Andrew’s » Songs

Abbey Road!

Andrew — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:01:02 +0000

It was forty years ago today, on August 8th of 1969 at 11.30 in the morning, that The Beatles walked the zebra crossing – very close to the Abbey Road Studios in which they have recorded almost all of their songs. One of the six photos taken while they did that, became the front cover of their album Abbey Road, the most famous album cover in the history of pop music.
For forty years since that day, people have been replicating those famous couple of footsteps while having themselves photographed. Every single day. The Abbey Road Studios even have a live webcam pointed at the crossing 24 hours a day. Really remarkable that one album cover can do that. I mean, for instance, you don’t see people replicating the Nirvana ‘Nevermind’-cover each time you visit the swimming pool…..
I visited Abbey Road last year and of course I intended to walk the crossing myself. But when I got there I saw several groups of Beatles’ pilgrim fans swarming the Abbey Road crossing. I decided I wouldn’t look cool doing the same thing as everybody else, but being the rebel I am, I did it anyway.
It felt like walking any other crossing… (I later learned that the crossing has been moved a bit since 1969, for traffic safety reasons, and it has been repainted a couple of times on top of that, so maybe that’s why the energy of the crossing had changed to average zebra crossing-level? ). And apart from that, the famous ubercool Abbey Road Studios were actually just a mansion behind a fence….
But still, I found Abbey Road to be a magical place: so much of the greatest music has been recorded and conceived there. Hard to find other buildings in the world where so many creative masterpieces were made.
Anyway, I wrote and recorded a song as a tribute. A very Beatlesque song, just how I like my songs. I called it ‘Abbey Road’ in a burst of creativity of my own…. I released it about two months ago on my album ‘Frequently Flying Music Chairs’.
Here it is, hope you like it: [display_podcast]

If you should like it, you could of course buy it (or the whole album) at CD Baby, iTunes or Amazon.

Song: Monica (2008)

Andrew — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:00:33 +0000

For those who have followed me and my band Cry Ugly through the years: yes, you’ve spotted it well, this is ‘Monica’, the same song that we’ve released on our first album ‘Book Of Dreams’. The song that once went straight to number one in the Westpop Top 10, and stayed there for weeks on end. The same song.
Except, this version is a remake. I was never really happy with my lead vocals on the old version and with the fact that it started too slow to my liking and then only further on started to get the right amount of energy. Oh well. Not a lot of other people seemed to bother with it. Just me.
But anyway, I redid the whole thing, if only for myself. I only used, in a sliced-up-kind-of-way, the organ-part old-Cry Ugly bandmember Erwin once played on a rehearsal recording, because I really liked the sounds.
It’s a rocking song I still think. Hope you like it too….

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Song: The Hardest Day

Andrew — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:56:45 +0000

This one kinda goes together with ‘Loneliness Means Freedom Now’.

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Song: Loneliness Means Freedom Now

Andrew — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:39:46 +0000

Sometimes love stops being love…..

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Song: Say Yes Tonight

Andrew — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:43:17 +0000

I wrote this one for the wedding of two of my friends. The groom’s sister asked me to write and record a song for them as a wedding present. I did and here it is, in all its rocking glory!
The opening was of course written by Felix Mendelssohn, who can do without him in a wedding situation? But after that it’s all me.

Again, the lyrics to the song are here.

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Song: Life Just Hurts You

Andrew — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:10:50 +0000

This is a sad one, dark, not an upbeat rocker. But I think this song is also pretty in its own gloomy fashion.
I wrote and recorded this for an American documentary that wanted to address the unpleasant situation people in homes for the elderly have to live in over there. Lyrics are here.

Oh, and of course life does not just hurt you.

Song: It’s A Bummer These Days

Andrew — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:13:22 +0000

For those who bought it: yes you’re right, this song was also on my 2005 ‘An Informal Trade-off’ mini-album. Only I like this one here slightly better and this one here is a slightly updated version: some added harmony vocals and a somewhat different mix. The ‘seagulls over the cliff’ that were already present on the albumtrack are still here; I feel they stress the song’s atmosphere of melancholy and unattainability. And besides, by adding a choir of seagulls I turned this otherwise solo-thing into a band effort: Andrew & the Seagulls.
This was the sweetest lovesong on the album and it’s a great favourite of mine….. The thrillingly devastating insecurity of being in love….

And if you’d like to sing-along or just read the lyrics, go here.

Song: A Really Cool Life

Andrew — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:50:18 +0000

Here’s another one of my songs. I used to play it live with my currently sleeping band ‘Cry Ugly’ a couple of years ago, but we never really recorded it. We only did a test-recording that was never finished. Since I still liked the song, I took it into my sweet little studio some two years ago and played, sang, recorded and did everything myself and this time did finish it. Hooray for me and hooray for the song!
This weekend I suddenly got an email from the music supervisor of an American company who had heard it somewhere and wants to pitch it for use in a movie they’re working on over there, in the United States of the Movieworld! It’s a really cool life indeed!
And so today I did some edits on the recording and then remastered the whole lot a bit more. Here it is. Hope you like it! And hope the movie-people-in-charge-of-the-music like it too….
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Song: I Am The Rain

Andrew — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:13:31 +0000

And here’s yet another song. I wrote it about three years ago, have played it live at times over the years, during my solo gigs. I picked up the vastly unfinished recordings I started three years ago only recently, and now here is the finished song. It’s called ‘I Am The Rain’.

It’s a somewhat crazy song and kind of mean. I advise you to listen to it when you’re inside, especially if you got a chance to look out the window when there is a heavy rain. Isn’t that fun? There’s a little rain in each of us…..

I don’t remember exactly where I got the idea for this song from. Maybe there is a bit of Beatles-influence there: Lennon sang ‘Rain’, the psychedelic atmosphere of the reversed bits?

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Song: We Can Do Anything

Andrew — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:13:42 +0000

I just finished remixing (though not in the dance-kind-of-meaning of the word, sorry) and mastering my 2005 song ‘We Can We Do Anything’. At the time (december 2005) it won a national songwriting contest that was issued by (and had me ending up playing it live on) Dutch national TV. It’s supposed to be a Christmas-y type of song without any reference to the angels, the baby and the star. No wise men either. Just a pretty little song with something of an upbeat message.

For the TV show I also prepared a version with a great set of jingly sleighbells. Here’s the version without those bells, though. Not everyday is Christmas-day, right?

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