DUBSTAR Preludes Volume 1
There are demos of songs. There are live recordings. There are ‘works in progress’ and first drafts of songs that appear on collectors’ editions of classic albums.
But what do you call it when you complete a song, forget about it…then it re-emerges somehow, years later when you think you’re writing something new? That’s what you’ll find in the Dubstar preludes, the precursors. The original songs that were the unconscious starting points for new, often completely different songs.
Most of these tunes didn’t have titles, there wasn’t time. They only survive on cassettes, scraps of notebooks, sometimes even Minidisks (I LOVED Minidisks). Luckily, what I lack in photos and diaries I can more than make up for with a huge archive of my writing that stretches back to the 1970s, covers the entire Dubstar era and much more. There are a lot of these tunes.
So the Dubstar Preludes are a curio, a minor release, a glimpse at a different road that a songwriter could have pursued.
I often visualise writing as a spider’s web of possibilities, many of which can lead to a positive outcome, a good song. But no matter how much you practice, study, how often you write, you simply have to pick a creative thread and hope for the best. That’s how songwriting works.
Many of the completed Dubstar tunes are what happens when you get a second chance to pick a thread. The preludes are the original silk. I hope you enjoy them.
It’s Raining in my Mind
Prelude to ‘Disgraceful’
This melody and the lyrics that accompany it were a precursor to Disgraceful, as I think you can hear clearly in the chorus section. Disgraceful had a rather sad birth in a house on Windsor Terrace, South Gosforth. This precursor was the last song I wrote on my piano back in Jesmond before temporarily moving out. It was hugely influenced by Franz Liszt, I think that’s clear. It’s funny, but hearing it in this form, it seems obvious to me that this isn’t a Dubstar song at all. Little did I know that a rewrite would be the title track of the act I’d formed with Chris earlier that year and go on to be an international success.
The title is a something Chris said to me as we were driving over the Tyne Bridge during one of the United States of Being sessions…
After the Valentines
Prelude to ‘Everything’s Alright’
I’ve been a Shoegaze fan since before the term was invented (By Andy Ross who singed Dubstar…I don’t think it was supposed to be a compliment). So it was an incredible treat to see the reformed My Bloody Valentine play at the Roundhouse in Camden, sixteen years since I’d seen them at Whitley Bay Ice Rink. And they haven’t mellowed, that’s for sure. The gig was so loud that despite my aviation quality ear protectors I had to put my fingers in my ears lest they bleed. And when I took them out, it was like someone had smacked me on the side of the head. Or what I imagine it would be like to accidentally open the door of a submarine on the sea bed.
Anyway, this tune was written a couple of days after on the train back from meeting Stephen Hague in Hastings. I was still shaking, actually physically shaking from the gig, it was more of an experience than a joy really. I’d had the chord sequence in the back of my mind since a very young age. My grandfather had bought me an organ with single keys for chords on the left hand and I loved playing a succession of majors or of minors, no regard to key, I was too young. I think these early experiences with harmony have hugely influenced my writing.
I used the tune as the basis of ‘Everything’s Alright’, the song I wrote with Cat.
Just a Woman
Prelude to ‘Just a Girl She Said’
I’ve mentioned before that ‘Just a Girl’ was a combination of my composition submission for my O’ Level music and one of Sarah’s poems. It was the discovery of this piece, one of the easy drafts of that work that was the inspiration of this entire prelude series. I was looking through my scrapbook in my loft down here in Brighton when I came across a piece of manuscript that I must have put in the encyclopaedia of music that my parents had given me for my studies for O’ level. It was very rough, my manuscript writing has never been that great frankly. My reading’s not much better, but I played it on the CP-70B and remembered from way back that this was the original doodle for Just A Girl. It might be a bit of a stretch but I think you can just about hear the Dubstar themes, especially towards the end.
A Stranger to Everyone
Prelude to ‘When You Say Goodbye’
This is the only piece on this volume that had a title before its inclusion. Again, it had a rather sad origin, written in the days before Dubstar’s headline appearance at the NME tent at Reading 1996, when my relationship was ending. I enjoyed the way the music is very simple, cheerful, it could be an exercise by J. S. Bach…but the mood in my head was one of utter bleakness. Isn’t it curious how sometimes the most cheerful of compositions arrive in the midst of serious upset?
As the final writing sessions for Goodbye got underway in late 1996 and early 1997, this was the perfect starting point for another Dubstar tune in 6:8, the best time signature. After 5:4 of course.
Oh, and I played this piece as part of the GGGGHOST sets in 2015/16. It was always one of my faves, and sounds gorgeous on a Yamaha DX7.
Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com
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