Here is the story behind Hurry Home. The audio collage you can hear below starts with my rough demo. Unfortunately auto-tune had not been invented in those days. The rough demo was laid down after a heavy metal session I recall, everyone had left and there was only me and audio engineer Mickey Sweeney in the studio. I nipped in quickly and laid down a demo. There is a recording in my kitchen that pre-dates this but I can’t find it so you have been spared. This particular demo was recorded next to a taxi office which you can hear. Next, I only made a couple of simple demos, the first being with Paul Caffrey followed by another with Mick Whitaker. Next there is a clip sung by Vikki Clayton (Fairport Convention) and after that a version by Sarah Brightman. We conclude with the big one by Wavelength. Wavelength’s version charted in 1982 and went top 20 staying in the charts for 3 months.  Oh, and BTW Sarah B, if you’d like to pay me the royalties from your 100 date world wide La Luna tour of stadiums I’d be happy to accept!

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/stmedia/hurry-home-collage[/soundcloud]

My wife Molly had to go into hospital for a operation. She was on the phone to her mother telling her and I was playing a kind of spoof slushy love song. Afterwards I went out into the kitchen and finished off the song. Molly loved it but I thought is was overly sentimental. Anyway she took it into hospital with her and all the staff loved it. She insisted I send it out to people so I sent it to my publisher. The producer, Chris Neil was looking for songs for Sheena Easton and called my publisher. He spoke to Sarah Toniolo and she told him the story. His own wife was in hospital having a baby so he related to the song. Sheena hated it so he recorded it with Wavelength and boy am I glad he did. The song coincided with the Falklands conflict and became a much requested favourite. Some people assumed I had written it specifically for that reason but, as you can see, this was not the case.

Wavelength’s Top of the Pops appearance is here  http://youtu.be/HNG6anfVJbk