Man Walks Into a Pub
IRR077: MAN WALKS INTO A PUB
Officially released on 20th September (but available from Robb at gigs now), this is a solo acoustic album. Listen to free sample tracks or download publicity photographs by Agata
Bogacka.
TRACK LIST
- Man Walks into a Pub
- A True History of Couscous
- Les Deux Magots
- Dark Star
- A Bracelet from Paris
- A Very Small Piece of thev Real World
- Charlie
- The Wrong Train
- Thomas Among the Dandelions
- Someone Else Can Save the World
- Stay Free
- A Place in the Country
- The Justice Bus
- Pennypot Lane
NOTES ON THE NOTES AND BACKSTORIES
Back in the days when dogs could talk, my first two LPs came with attractively presented lyric sheets. LPs were like that: huge great artefacts that encouraged elaboration on a large scale. They were also bloody heavy to lug around and they got bent and useless if incorrectly stored, so on the whole, CDs can be considered something of a logistical if not aesthetic improvement. But now we're talking booklets, rather than sheets: smaller, neater but somehow also a little bit less exciting. So, when I did my first CD, rather than lyrics, I included a booklet of notes, that gave the listener a handy snapshot of the backstory of each song, and if the lyrics were a little obscure / unsuccessful these notes also told you what the songs were supposed to be about. They told you, politely, what to think.
This approach got repeated on several other albums. With "Man Walks into a Pub" there was a temptation to repeat this practice; after all, an album of just voice and guitar, you should surely be able to make out the words, and for anybody whose first language isn't English, I could stick the lyrics up on the website. But notes on songs... these are starting to remind me of that boast of Owen Glendower in Henry IV Part 1 where he says "I can call monsters from the vasty deep" and Hotspur replies "So can I … but will they come?" Telling people what I think the songs are about is a little like calling monsters from the deep: do they actually turn up? That's why there aren't any notes in the album packaging, to let the listener decide for themself first if there are any monsters turning up. Then, if they're interested, they can refer to the backstories, notes and lyrics on the website.
There is a tendency to take an interest in the autobiographical connections between the work and the worker. When I first read Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" I was convinced that Andy must have been writing this very much with a particular coy mistress in mind, and the possibility that it was mere fabrication, an exercise in wit, somehow made it to my teenage mind less valid, a bit of a disappointment; so it was something of a paradoxical revelation to me when I got my breath seriously taken away for good by Shakespeare, who clearly had never been King Lear, or Falstaff, or Titus Andronicus; and the same is true of Jacques Brel, who as far as anyone knows, never contracted VD in a mobile army brothel etc. Nonetheless, it's probably true that no work of creativity entirely escapes the conditions of its production, so to that end the notes may or may not prove interesting if you happen to be passing the time listening to this small collection of songs and associated writings. You can't always rely on writers telling the truth when they present their backstories, either; whether consciously or inadvertently, we all edit our histories both according to how we saw things and how we would like to have things seen.
ABOUT THE ALBUM
“‘Man Walks into a Pub’ - that's what I do, I walk into pubs, take out a wooden guitar and play people songs,” says Robb.
This album sees Robb revisiting his folk club songwriting roots. The majority of the 14 tracks on the album were written for the monthly Hove Folk Club that he's been running since September 2008. Robb set out to write a new song for each folk club night, and rediscovered just how enjoyable playing an acoustic guitar is - that's why the album includes two instrumentals, as well as Johnson’s trademark capacity to write intelligently about issues as diverse as love, kids, the war in Afghanistan, the condition of Albion, saving the world, pubs and meeting foxes on the way back from them after closing time. There’s also a cover of a traditional song, collected from the singing of Michael Jones and Joe Strummer, “Stay Free”.
“The organic feel of this album is reflected in the photos used for the cover; they were taken in The Poet’s Corner pub where the folk club’s held, by Agata who also works there as a barmaid,” says Robb. The album packaging contains a 16-page booklet of poems written by Robb over the last two years, frequently in pubs but also sometimes on the bus on the way to work using local paper headlines for initial inspiration.
“It seemed a bit pointless having the lyrics with the album, ’cos hopefully you can hear them on the CD, but it's always good to have something extra to look at when you first open an album - hence the booklet of poems, many of which relate directly or indirectly to the songs on the album,” explains Robb. However, for those of you who find Robb’s diction a bit suspect, lyrics and notes to songs will be appearing on this website over the summer.
Robb will be promoting this new album by walking into pubs, taking out a wooden guitar and playing people songs, nationwide, in Autumn 2010 and Spring 2011.
THE TITLE TRACK
Man Walks into a Pub (MP3, 3.5MB)
Man walks into a pub,
You’ve heard this one before,
I know it’s not that funny
Or that clever anymore,
But he sits down like a sailor
Who’s been shipwrecked quite a while,
Man walks into a pub, and smiles.
Man walks into a pub
And you can see the little boy,
With his pockets full of sixpence
In a sweet shop full of toys,
Back before the smoker’s cough,
The beer gut and the piles,
Man walks into a pub, and smiles.
The lads are watching football
On the pub’s big silver screen,
And until that final whistle
You can forget what might have been,
The chances never taken, the numbers never dialled,
Man walks into a pub, and smiles.
And it isn’t just the football,
And it isn’t just the beer,
Me and Dave are smiling too,
We’ve got this big idea,
And if it comes to nothing, that’s because
Next day we can’t remember what it was….
Man walks into a pub,
Leaves his troubles at the door,
Shakes his old head wisely
At the lads still trying to score,
There’s the pint of compensation
For the final homeward mile…
Man walks into a pub, and smiles.
This is the oldest song on the album, written maybe in 2007; it hasn't been officially released before simply because it didn't really seem to fit on any of the recent albums.
I clearly remember how it got started: I was in the Beehive in Brentford, and this old boy tottered in, made it to the bar and hauled himself safely onto a barstool, like a ship making harbour. The bit about "me and Dave" in the middle-eighty section is me and Dave Floyd, singer with original west-London punk legends Riot Clone, planning a joint tour of Germany that of course never happened, one night in the Cross Lances in Hounslow.
I recorded the song twice for the album; the first time it seemed a bit slow and maudlin, plus there were some noticeable tuning problems with the Thornbory bottom string. I thought it needed to be a little more positive, so I did a new version with a capo and the Brook guitar, which is the version on the CD. I usually try to avoid using a capo; live I think you get endless boring tuning problems, whatever the capo manufacturers claim (plus I have now lost three very expensive G7 capos, whereas my old Shubbs seem to hang around forever, and not produce that many more problems in terms of tuning when you use them). But I thought, for this album, maybe I should make a bit of an effort and do the songs in the optimum key for the vocal/effect I was hoping to achieve.
