Bath Folk Festival Special part 1 of 2

I'm sick

This week has been the Bath Folk Festival and as such I decided to track down some of my favourite performers around the city and record some of their tracks.

On Friday night I caught up with Dave Selby after his gig with Gren Bartley (I dropped in to join Gren playing last week's song 'Midnight melody'). Dave is a fantastic lyric writer and editor of the Bath Burp, Bath's première arts magazine. He told me that "It's about saying to a friend 'thank you for holding me together and taking care of me, but it's time for you to let go before you get dragged down too.' It's a right larf"

I'm sick,
I've been treading water so long
My eyes are filled with salt and my lungs are gone
Your hands held me up and kept me breathing
Now it's time to fade and the devil got even

Dear friends I apologise
I didn't plan on turning worthless in my own eyes
If you remember me before I wandered off please
Erase the memories you made since I was lost

Two Tunes


On Saturday, just before my gig at the Widcombe Social Club, I was hanging out with Jon Hicks, one of the most incredible guitarists I've heard. I asked him to pop down a couple of tunes and he did so as easily as tying his shoelace, phenomenal stuff!

Salty Water

A real highlight for me this one, Beth Porter is one of the most hard working young musicians I know, playing in an array if different groups and providing session work with over 60 albums that have her name somewhere! She also performs with her own group the Availables and is a top notch songwriter to boot. We sat down in a skittle alley, the sound of gypsy swing guitar drifting through the walls and she performed this heartbreaking song which was in part inspired by a murder that happened behind her house in Bath.

I lay, I lay, I lay
My back won't leave the floor
And the thoughts won't leave my mind
They're stuck just like before

Ch: So go and fetch the doctor
Go and fetch my man
Give me salty water
Lift me if you can

And I cried, I cried, I cried
No one came to see
And the pool is getting wide
Please come set me free

Ch:

And I died, I died, I died
That's ok with me
And I left my family behind
They never came for me

Ch:

Part two will come later this afternoon...