Mor-Than-Words

I Don't Want A Lover – Texas As guitar lead songs go this one is a bit of classic, love the slide guitar in this and the beat is awesome. I’m part of The Songwriting Academy and one of the mentors is Ally McErlaine who plays guitar in the band Texas . He was doing some guitar tutoring and mentioned this song, it came flooding back how much I loved this song. It was a stand out track from it's time with what used to be described as a guitar rift, not sure such a thing still exists in current music but this whole track hangs on those few repeated notes. The lyrics are about a complicated relationship with the singer explaining she only wants to be friends. Sharleen Spiteri lyrics and voice are brilliant, Texas are a very underrated band. Favourite lyric : But you can't have it all / 'Cause I'm the one who's strong

Ain't No Pleasing You – Chas & Dave Chas and Dave were awesome, couple of Cockney blokes banging out mostly happy tunes about real life and real people. They got involved in lots of clever projects like the Courage Best beer adverts with their song Gertcha coming out of that, and silly songs like Snooker Loopy with the big snooker players of the day, the Matchroom mob from Romford, Essex where I’m originally from. Then they had proper songs like this one, a real honest account of a couple's relationship. The clever lyrics in this song tell you exactly what's going on, the subject matter set to the string orchestra makes the whole thing believable and sets the right tone. Just goes to show what talented musicians these two were, I know they were both session musicians back in the 60's and play on some big hits for other groups. Cheers for making us smile Chas and Dave but also some cracking tunes. Favorite lyric: You seem to think that everything / I ever did

Swamp Thing – The Grid Not many dance tracks feature a banjo. Out of the blue this track appeared giving everyone an excuse to dosey doe around a nightclub dance floor. I think there’s something so catchy about this tune, I expect the conversation amongst the band went along the lines of what can we do to be different from all the other hundreds of dance tracks of the time. Well their theory worked, as this was everywhere for a while, loving country music and dancing this worked perfectly for me. I had a mad dance move at the time, arms and legs going at million miles an hour and I could show it off when ever a DJ dropped this song into an evening. On the back of this track I bought The Grid 's album Evolver , there are some really interesting tracks on there, it’s not all versions of the same track as some dance albums seem to be. Mostly instrumental but a few lyrics chucked in on samples. I still listen to it now and still makes me smile. I bought the song itself of a

Wild World – Cat Stevens Another one of those random songs I first heard on a compilation cassette, this time passed to me by a neighbour after they had collected enough points at petrol station to be given a free album. It was a very odd selection with this song in the middle of it. I had no idea who Cat Stevens was, not heard of him at this point or his story of how he gave up fame and changed his name to follow his new found religion. I just thought it was a very poetic song, really simple backing and heartfelt. The singer is telling the person in the song that now their leaving him it's breaking his heart but he feels they need to be warned that the world can be a harsh place. The words don't let us know if this person is his partner or maybe his daughter, but either way you get his sentiment. The lyrics probably aren't that PC these days but you have to judge a song on it's time in history. Cat Stevens wrote some big hits along the way, ' Father and Son '

Holding Back The Years – Simply Red "Rodney, you plonker," may be a strange way to start a blog post about a great song. But if you know the reference your probably ahead of me. In my favourite ever British sitcom ' Only Fools and Horses ' this song is used in the episode that younger brother Rodney gets married. It's a fantastic scene at the very end of an eventful wedding day, Rodney finds Del Boy his older brother alone stood by the buffet table to say his goodbyes. Del is stood there on his own with this song playing out in the background, if an emotion in song could ever sum up the feelings of a moment I think this would be hard to beat. At this point in the programs history we'd been through many ups and downs with the Trotter brothers and realise the impact this one moment was going to have on changing Del's life. Any one with a brother or sister they are close to probably know that feeling, there is such a sense of joy for them mixed with feelings

Mustang Sally – The Commitments Don't know how many times I've watched this film now, it never fails to make me laugh out loud, tap my feet and sing along. It's just fun, the whole story of manager Jimmy Rabbitte creating a Soul band out of a butch of scruffy teenagers and a fruity trumpet player is so cool. He pretends to be interviewed by the legend Terry Wogan throughout the film, it's just what we all did growing up, thinking the world would be that easy to concur. With Dublin as their playgroup and all the characters that turn up it's a great snapshot of what life was like then. The music in the film is wall to wall class, I listen to the soundtrack a lot, many a Saturday night or family party has had it's Mustang moment. Andrew Strong's vocal is immense, why he never became a superstar I will never know. The original Wilson Pickett version grooves away as you'd expect but hasn't got that rawness about it. The rest of the cast take on differen

The Only One I Know – The Charlatans Just watched a brilliant documentary on TV, ' Rockfield : The Studio on the Farm ' on BBC4, it shows the history of the legendary residential studio set up in the middle of the Welsh countryside. Two brothers, gradually turned their farm into a succession of recording studios and in the process managed to record some of the most iconic songs and groups of British music. Black Sabbath , Queen , Simple Minds , Stone Roses , Maniac 's and Coldplay to name a few. Special mention of Oasis also recording there, Liam on the program and is his usual charming self, apparently it's where the ' Wonderwall ' is. But just as I hadn't thought about ' The Charlatans ' for quite until I saw them featuring in the program, I picked out this song, 'The Only One I Know' out of the bunch, not only did they record at the farm, but one of the band actually died in a car smash whilst being there. Totally tragic but some would s

Warwick Avenue – Duffy This week it was the twelfth anniversary of me moving to where I live now, previous to this I had always lived in my childhood home so it was a big deal at the time. Around then Duffy had released her ‘ Rockferry ’ album and I bought the CD and really liked it’s jazzy and soothing sounds. She had a few singles out at that point but the one she had around the time of the big move was this song ‘Warwick Avenue’. It just so happened the road I was moving to had a very similar name so it felt like fate had played a part in all of this. To the point we were waiting outside the estate agents to get the keys of our new place and I had the radio on in the car and guess which song came on next. The song is about meeting someone at the tube station to tell them goodbye and confront them how much they have hurt you, mixed in with a longing that it didn’t have to be this way. The whole concept of it being the last time they would see each other matched how I was feeling abo

Weather With You – Crowded House Crowded House were a big part of the soundtrack to my Australian adventures, as usual I made up some mix tapes to take with me to the other side of the world. This song was one of the main tunes, it still sounds so summery and joyous. It's a simple tune with lots of feeling and great references to their family home. Their other better known song ' Don't Dream It's Over ' was also on my tape, it's a fantastic song, but it's sad to think that the adventure did have to come to an end and I miss those times of being younger, braver and care free. Loved Australia and New Zealand, I have fantastic memories of those trips. As always certain songs I associate with certain places. Many years later I saw them play live at the Hammersmith Apollo , what made it more memorable for me was I should have been with my brother but he couldn't come due to work commitments. So it was one of a few gigs I've been to on me own. Just rememb

Shake It Off – Taylor Swift Before I say anything else, have a look at how many views this song has on YouTube. This is where more modern music is on a different planet to most of my taste in songs. You can't argue with the figures. I've spoken of Taylor Swift being discovered at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville in a previous post, she started out a Country Starlet. Some of the lyrics she wrote as a teenager are simple brilliant, summing up perfectly the troubled and complicated life of someone that age. I've also been on a number of webinar courses with her original manager Rick Barker , who has explained how Taylor was one of the first artists to use social media to gain a fan base. She totally interacted with her fans, making them part of her journey to becoming a huge star. Again you would have to had been an age where you grew up with social media as part of your life to be able to get a grip of all the angles of it. Then Taylor went 'Pop' and opened up her mus

Candle on the Water – Pete's Dragon I'm a huge Disney fan, love their films, love their theme parks. I think they create magic. Big part of my love for all things Disney is the music they use and created for their films. There's a great movie called ' Saving Mr. Banks ' all about how they made ' Mary Poppins '. What I really love about that film is they take you behind the scenes of how their in house songwriters crafted the songs, pure imagination. That would probably be my dream job. There are so many iconic songs from all their huge movies, ' When You Wish Upon A Star ' brings a tear to my eye whenever I hear it, for a number of reasons now including great memories of watching the fireworks bursting over Cinderella's castle at The Magic Kingdom. But wind back 40 years and then there's this song. I'm at infant school, it's the end of term, we are all ushered into the assembly hall for a special treat. They wheel in one of those big

I Wanna Be Free – The Monkees Scratching the surface of a memory. So my family were talking about vinyl records, my niece had mentioned she would like a record player or turntable as everyone calls them now. The older members included in the conversation were reminiscing about how playing your favourite records wasn't without it's dangers. I shared a stack system with my brother as a teenager, it included a functional record player on top. A very compact design to the extent that any 12" LP stuck out three sides of the top cover. The only issue being after much use the catch on the cover became a bit temperamental and had a knack of crashing down just as you were loading your favourite record. This would put a lovely scratch across the groove, often ruining the listening experience. I had been bought The Monkess Greatest Hits on a very cool looking record one Christmas, I had played it a lot, I was a big Monkees fan from watching their TV show that used to be repeated dur

Won't Get Fooled Again – The Who There were big changes going on at one of my old jobs. Lots of people didn't want to move offices when the company decided we were moving from East to West London. It was a real shame as we had a really good team working there, very friendly, great social life and on top of that we were producing some amazing work. Two of my main friends there were musicians, one played self taught lead guitar and the other was a very accomplished bass player who just happened to love The Who . John Entwistle was a big influence on lots of bass players, matching Keith Moon 's drumming madness for lots of their huge hits. Personally I was a fan of their earlier stuff, Pinball Wizard and My Generation and the like. But I had their greatest hits and enjoyed most of them, I've always admired Roger Daltrey 's vocals and windmilling Pete Townsend 's guitar riffs. Now to the point of the story, the two guys from work were firm friends and I was the n

Who Wants to Live Forever – Queen + Adam Lambert So I sat down to watch a Netflix documentary ' The Show Must Go On ' about one of my favourite bands Queen and how they got their new front man Adam Lambert . Being a big admirer of Freddie Mercury I'm one of those who would have said he was irreplaceable, but to be fair to Mr. Lambert the footage in the documentary proved me wrong. He held his own on a lot of the iconic songs, and he also was very honest about trying not to be a Freddie impersonator. Brian May and Roger Taylor don't really need to big up their success, their three disk greatest hits albums, a long running West End musical ' We Will Rock You ' and the recent biography film ' Bohemian Rhapsody ' could that for them, so for them to endorse and praise this young singer you get the impression he's the real deal. On this song especially I thought Adam even outdid Freddie, which is not something I thought I'd ever say. The documentar

Your Man – Josh Turner Came across Josh Turner via the ' Keep It Country ' TV channel, his deep voice making the TV speaker really work hard. His tone is amazing and he can deliver any song to break your heart. He's had quite a few big hits now and I particularly like this song of his. It really shows off his talent and the atmosphere he creates makes you believe every word he's singing. It's one of those very simple lyric songs, with a straight forward message and it's way the whole thing is put together that makes it special. The guitar is very soothing, I think the use of the big pauses and sparse backing emphasises the main parts of the song so well. The guy is genuinely happy just to be in love and be known as 'your man'. A good ole fashioned country song. Favourite lyric : I can't believe how much it turns me on / Just to be your man  

She Sells Sanctuary – The Cult So I was in my late teens, managed to basically ignore all the current 1980s music and was looking to expand my musical horizons past the record collection of my parents that I had been listening to through my teenage years. Along comes Indie music. I was out shopping in Woolworths in Hornchurch, one Saturday afternoon in 1993. Woolworth’s was one of them shops you could buy basically anything and they had just expanded into selling records and cassettes in this small store. I picked up this cassette, basically because the cover was yellow and looked really cool. It was a complication album called " Suddenly Loaded ", it had all the best Indie songs from that era spread over it's two sides. Trouble being I hardly knew any of the songs or artists, apart from one Radiohead song. Now knowing me it was probably on special offer, I took it home and stuck it in my stack system. Side A was inspiring and then I had to take out the cassette and flip

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.