The first record I bought and the first song I wrote
I think it’s a fair assumption that music has touched us all in our lives at some point but its usually when you hit your teenage years that you start listening. and choosing who your favorite band is or your favorite singer/songwriter Depending on your surroundings and what is going on in the world but you start to know what you like and what you don’t…
I was into The Bay City Rollers when I was about thirteen and Top of the pops was on the tv weekly that is when I started to realize what I liked. I was a bit rebellious as a teen and liked punk rock like the undertones My father didn’t like us watching “Top of the pops” that was until Paul McCartney had a hit with Mull of Kintyre and he used to stand at the TV with tears in his eyes when the pipers started playing.
On the bedroom wall, I had posters of Roy Wood who my father described as looking like the devil as time went on and new trends happened and I had started to go to the hop in the local chapel hall My friend at the time Christine McGaughy and I went to Derry and between us bought Tell me more a single from the Greece soundtrack I remember us singing into hairbrushes so that was my first record . I never got to see the film in The cinema but some time after it came out I went to The Canice hall in Dungiven to watch it.
Whilst I liked all this different type of music my ear was always drawn back to Country and folk and my real roots. When I had my first Job in Glasgow as a waitress in The Yellow Bird Cafe in Buchanan Street John Lennon had just been shot and Imagine was being played daily that’s when I first really began to appreciate songwriters and the meanings behind the song lyrics.
As a musician and singer, I stuck to what I knew best, Country music and Folk music, Growing up in N Ireland there was always country music and folk music. I like the melodies and real stories. Aged nineteen I sat and wrote my first ever song ” My Scotsman and thee” A tale of yearning lament for Ireland even though I had made my home in Scotland. I never did record the song until many years later on my debut album ” A song in her heart” I wrote the concluding verse. I have included the song on this blog.
My Scotsman & Thee. Written about missing home and being married to a Scotsman who refused to take me back home so I had to make a choice . I was only ninteen then and had my daughter that year. The concluding verse was written in 2008