Mor-Than-Words

Pipeline – The Ventures So how a song can spark a memory even after the event. When I was 18 my parents took our family to Florida, USA, the mention of the sunshine state from my last post reminded me of this song. This was a huge deal for us, before this we had mostly been to holiday camps in the UK, so to be in Mickey Mouses back yard was incredible. We even hired one of those new video cameras to record this adventure, they were huge in those days, you were basically carrying round a suitcase on your shoulder. We did all the brilliant tourist things, but one of the best moments on that holiday video was, when I was editing it, I added this song as a backing track to us just messing about in the motel pool. Somehow it summed up the excitement of the whole trip, definitely unmistakably American and it even gives you that feeling only being out in intense heat can and that lovely cool swimming pool water.  As always with great songs, when I hear it I’m back in that pool and young again

Little Ole Wine Drinker Me – Dean Martin "I'm praying for a rain in California . So the grapes can grow and they can make more wine ” I wonder what the writers were thinking of that day. What a perfect song subject for Dean Martin , probably the most famous drunk act ever. His clever wit and stage act shouldn’t disguise his amazing singing voice. Out of the Las Vegas Rat Pack he’s my favorite, even above the legends Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr . I think all three of these guys and a lot of the other crooners from that era are super cool, this was at a time the songwriting craft was pure poetry usually addressing big subjects of life, ' My Way ' and ' Born Free ' for just two examples. Then you had semi serious songs like this one, a heartbreak song hidden under a very quirky melody and what I guess would later be described as a drinking song. Dean Martin takes on this tongue twister of a lyric with ease and sings it in his classic relaxed style. I first h

Lost In Music – Sister Sledge So there I was just old enough to finally get into nightclubs, then my group of friends decide they want to go to the only nightclub in town that had an older age limit. Putting on my only suit, borrowing my brothers driving license, I paid my £7, which was half of my Saturday job's daily pay and in we went past the huge bouncers. It was an older crowd so therefore they played older music, quite a long disco section, some of which bored me to tears to be honest. That DJ had a regular set list he used to play, most of the songs were their extended 'dance' versions so you could have another pint by the time the next song came on . But songs like this one were burrowed into my brain, mostly thanks to Nile Rogers ' Chic ' production, that guitar riff is infectious, plus the driving beat doesn't give up throughout. This a great vocal, I love girl groups like this where they blend their voices to make a big sound.  Sister Sledge were a

Shiny Happy People – R.E.M. I thought I'd get a bit happier after a couple of sadder posts. This song hit me in 1991, it was a big main steam hit from R.E.M .s album Out of Time. It was the first song of theirs I heard and it started a long standing interest, I bought lots of their albums on cassette tape and played them on the train to work on my Walkman. They had lots of music out previous to this but it didn't appear on my radar. This song is kinda outside their normal stuff, having a guest vocalist, Kate Pierson of the B-52 's for starters and a seriously happy vibe. It'll get you dancing and feel good. The video added lots of energy to the track, they look like their having fun, we used to listen to lots of music around that time by watching the videos. R.E.M. were quite a quirky band, Michael Stripe always looked to me like he was playing the character of the lead singer than actually being comfortable out front. As often happens with bands biggest main stream hit

Daddy's Little Girl – The Shires In honour of it being Father’s Day, here's a great song about a Daddy. British Country Duo, The Shires , made up of Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes came to my attention when I used to go to a monthly Country night in a pub locally in Essex. It was based on the 'In the round' concept, borrowed from The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, where four singer songwriters sit round playing their songs one at a time. They give the backstory to each song and the reason for its being, Amy who ran the night also used to finish each evening with a selection of her own songs, one of which was about the other members of the then British Country scene. The two most successful ones being this duo, The Shires, she mentioned them often and this pricked my interest enough to search out their music. They formed when Ben put an ad out on Facebook looking for a like minded female singer and Crissie got in touch. They have been making great music together ever since. Th

I've Gotta Get A Message To You – Bee Gees So the subject matter in this one is basically horrible, it's about a guy on death row trying to get one last message out to apologise to his loved one. It’s probably like The Police hit ‘ Every Breath You Take ’ which everyone thinks is a love song but is actually a song about stalking, to the causal listener this song sounds like a guy struggling to get in touch with someone before the days of mobile phones. It’s strange when you read lyrics of popular songs how they don’t always represent what you thought the song was about. The Bee Gees went on to have a ton of huge hits, best known for their Disco stuff like ‘ Staying Alive ’ and ‘ Night Fever ’, but when they started out they were quite a serious band. With titles such as ‘ New York Mining Disaster 1941 ’ some of their songs were quite out there for the quite often bubblegum pop of the 1960s. I first heard this song when my dad brought home a record of the soundtrack to a film

Superstition (Live) – Stevie Wonder I got a new job working for a high-end hi-fi speaker company, a month in they sent me along to attend a trade show at a hotel in Bristol. It was a very strange set up, each company demonstrating their products was allocated one of the bedrooms, all the furniture was removed and in it’s place they setup their hi-fi equipment to play songs to the attending audiophiles. There were all levels, sizes, shapes and sounds of every thing you could associate with hi-fi and surround sound systems. Each room competing in volume and content trying to capture as many people as possible. The larger companies had use of the function rooms around the hotel foray, the company I was there with were the only ones displaying on the tenth floor in a slightly bigger suite. They took along £20,000 worth of their top of the range speakers in a surround sound system, two large floor standers, two rear stand mounted, a centre channel and a huge subwoofer, all of which were pos

The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim So in 1998, Fatboy Slim alias Norman Cook released the album You’ve Come A Long Way Baby, one of the big hits from it was this song, 'The Rockefeller Skank'. By this stage of my musical journey I was going to nightclubs and dancing all night. When this album came out it was a perfect mixture of two of my musical worlds, the beats of the clubbing music with great samples of more traditional songs. The repetitive nature of such songs is simply hypnotic and very danceable. There are a number of samples going on here, even a guitar line form the theme to ‘Peter Gunn’ by Duane Eddy from a song by the Art of Noise . I love Duane Eddy, one of my guitar heroes and also the Art of Noise were so innovative and well ahead of their time. This album was very influential, hit number one and has an iconic front cover, which seems to happen with best known albums. A couple of other tracks on there I partially like are 'Right Here, Right Now' and ‘Pr

Whatever You Want (Live) – Status Quo So I’m a huge Status Quo fan, yes I’m sure some music connoisseurs reading this will do the huge sigh, only three chords routine. But as far as I’m concerned, they rock. Seen them live many times and still can’t believe Rick Parfitt is no longer with us. His partner Francis Rossi carries the torch, but it will never be quite the same. They met at Butlins Holiday camp in the 60’s, and decided to form a rock band together. They started in the psychedelic groove with dreamy songs like ‘ Picture Of Matchstick Men ’ and eventually after a few false starts, turned into the denim clad, long haired, head down rockers. They had some amazing songs along the way and are known as a great live band, they opened ‘Live Aid’ in 1985 and got Wembley rocking. This song ’Whatever You Want’ was released at the end of the 1970’s and it’s probably my favourite of theirs. But the version I’ve attached is from another live show, in 1990 there was a huge charity concert s

True Love Ways – Buddy Holly As one of my biggest influences, Buddy Holly is kinda special to me, his were the first songs I mastered when learning to play the guitar. The first (and second) guitars I own are starburst Stratocasters similar to the one Buddy was famous for. I finally cracked his song ‘ Oh Boy ’ and that set me on my way, ‘ Peggy Sue ’ was another one that I could play after some sore fingers. Some might say these songs are very simple, but that’s the point and greatness for me. It’s very easy to over complicate songs and keep adding more words, messages and show off your musical skills. Back in the 50’s I guess it was much harder to build a huge track, it was all one take and the band or orchestra in this case had to all hit the perfect groove and nail the song. They didn’t have anyone to copy, you were the first ones creating this type of music, then watching it effect young peoples lives and helping them to enjoy and express themselves. Buddy recorded this track shor

The Dance – Garth Brooks I had to post this one today, it has a very special place on my heart. I was lucky enough to go to Nashville five years ago this week, we managed to get tickets for The Bluebird Cafe , the spiritual home of songwriters. It was our first night in Nashville sandwiched between a Rolling Stones gig in Atlanta and the CMA Fest, a huge annual country music festival. We arrived in town and had a nightmare finding the hotel we booked, we then had to race downtown and try to find somewhere to park near the Bluebird before they closed the doors, stress. The TV show ‘ Nashville ’ was all the go at the time and the cafe was featured a lot, so it was weird sitting in the real place and knowing some of the amazing history it has. For example Taylor Swift was discovered there and so was Garth Brooks , who happens to be the best selling solo artist in the US ever. Garth Brooks had a huge hit with this song in 1989. We were sat watching four local singer-songwriter

More Than Words – Extreme So for my first real post, there's only one place to start. The song that inspired my blog’s title. More Than Words by Extreme . This was released when I was 17 (1991) around the time I started to learn to play guitar and write songs. So I really admired the phrasing and finger picking style going on here. This song is a great example of someone pouring their heart out saying ‘you need to show me you love me, not just tell me.’ Words are easily said, but not always so easily meant. You need actions to show you care about something or someone, to manage to get that sentiment into a lyric is pretty special. The backing gives you a sense of the longing that's just hanging there, waiting for them to express themselves and confirm what you hope is going on. You have to unjumble some of the lines of the song, it’s a bit like Yoda telling you about 'love' on occasions, saying things the opposite way round to how you would normally say somet

Mor-e-ah Songwriter Hi, my name is Kevin O'Brien, from the UK, I'm a songwriter who writes under the name of Mor-e-ah. Music is my passion, be it listening to it or creating it, couldn't live without it. I've been writing lyrics for nearly 30 years, songwriting is my therapy, getting my feelings out there, telling stories and speaking my truth. My own music is heavily influenced by the music I’ve heard all my life, I’ve been very lucky to have such a varied musical background. Different family members and friends have turned me onto lots of artists, bands and tastes throughout the decades and music movements. I love just about all types of music, probably some I shouldn’t admit to. But I believe there are really only two types of music. Good and Bad. And the best thing about that is it’s all down to personal choice, no two people like the same exact music. If you would like to hear some of my own music please visit my website mor-e-ah.