Page 6 - Radiodowntown online March 2021

SLEEP, LOVERS, SLEEP (THE STORY BEHIND GOTHIC LULLABY)
By Rob Atkins
Chasing Dreams is an album released by my eldest daughter, Helena Mace. Put together with the assistance of co-producer, Matt Black, in 2018, nine of its ten tracks are original numbers written by Helena -the remaining song, Gothic Lullaby, is one of my own compositions.
Gothic Lullaby differs from the rest of the album due to the fact that it is largely folk-orientated, rather than country inspired. The pace is slow and eerie, the melody and lyrics dark and mournful. The general feel leans towards the mediaeval; but for all this, the tone and setting fit her style perfectly. Her vocals echo as if through a cathedral: mystic violin, cello, and keyboard, add an otherworldly atmosphere.
The initial inspiration for the song came to me during the mid-1970s when Helena was a toddler. I was living on the Isle of Wight, and was lead vocalist and bass player in a local band, ‘Neon Rainbow’-a name we’d taken from a minor hit by the ‘Boxtops’. Ray Hunt, our guitarist, engaged in furnishing a new house, had purchased a very striking picture. It depicted an armoured knight and young damsel, with an obligatory dragon lurking in the background. To this day warrior and maiden remain implanted in my memory. The picture demanded a song.
My song writing methods are hardly scientific. Generally, I strum a guitar, trying out random chords, hoping that a tune will develop in my head. In this case I followed a fairly simple chord progression in the key of A minor, much like a fisherman casting a net, but concentrating on the human figures in the picture rather than fish. Eventually a melody began to emerge. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, words will come simultaneously.
On this occasion it didn’t happen quite so quickly, but after a few days I had pieced together the lyrics
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of the first verse much as they stand today:
Torn from the depths of an unguarded dream,
Cast adrift on an ocean of lies,
The young girl she stands with her face in her hands
And the cold tears of loss in her eyes.’
The final half of the verse where a C chord lifts the melody up to the line ‘Gone is the sunlight that made her proud soul bright’ followed smoothly enough, as did the words leading towards the final line ‘Dies away in a heart-rending scream.’ I can remember sitting back and surveying the fruits of my labour. The first part of the song was complete. All I needed were suitable lyrics for the second verse. And accordingly, I wrote out the first tentative line: ‘The warrior tall with his back to the wall ’ It was here that I stopped. Inspiration had suddenly deserted me. The source of my imagination had dried up completely.
Writer’s block is a frustrating phenomena -an occupational hazard for most creative artists. Often it can be overcome, but in this case, the barrier seemed impassable. In the following weeks -which soon turned to months- I tried to crack the blockage. Still the verse failed to take shape. Why not stick in any old words? I asked myself, aware of the answer even as the question entered my head. It wasn’t as easy as that. They had to be the right words -but what were the right words? The song needed a story line, but what was it to be? I searched around for examples and possible sources, and even considered a scene from the Thomas Hardy novel, Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, where the heroine contemplates her ancestors tombs in the vaults of a rustic church. Yet again, the lyrics refused to co- operate. Gothic Lullaby was consigned to a file