There are an unusual number of\nreferences to God or deities in the songs on this album and both Herbie and I\nhave done this completely independently of each other. We\u2019ve never had a\nconversation about God, mainly because neither of us are remotely interested in\nthe subject, but we were both brought up in religious families: me as a Catholic\nand Herbie as a Mormon. We both announced our total lack of interest in our\nreligions to our families in our teens, scandalizing them in the process. But\nlike with most teen \u201cproblems\u201d, that was forgiven and forgotten in time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday 4th<\/sup> February 2011,\nI woke up at 2:15 with a melody in my head. I knew from experience that if this\nwas not immediately documented it would disappear and I would remember nothing in\nthe morning. So I got out of bed, went into the studio, got a guitar, worked\nout chords to sing to and wrote Pray. I wrote all the words to the song before\ngoing back to bed at about 3:30, after the end of the chorus came to me: \u201cif I\nthought God might listen I\u2019d pray\u201d. The end of the last verse goes \u201cthat I\u2019d be\nforgiven and the legless might get up and dance\u201d. Or pigs will fly. Or fat chance of being\nforgiven for anything, in other words. I\u2019m not self-psychoanalyzing, but\nCatholics are notoriously guilty and constantly needing forgiveness for the\nslightest infringement, with a visit to the local church for confession to a\npriest. I did it myself many times as a\nchild, but never as an adult. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even without the psychoanalysis it feels\nlike there\u2019s residual godliness lurking in our subconscious minds that needs\nrelease. This is probably a better way than most for exorcising that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Herbie and I wrote this collection of\nsongs over a period of several years. We had already written many of them when\nG\u00f6ran Nystr\u00f6m came to me in late 2011 and proposed doing a couple of Syd\nBarrett songs for fun. That turned into an album of Syd songs for Men On The\nBorder (MOTB) in a lavish gatefold CD with a booklet. The follow-up album\n\u201cJumpstart\u201d was mostly written by G\u00f6ran and myself, like the following bunch of\nsingles. All my songs prior to MOTB were shelved for the time being. Herbie\u2019s\ntoo. After I was lucky enough to get Herbie and Bj\u00f6rn into MOTB playing bass\nand drums, Herbie brought along a demo of Northern Skies to a rehearsal, just\nto play it for us. It was great, but typically we had more than enough\nsongs, which is usually the way of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a bit like that in Tuckers Lilla\nKapell, which was Lasse Forberg\u2019s band. Herbie and I contributed a few songs\nalong the way, but the overwhelming majority were Lasse\u2019s, who wrote genuine\nTucker\u2019s songs. When I wrote a song for that band, it was basically a Lasse\nsong with my name on it. Copying Lasse\u2019s style to fit the context.\n\nI hope that someday, someone will look at the lyrics for all these Padded\nRoom songs. There are forty-six of them (so far) and they\u2019re sadly ignored.\nHerbie is a great songwriter and a master with lyrics. It\u2019s no coincidence that\non all the songs which are credited to Etheridge\/Parkin, I wrote the music and\nHerbie wrote the lyrics. This is usually because if I don\u2019t find something\nconcrete to write about very quickly, my mind goes blank and I get nothing at\nall. But Herb always comes up with the goods. That\u2019s how it\u2019s been since we\nstarted writing together in the 80s.\n\n\n\n\nt-f!\u000464\ufffd\u001cB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are an unusual number of references to God or deities in the songs on this album and both Herbie and I have done this completely independently of each other. We\u2019ve never had a conversation about God, mainly because neither of us are remotely interested in the subject, but we were both brought up in … <\/p>\n