Walking west along the road I heard a fairground carousel. I stopped to dance a tango. I sang a lullaby. I stood on a street corner and demanded a better future. I remembered young love. I spoke to a man who had little to say. I talked to the devil. I looked at the stars. I watched a man finally find courage. I saw clouds reflected in a wet road. I met a singer fallen on hard times. When I got back home I wrote a song about each of these things and when I counted them there were eleven songs... eleven songs for an album. THE SONGS 1 ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR I still remember this. We went to the funfair on the edge of town. The generator must have packed up because the lights went out. The sudden darkness revealed the great night sky. It's that moment I remember. 2 FORGET THE FANDANGO It's a song from my musical comedy THE MUSIC MAKERS, a lively piece that opens the second Act. The musical was staged in Derry at THE PLAYHOUSE in November 2010 and is due a rerun in 2013. 3 ON A LULLABY My two new friends UPSIDE DOWN and INSIDE OUT arrived in their lullaby bus and helped me write this. 4 JERUSALEM TODAY Another song from THE MUSIC MAKERS. Tomorrow in Jerusalem they say. But here we'll build Jerusalem today. Let's start to build Jerusalem today. 5 THE STREETS FORGET The title song of the album and a memory of young love. The streets don't remember but I do. It's a love song most of all. 6 THE MAN OF FEW WORDS He's a man who says enough. Sometimes the less said the better. 7 CYGNUS THE SWAN Cygnus is connected to the Orpheus story in some way but it's all so long ago that nobody knows exactly what the connection is. It makes his plight even sadder don't you think. 8 BETTER tHE DEVIL YOU KNOW That's what they say anyway! I wouldn't trust him though. 9 ONE OF THESE DAYS I think he's going to make a clean break and surprise them all. If he does I intend to meet him at the Shangri La Cafe. 10 AGAIN FOR tHE FIRST TIME Snow, winter trees in the park, a wet road full of clouds. This is a song about wonder. I need to look at the world again for the first time. 11 ROCK AND ROLL BALLADS Jazz pianist Lenny Tristano once famously said, " I don't play to forks and knives." It's a sensible position to adopt.