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I have decided to keep you informed as to my progress or lack of it as we move into record mode. I will try to explain how decisions are made and how I arrive at the treatment a song gets.

• 26 August 2010

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED!!!

Today I received the new Album and I must say it all feels very good. Peter Thaine's design is very classy I think and I am pretty sure there are no errors in the print.

It is indeed a very strange feeling to be actually holding the CD and looking at the result of days and weeks of recording, to say nothing of the months and, in my case, years of thought that went into this work.

It has been a long time since the "Red Sky" album which was the last record of new McTell songs, so I have the usual trepidation and then some more.

The singer/songwriter genre is moving into new territory with his Bobness (Mr Zimmerman) continuing on his journey and the young rebels of yesterday wobblling off into senior citizen territory. I guess we are hopeful of not becoming grumpy old men, at least on record. This is a real danger, as one rather poor review on "Red Sky" commented, on the song "Lost Boys", that it sounded like and old man shaking his head! How wrong could a review be? (Apart from the "old man " part). It just shows that subtlety has a hard time in the market place.

it is too late to deter me from the way I write songs and I have grown used to songs creeping up on listeners and finding a home in their hearts long after the first listen.
Of course, it's great to like something the first time you hear it but I love songs to grow on a person, and I hope these will 'grow' on you.

Because of the time I have had with this release, I am hopeful that the music and songs have benefited. As those of you who have been following the album's progress will know, songs have changed, arrangements altered and in several cases I have re-recorded titles completely.

We have included a 24 page booklet of the lyrics to help you through my Croydon French on the song "One Sunny Day" and we have tried to make the words as big as the book will allow.

The official release date is sometime in October but Joanna will be emailing all of you on the list to tell you how to get your copy much sooner than that.

I have loved working with John Cornfield on this project and hope that I can do so again, maybe even as soon as next year. I feel I still have lots to do and actually began work on a new song yesterday whist at the piano, so hopefully there will be more to come.

I will close this blog now and hope that you have gained a small insight into the creative machinery that goes into my recordings. The next thing will be the promotional stuff and then I will be on tour again. I must say, I am ready.

I really hope I'll see you..."somewhere down the road."

Ralph

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