Anywhere
Songwriters Steve Hillier & Chris Wilkie
Date Written November 1990, Revised In January 1994
Place Written Jesmond, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Released When October 1995
Originally Sung By Steve Hillier
Features Roland W-30 & JD-800, Casio CZ-101, Yamaha DX100
Spotify Link
“Even persistination couldn’t stay”
Pardon?
The sound of looking out of Jesmond windows at the rain. The song Anywhere began as an attempt at a ‘classical’ melody that I wrote on the Roland W-30 using string samples featured on the factory floppy disk. The original chord sequence was very different to the version that appeared on Disgraceful. You can hear it on the last moments of the remix album, and now on this piano version.
Like so many of the Dubstar songs, it was an idea that had been kicking around in my mind for years. It’s impossible to predict when inspiration will hit to complete an old idea, but when it appears I feel compelled to run with it, no matter what else I may be working on. What I was doing when Anywhere reappeared was DJing at Planet Earth nightclub in Newcastle. I wrote “I’ll be around…any time I’m free,” on a sheet of paper covered in song requests from drunken revellers. It was a cold Wednesday night in January, I wasn’t quite in the nightclub mood. So I wrote a sarcastic message to the crowd: “I’ll be around, any time I’m free” and felt rather smug. There’s a pervasive cattiness to the idea that you’re promising something and taking it away simultaneously. That was also the night I invented the word “persistination”, a portmanteau of ‘determination’ and ‘persistence’. I hope it sounds like it means something. So far only one person has noticed, I’m amazed I got away with it. And of course, persistination is now in common usage in my imagination.
The version of Anywhere on Disgraceful was influenced by One Dove and The Other Two, both of whom Stephen Hague had worked with (although we hadn’t met Stephen when I put the arrangement together). Not only was this the first song we completed after Sarah joined The Joans (the precursor to Dubstar), but it remains my favourite from the Disgraceful sessions. What a bass line! Thank you, the Roland JD-800.
INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now: