'Squirrel' by Colin Harper featuring Carol-Anne Lennie

This is a song I wrote looking out a window at my place of work in January 2010. It was snowing. My job - librarian with a music college, located at the distant end of a large building - had been grinding downwards towards obsolescence for years and by this point I realised it had pretty much run out. A lot of time was spent looking out that window, at a secluded green area with trees and a resident squirrel, wondering what a waste my life had become and what it's all about. My friend Carol-Anne, in Luton, was in the middle of similarly life-changing thoughts and decisions to do with her work. She was very happy to sing on this and, if I may say so, did a stunningly wonderful job. Her first time in a studio too... To me, it sounds a little like Sandy Denny fronting The Who. The amazing Ali MacKenzie plays bass; 'Ulster Scots Jim' Cuthbertson is on drums; Cormac O'Kane - a true wizard of sound - is on keyboards and production; Linley Hamilton is on trumpets; and the legendary Andy Roberts (ex of the Liverpool Scene, Plainsong, et al) is on electric guitar. I'm on acoustic guitar. Eleven months on, I've just moved jobs. That squirrel is all I will miss about the last one.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• squirrels
• stoats
• carol-anne
• lennie
• colin
• harper
• Sandy
• Denny
• the
• Who
• Andy
• Roberts