Good morning, I am sat listening to the house martins in the rafters of my fathers house. When I arrived here a week ago after the tour came to a close, they were silent. They are nesting now. In the evenings now, the first of the swallows have started performing their somersaults over any piece of still water in the village, cartwheeling and looping in ecstatic salutation at the tentative returning of the warmth. Having come here to read, sleep and fish for a few days after having not been in one place for more than a couple of days since the middle of January, my own cartwheeling has been brought to a halt. I slipped while running up the stone steps of a bridge beneath which lie the largest and most numerous trout I have seen in these mountains. I have fractured my talar, an uncommon injury, and will be on crutches for the rest of the spring opening. Still, the house martins make their nest and the swallows dance and I hadn’t been able to read much recently. I wonder if you can spot the fish here:
I met my wife while on crutches, having slipped while fishing in the south eastern reaches of the yet untamed Pindos Mountains, north east of the lake town of Ioannina, in August 2022. I hadn’t wanted to cancel a small run of shows around Italy and Eastern Europe which I would play alone, in book shops and bars mostly.
Had I not been on crutches, I would not have needed a lift back to my hostel with my bag and my guitar. Tim wrote to me yesterday saying, “Everything happens for a reason, I just wish they would stop happening to you”. Well, the last time I was unable to carry myself alone, a very good thing happened, and I wouldn’t have written ‘Spring’. The song is a tentative, bleary eyed awakening into the possibility of the new. It doesn’t have the same untethered exaltation of the swallows, or the brash cacophony of the nesting house martins. It is more akin to the re-emergence of the porcupine in late February, shuffling and squinting at the sheerness of the newly virgin sun. I am looking forward to being able to write more songs during this period of forced stasis.
My father said to me while waiting in the hospital: “It’s not all bad, imagine if you were a porcupine. Having a broken ankle and being a porcupine really is a big problem”.
Spring Playlist
Peasant Song no.5 - Bela Bartok - Budapest symphony orchestra Janus Series Hungarian Sketches
Wildegeeses - Michael Hurley- Ida Con Snock
Say Valley Maker - Smog - A River Ain’t Too Much to Love
Dancing Girl - Terry Callier - What Color is Love
Spring - Westerman - A Jackal’s Wedding
Mustapha - Davy Graham - Folk Blues and Beyond
Car Wash - Otto Benson & Henry Solomon - Peanut
Cold Hard Times- Lee Hazlewood - Cowboy in Sweden Soundtrack
Space Odyssey - Marcus Belgrave - Gemini II
Spinning Away - John Cale and Brian Eno - Wrong Way Up
BELLY - SAILORR - FROM FLORIDA’S FINEST
Evening in Trannsylvania - Bela Bartok - Budapest symphony orchestra Janus Series Hungarian Sketches
Upcoming Shows:
Sep 4 - Bantham, UK - Outside Devon
Sep 6 - Salisbury, UK - End of the Road Festival
Nov 19 - Madrid, ES - Sala B
Nov 20 - Barcelona, ES - Laut
Spring is a welcome reminder of the beauty that can come after the dark. Hope you get some rest to heal that ankle. The show in Portland was a much needed reminder of the good things that music and gathering can do for the soul. Always grateful for your contributions to that end.