Club Q Update #75 - Sophie
Here’s another song I wrote right about the time I was filming ‘Island Bound’. It came about because of two things that happened at that time:
While interviewing a hero of mine for the documentary, the great folk musician Martin Simpson, I was introduced to a new tuning, CGDGBE. I bloody love it.
I bought a 4 LP set of field recordings by Alan Lomax of ‘ The Folks Songs of Great Britain’, and in a failed attempt to write an arrangement of a lovely old Cornish song in the above tuning, I happened on the melody for this song.
Lyrically it was based on what a lot of the songs on the Alan Lomax LP’s sang about; tragic love. I wanted to modernize my character a little - lots of the ladies in emotional distress in those old songs seem to end up floating in rivers, falling down wells, or taking their own life in Juliet-style fashion. I wanted my character to be tragic, but maybe not so helpless. The name popped out because it sang well on that long first note in the chorus. It’s not about anyone I know.
I hope you like it!