I’ve finished writing all the songs for Jobling The Musical and Lee Morris is busy arranging them for the Westoe Brass Band.

The show will take place at The Word, South Shields, June 24th.

To whet your appetite I thought I’d share the demo for one of the songs here. (Health warning: my own vocals are not the best you’ll hear.) The song is “Me Last Days”. As I set out to write this one I knew I had quite a task on my hands as the song features Jobling contemplating his execution just days away. I remembered something I learned whilst I was briefly a thespian with Jack Drum Arts. I seem to recall the technique was called “hotspotting” and this is where an actor holds an unscripted conversation or interview whilst inhabiting the character by drawing on what they know about that character. And so, late one night with a few glasses of vino to assist I became William Jobling. With Tom Kelly’s lyrics in front of me I sang in stream of consciousness style using a melancholy chord structure. I didn’t construct the song it just flowed from me. Later Tom asked why I had not used the third verse and I explained that I was so emotionally drained that I could do no more. And so we’ve left it that way, just two verses.

This video firstly features that very first stream of consciousness rendition followed by a slightly more produced and constructed version with some lyrical and musical tweaks. Which version do you prefer? Come to the show to see how it turns out. Booking (required) here —https://goo.gl/Q7KXnC

Me Last Days Collage from Steve Thompson on Vimeo.