Song History 1
Welcome to the Song History section
Here, you will find details of the songs recorded by Kenneth Gilchrist. You can also listen to a sample of the song by clicking on the "MP3" icon (where available). This section will be expanded over the coming days to include the history of all recorded songs, and MP3's where available.
Wroes Virgins Tracks
All songs performed by a combination of Pete Cockburn, Kenneth Gilchrist and Stephen Johnson, occasionally with some additional musicians.
192
Updated MP3 - full version
This was one of about four songs Kenny wrote after coming back from Glastonbury in 1992. It seemed that Kenny's songwriting changed after that visit (previous songs had been in the vein of "The Orcharder" and "Knights of the Dark Lord" etc) and the lyrics were deeper. In fact, if you didn't know what the song was about, it would have been pretty tricky to decifer.
The "I'd rather be you than 192, but I'd rather be me than 193" had all of us confused for quite some time. It turns out that the line came from a meeting in the pub (now there's a surprise!) between Kenny and some guy who just happened to have an IQ level of 192. He was really successful, and was quite intelligent, yet he said he'd rather have Kenny's lifestyle than have his. Can't remember who the bloke was, but I'm presuming he wasn't from the town or else he'd have forever been nicknamed "192".
Amy Was a Mermaid
Kenny, as always, was having trouble sleeping at nights. He was eventually prescribed some tablets to help him sleep. It turned out that the tablets started making him hallucinate, and have dreams he was floating, visiting other people as they were sleeping. The tablets were Amitryptyline, hence the title of this song. In the very first recordings of this song, the lines "says it locks me in her chains, when everybody's sinking" are actually "and she doesn't like me smoking, says it keeps me choking". I think these lines got changed pretty quickly though.
Angel Fishing (original) (acoustic)
I remember we recorded this in the infamous Southpark Studios (basically my living room at the time) but this session stood out from the others. We didn't have a mic stand at the time (probably either lost or still sitting over at Kenny's) so we decided to improvise. And what we came up with was a Hoover (a real Hoover!) with a microphone taped to it. We needed this setup because we were both going to be playing guitar and singing. The song was recorded as a tribute to Gill's mother, I believe, and it didn't have a title when we had finished. We were talking about it, and the tune kind of conjured up images of sailing, particularly on a fishing boat, and the "angel" part just seemed to fit in, given the purpose of the song.
Angel Fishing
This was one of those tunes that as soon as you heard it, you loved it. I remember Kenny phoning me up all excited saying "you've got to hear this!", and then he proceeded to play the chords over the phone. I thought it sounded great, but when I asked about the lyrics he was like "aye, still working on them".
Fortunately the lyrics were completed pretty quickly, and the song became a staple at any party we were at. In fact, aside from "She/Honey Child", this is probably the most overplayed song we did!
At The Time
The lyrics for this song had been kicking about in the lyrical sack for a good while, yet it had no tune. One day, we were toying with lyrics to put music to and this one looked like it had potential. We mucked about with a few things and I threw together a few chords and we recorded it. But not before we added a few words for the overlapping chorus part. I don't recall us ever playing this song again after that recording was taken! It just seemed to go on forever and I think we got bored playing it all the way through!
Beechgrove Garden
We were mucking about one afternoon, and the tape recorder was on. We started mucking about with this little ditty, thinking it sounded quite nice. It was only when we finished that we realised that most, if not all, sounded like the Beechgrove Garden theme tune. Ah well!
Call My Name
What was it they said in "The Doors" movie? "I think we've still got one more blues album left in us"? Well, we had two blues songs. This and "Love Tree". There's nothing much to be said about these except they were good little rocky numbers.
Cover Up
Why is it when there's a decent song, the only recorded version of it has some really embarrassing singing on it? I don't know what I was doing during the "ooh" parts, but they certainly could have been more in tune!
This is the full song
Drink Yourself Away
Or as it's better known, the "Fraggle Rock" tune. This song was written and recorded the same night, which unfortunately was the same night an episode of Bottom was on the telly which Kenny wanted to watch. You can hear comments about having to leave early throughout the recording.
Drown
I always thought this had a great potential at the chorus, but seeing as I was too busy trying to hold down the chords, I never seemed to manage to get the singing and playing together bit quite right!
Elephant Man
Where do you start with the story behind this? Kenny and I were attending this course (we were on the dole, and they gave us some extra cash to go along and get taught guitar!) and there was this one guy on it who just insisted on coming up with random things whilst he was supposed to be listening. A favourite was making an elephant noise whilst holding his arm out like a trunk. He told us all these stories, which made no sense. He also said that he liked to talk to Andy Kershaw at night. You know, the guy off the radio. We asked him how he knew Andy Kershaw. He said he didn't, he just liked talking to Andy when he was on the radio. He also liked to keep magic mushrooms in jars of honey. This was also the last track Kenny and I wrote together as Wroe's Virgins.
Ginger Wine
This song is all about the bitter-sweet taste you're left with when you drink ginger wine. Well, rather, it's about likening the feeling you get from certain people to that you get from ginger wine. We never really played this one that often, apart from the regular "drunk sessions". Which means we actually played it quite a lot.
Green Man
Around the time we wrote this song we were heavily into "The Wicker Man", and you'll notice a lot of references to the May Day celebrations in the song. It's also one of the very few songs we wrote where I've got open tuning. Don't confuse this song with "The Wicker Man"!...
14 or so years later I decided to re-record this track. Click here to download Green Man (2009 version). I've not got the voice of Kenny, but the style is what we were originally aiming at.
Song notes written by Pete Cockburn
