Caroline's song-by-song notes on Brilliant Midnight 2.0

Lost Voices

Lost Voices was inspired by both a radio play about the musician and poet Ivor Gurney and the book 'Lost Voices of WWI' by Tim Cross. Ivor Gurney was an extraordinary and sensitive person who never mentally recovered from his experiences of the first war and, until his death decades later, often believed it still to be going on.

Karma

This is about what you would expect it to be about....

I wanted the huh huh repeated backing vocals to be a recurring theme in this song; to be unstoppable and just going round and round . I had fun with the operatic backing vocals in what you might call the chorus. The screaming sound is the cello.

Anima Rising

This song is about the oneness of everything.

I used the string orchestra here again, with the layered-up cellos also in the chorus. I like the simplicity and naivete of the arrangement. My manager, Ian, had the great idea of using brass instruments later in the song where I was feeling that it needed a different colour. I had worked with the Black Dyke Mills Band earlier in the year when I did a tv programme with Peter Gabriel, and I loved the sound they made, so I wanted a sort of colliery band sound to fit with the innocence of the song. I used some players from the local town's silver band, and recorded them with Ben Findlay in the local church.

Firefly Night

The music of this was written with a friend of mine, the bass player Clare Kenny. We had a great laugh writing and recording it, and I particularly love Dave's drums on this; he has wit and energy when he plays.

Another dear friend of mine, the singer Ingrid Schroeder (check out her great album 'Bee Charmer') sings some fabulously weird stuff in the middle eight.

Siamant'o and Le Pourquoi

I found the two poems that I used in Siamant'o and Le Pourquoi in a great book called 'The Lost Voices of World War I' by Tim Cross, published by Bloomsbury. It inspired me even more in my interest in the writing and art of the First World War. Tim Cross has collected poems from all the nationalities who fought; not just those who ended on the winning side. All the writers who appear in the book were killed during the period 1914 -1918, mostly very young, and it is even more astonishing that the work they leave us is of such a high standard, as they had had little time to develop their talents.

Le Pourquoi is from a poem by a Frenchman, Marc de Larreguy de Civrieux called (in English) 'The Soldier's Soliloquies', and it tells of the unanswered question of why all this horror is happening. It comes from his book 'Le Muse de sang' which went to four printings after his death, although he is almost unknown today. He was killed on 18th November 1916 at Verdun.

Siamant'o is the well-known Armenian poet of protest and rebellion. He travelled a lot during his life, educated in Istanbul and the Sorbonne in Paris. He spent a year in Boston as editor of the Armenian paper 'Hayrenik' (The Homeland), returning home when he thought a new and better era for Armenia was emerging, but he was killed among 761 other Armenian intellectuals massacred in 1915. I have taken phrases from his poem 'A Handful of Ash' and used them as a soundscape rather than as a whole poem, and I wished it to be a kind of lament for Siamant'o himself. The poem in its entirety speaks of his hearing that his old childhood home has been destroyed and how he wishes to have a handful of its ash for his grave. I
was helped in my attempts at pronunciation by a wonderful Armenian academic called Mr Yessayan, who was very patient and helpful, even though my efforts were not always successful.

Anxiety

Anxiety is about insomnia. If you have it, you'll know what I mean.

Originally, I wrote this with just drums, voices and cellos making all the sounds, but then I got together with Hector Zazou in Paris and he came up with some great noises that added so much to the song.

Farther Than the Sun

With this song I wanted to use images from the natural world. I wrote this song originally on the piano, adding the cello parts at an early stage. In the verses I use a string orchestra recorded in London, but the cellos (recorded in an ancient church near my home) creep through and take over for the chorus when the string orchestra stops playing. I love the sound that high layered up cellos give and I use it quite a lot. At the end I wanted the cello to be left in solitude when the string orchestra drops away. The piano is a child's piano played by Charlie May in his studio in Switzerland.

She Said

She Said is a song about my guardian angel.

Charlie May did some great stuff with guitars at the beginning of this song, and there is an amazing solo by a french guitarist called Pierre Chaze at the end; it sounds like he is playing backwards but he's not. He achieved a sound that I had never heard before and I love it.

The drums are played by a young guy called Dave Power and were recorded in my studio by Ben Findlay. We all had a great time when Dave came over; he is a human dynamo.

All I Have

All I Have was co-written with a talented lady called Eleanor McEvoy. We wrote it in about two hours and went straight on and wrote another one the same day!

I wanted to layer up vocals in the choruses, and when my friend Bella (a great engineer) heard it, she asked, 'Who's doing the high backing vocals?' I said that they were all me, and she replied, 'Oh, you do your own stunt singing, then!'

Mangoes

The piano is played by Michael Nyman, and there are a lot of notes! This song could have been sub-titled 'the revenge of the cello player', as I have played so many of his notes! Ben and I recorded it in Michael's house in London on his gorgeous piano that has a sound all of its own.

Universal

The music was also written with Clare Kenny; the guitar you hear was recorded as we were demoing the song - I am hand-holding the mic in front of her guitar as she thought she was doing a guide part, but I liked it so much better than the 'real' part that I kept it. I came out of my house thinking of the person whose words had inspired me to write this, and a bright quadrantid (from the meteor shower in January) streaked horizontally across a very dark sky. A lovely moment.

Home of the Whale

I first heard this song by Owen Hands being sung by Mary Black when I was working with her and De Dannan in Ireland. It was the first song I ever sang for other people. I recorded it with Massive Attack and then with Marius de Vries and now with Bella Rodriguez.

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

This is produced and arranged by my good friends Ingrid Schroeder and Barry Flynn. I love the simplicity of this song.

Twisted Ends

The cello laughs...

sitedesign: hygge | all contents © 2001 - 2005