Hugh Hardie - Cosmic Blue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhlIWYMq5t8

Mother Mary Sometimes it is genuinely fun to write a lyric, sitting on a train on my way to an open mic last night with all other passengers staring inanely at their phones and blank looks on faces







Interested in how you view the 'story' what is your interpretation of the action?











Mother Mary. Draft. RogersonLB







V1



Got down on my knees



Putting both hands together



First time since I was ten



It really me helped back then



Gave such blessed relief



But these prayers just seem to disappear into the empty ether







Chorus



Mother Mary was just talking to your son



Asked a simple question but it seems he got the answer wrong



So asking you now, to get things right



Help me close these eyes ang get some sleep tonight



Mother Mary, ohhhh ohh mother Mary







V2



Grey Smoke just lingered



Just past the edge of these fingers



Noise kept reverberating



The flush of Blood rising



In total disbelief



Still seeing her laying silent pale and dead crumpled on the leaves







Chorus



Mother Mary was just talking to your son



Asked a simple question but it seems he got the answer wrong



So now I'm imploring you, to finally put things right



Cast away the devils and let me get some sleep tonight



Mother Mary, ohhhh ohh mother Mary







Bridge



Senior Sergeant closed his warrant book



Giving me the oh so sorry look



We're not charging you son



You did what had to be done







Chorus



Mother Mary was just talking to your son



Asked a simple question but it seems he got it all wrong



So asking you now, to put things right



Help me close these eyes ang get to sleep tonight



Mother Mary, ohhhh ohh mother Mary
https://forums.songstuff.com/t....opic/60400-mother-ma

One song - Three tracks A story about how working on one song idea led to three.
All three became tracks on the same album and influenced the Album's Title.







Back in 2014, Martin Hale (a newly-met local musician and continuing good friend) and I collaborated on writing and producing an entry to an Australian song competition. It was his first-ever writing experience and it was my re-engagement after a 14-year break.







We were so envigorated by the fun, the freedom and excitement that home-studio production provides, and the actual resulting song, we decided to keep going and aim for an album.







Unlike other collabs, Martin and I wrote our songs separately and also produced them separately. I got to grips with Pro Tools which had been lying unused on my Windows laptop. He bought Logic Pro for his iMac.







Halfway through the subsequent work, by chance I caught a broadcast on ABC Radio Australia. It was a Debate entitled “We are enslaved by technology”, in which Associate Professor Katina Michael was speaking for the positive motion. I was stunned not only by her argument, but particularly by the eloquence and passion of her delivery which was done not as a dry speech but as a dramatic performance piece, of which this is a short extract:




Debate - extract.mp3









Besides impressing the technology cynic in me, she struck a chord with the audience which went bat-shit crazy with applause and cheering when she finished. I think everyone is a little wary and unsettled about social networking and the pervasive intrusion of mobile devices.







I Google’d Katina, found her on the staff register at her University and sent her an email requesting permission to use her spoken words as the basis for a potential song ... even though I didn’t have a clue yet what the song would be like! I seriously doubted that she would ever respond to an unsolicited contact, let alone the request itself. But a month or so later she responded with a brief but guarded ‘yes’. So I cut her original 2000 word, 9-minute transcript, down to a re-written essence of just 100 words ... better suited to the shorter form of a song. I requested her approval of my edit and also asked her to record herself reading/speaking these new short verses. I did so because in no way could either Martin or I match her passionate style of delivery. She complied, recording her voice on her mobile phone and emailing me the file. I then started to slice and dice her audio and apply the phrases within an orchestral soundscape.







Martin struggled with my orchestral approach ... his thoughts on the song were almost diametrically opposite to mine, and we went round in circles for weeks arguing ... always constructively ... but always disagreeing none the less. And we let it lie unresolved ... or so I thought.







Martin came back a short time later and blind-sided me with a punchy ‘digital’ soundscape behind Katina’s spoken words. No denying .. it was GREAT! And he subsequently added a chorus section with a hopeful and softer vibe for contrast.







We realised that BOTH of our approaches, rock AND orchestral, although in total contrast to each other, could still work and that having two strong but different tracks on the same subject would perhaps provide a theme for the album. Hence the album title of “Prescient” ... which means “knowing or suggesting correctly what will happen in the future”, with the particular flavour of apocalyptic prophesy.







So, with Martin’s version finished, I started to focus on my own, continuing to develop my original, orchestral version. But Katina’s spoken words had now all been used up by Martin ... and I needed more. So I re-used a few of her key phrases as dream-like call backs to Martin’s song for continuity and then wrote a completely new verse to conclude the story, closing the thematic circle. Katina kindly recorded these new spoken words and sent the audio file back to me.







Martin and I both thought the two songs on the same theme should be natural bookend tracks for the album, and we started to kick around ideas how to could 'close' it all off. Martin was thinking of a needle scratching across a record … a great idea, but only us geriatrics who had always listened to albums could ever identify that sound.







Considering that technology was the theme for this song, I was thinking more of 'powering down' to finish off. I found three 'noise' samples, stacked them, made them the same duration, and accentuated the bottom end. It’s amazing how lack of power can sound so powerful! This in itself led to this track becoming the album closer and reinforced Martin’s Part l as the opener. Mine was, at that time, therefore logically called Part II.







However, I felt there was now an opportunity to resurrect something which had been left on the cutting room floor. I had originally contributed a 'rock organ' break to Martin’s version but this had been discarded, being deemed too 'prog rock' to co-exist with Martin’s extensive use of lead guitar. My unused contribution could now become a short reprise somewhere in the middle of the album, further cementing the album’s overall theme. As a result, this short instrumental was named Part II and my orchestral version was renamed Part III.







A video for each part was created in 2015 using Premiere Pro, but I later combined them into a single video as one continuous entity.
Prescient tracks 1, 9 and 12 areThe Cloud/Uberveillance (Parts l-lll):

















(I switched to DaVinci Resolve for my next album in 2020.)







If you enjoyed this story, the rest of the album's tracks are covered in Episode 6 of my audio-only Podcast "TOSOTT - The Other Side of the Tracks" under my name (Greg Barnett). Other episodes cover other releases, and their respective songwriting and production stories. It's available for free and without adverts on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Castbox, and iHeart.











Cheers,



Greg B
https://forums.songstuff.com/t....opic/60401-one-song-

Three folk singer songwriters to help you get through this long summer Elijah Vale – “Take Things Slow”-There’s a sincerity to this track that made it immediately pop out for me. It feels like listening to an old friend tell good stories. The acoustic guitar creates a comfortable base for the song to rest. The ...
https://www.eartothegroundmusi....c.co/2025/07/10/thre

Tune in to a mini-concert with Southern Avenue The Memphis band performs songs from their new album,
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01..../1198921032/southern