great thinker, but it seems that I just think thinking is great!
Which brings us back to where we started. Here’s what I think I know : I wrote these songs. I hope you like them. Have a listen. After all, you never know!
aidan nolan
New York
2009
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