Story behind the song
I thought that tonight I’d start a new section in my blog to document my ever increasing number of what can only be described as ‘idiot realisations', in that when eventually realised, I can only conclude, that I must have been a total idiot, not to have had said realisation at a much earlier juncture – and this very day has provided just such an example in a very long line of idiot realisations….
My brother called to see me earlier this evening, and once the initial pleasantries were exchanged, he noted that my acoustic guitar was in the room, and inquired whether I had been playing it. Just to fill you in on some background here, I learned to play the guitar from a young age, 8/9, and by the time I was a young teenager was studying classical guitar in earnest. I had a wonderful teacher in the shape of an old Polish gentleman who went by the name of Andre, an accomplished guitarist and woodwind player, with a background in jazz and swing. He toured around the country playing clarinet in big bands, and I used to love hearing his stories about these olden days. He was also very proud to be able to claim that he was the very first person in our whole region to own a guitar back in the 1920/30s - really big news at the time as no one had ever seen a real guitar back then. He came weekly to our house, over a period of many years, but would never charge for lessons, saying that the pupils progress was reward enough for him. Retired from work, he had pupils 7 nights a week, and this seemed to be the only life he had outside his home, where as a widower, he lived alone. He taught me initially to play the guitar, then laterally tenor saxophone, which I only took up to keep him coming for lessons after he announced there wasn’t much more he could teach me about the guitar – I treasured our lessons and his company and I didn’t want to lose our relationship, so thankfully he agreed to teach me to play sax, and so our friendship continued….
Although I dearly loved him as a teacher and companion, he was a strict disciplinarian where my lessons were concerned, and sometimes he would have me almost in tears trying to get my scales and arpeggios off to perfection. But I loved to please him by getting it just right, and would practice diligently for at least a couple of hours every night, so I’d have achieved the set objectives in time for the next lesson. He would make me play scales in different keys, and I would have to play each of these scales perfectly, 10 times over. If I made a mistake along the way, even on the 9th time, I’d have to go right back to the start until I got it right 10 times in a row. So as you can imagine dear readers, by the time he was finished with me, I knew that fret board like the back of my own hand. And this kind of training was ideal for my purposes at the time, studying classical music and guitar for exams at school, with a view to going on to study music at university.
However, later in my life, when I became a would be rock chick, and started playing in bands, I started to realise the cost of my classical training. Being so accustomed to the safety of sheet music and clear instructions, I found it very hard to improvise or be loose and free with my guitar playing, and was generally a bit clueless as to what exactly was expected of me. Once given instructions, I could play whatever was required, but I always felt I totally lacked any degree of spontaneity, and therefore enthusiasm for what I was doing. So, at a suitable point some years later, after my boyfriend and lead singer/guitarist of our band, ditched me for a younger model, I decided that there was no better time to commence the process of unlearning how to play the guitar….
At the time, and this is back in the late 80’s, I figured that it would literally take me years to unlearn everything I knew about playing the guitar, to forget what I knew, what had been drummed into me for all those years. I wanted to forget where B flat was; I want
