The Story Behind the Song Parts 6 and 7: Children”

There was a time, before I grew up and became a child again, when I was no longer a musician. Following The Boys I flirted with mega stardom among the posh girls of Kensington and Chelsea with a band called The Hollywood Killers, but the all consuming self belief and ambition you need to dedicate your life to music had gone.

And so began a difficult period of going back to University (which you may recall I had left previously after a day to dedicate myself to being a punk rocker -much to the delight of my father) and then on to a career in business.  Eventually I found myself working for Andrew Lloyd Webber as “business development manager”. It was an exciting job at a time of huge success for that giant of the Musical Theatre. I was part of the team responsible for bringing shows to new countries, which is more complicated than it sounds. If there is no history of Broadway/London musicals in a country it’s hard to find actors who can sing, act and dance at the same time. It was often quicker and easier at first to send British and American cast to a new country and teach them the local language than teach local actors a tradition they hadn’t been trained for.

And how do you get tickets on sale throughout a whole region when no infrastructure exists for that? It had to be created from scratch. Many countries owe their networks of ticket shops to work we put in at the time.

If I wasn’t working on shows I might be working on films of the shows, a new world for me at that time. Or I might be buying and renovating a new theatre in the West End or a new mega hotel/theatre complex in Las Vegas.

The job involved a lot of travelling. For almost a year I would leave on a Monday before dawn to fly to Switzerland where we were putting on The Phantom of the Opera, catch the train to Wiesbaden in Germany on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, where a theatre to house Sunset Boulevard was being built, and return home exhausted late on Friday night to London. If I wasn’t on the road I’d be in the office early on the phone to somewhere like Japan or Australia who were ahead of us on the clock, and then still there late, talking to New York or LA who were behind and for whom my 8pm was their midday.

All in all it was exciting and challenging. But there was an aspect to it which made my heart ache -Lauren. In the middle of my post music life we’d had a daughter, and what a difference that monumental event had made. A little bundle of life who depended on us totally and provoked the most powerful emotions I’d ever felt.

So I worked hard to create a future for her and us. I put up with the trains into London which broke down, were cancelled late at night or went on strike causing a particular type of hell for 10 million people trying to get home for a precious few snatched minutes with loved ones before they went to bed. I put up with the work stress which was intense (oh no, the theatre in Germany is going to be late, so the Sunset Boulevard team won’t get to LA on time which means that show will be late and so will Sydney and then the revamp in London -it’s going to cost millions, it’s going to be a worldwide news story of how the show has failed and it’s all my fault …..help??????).

And ironically the harder I worked to create a future, the more I missed of Lauren growing up. But there were no times better than the times when I’d get home to catch her before bedtime. I’d put the key in the door and the toddler knew it was me. I’d hear feet come running and before I was through the door a little bundle of unquestioning love was there to give me a hug and a kiss. Everything made sense in those moments. We are programmed for it.

Years later I looked back on those earth moving times as inspiration for a song. “Lauren” had one too many syllables for the melody and so became “Jack” in “Little Fingers and Toes”. If you have Spotify you can listen here:

And if not, listen for free on Bandcamp here: Little Fingers and Toes

But children grow up. They need to become independent, and they need to make you let go, since you’ll never let go yourself. As for many, it happened when Lauren went to University. New freedom for her, new friends, a new life and no need for parents.

A momentous day, the day she left home for the first time. Packing belongings into the car for a little girl who was the centre of our life, and later, hanging on for calls to hear news of what was going on in hers. A bitter sweet time. A bitter loss in one sense, although not really as I would later discover that, just as a teenager had replaced the toddler, a fantastic, mature adult would replace the teenager. But also a sweet feeling that the hard work had been worthwhile, as the child could stand on her own two feet and make her way in the world.

To hear chapter two of this domestic soap opera here is “Long Long Gone”:

or on Bandcamp: Long Long Gone