This is probably the most arranged and polished thing I’ve ever recorded. Done at my mate Bobs house I unusually completed the entire song first before going anywhere near the recording equipment. So I had all of the words and chords. We programmed the drum machine and actually took care to have some syncopation in it. All done on my PC with guitars, one synth, tambourines and hand claps.

This wasn’t long after getting my Yamaha 1080 so all of the string and horn sounds were novel toys to play with. Because I liked the strings in the song I wrote the little peace at the start to try to make it sound like a string band imagining them playing in one of those old English park band stands. The King and Queen are fanciful and I always imagined this song as sort of a back drop to an animation.

Listen out for the hand claps and harmonica, as Bob and I spent ages getting them right. I had the line “Travelling players, sack the dark” written on a scrap of paper from a poem I’d written at school and liked the image of travelling minstrels getting rid of the darkness by playing happy songs.

It was Sunday, the King and the Queen were outside listening to phonographs
Suddenly he sings her a song about a girl he used to know
And in her head a feeling broke for a moment in the light
like they were imaginary lovers, in someone elses song

It was evening, the garden fills up gently with friends they used to know
There’s wine on the table and dancers on the lawn, a band with a steel guitar
and the King and the Queen with a grace unseen
spin gently in the moonlight like a merry-go-round
While the circle of friends look on

Travelling players, sack the dark and whistle while they play
A song that they sing for them now
The King smiles at her, tells the band it doesn’t matter if they make a few mistakes
The Queen and her lover dance on

She was laughing, the King whispered ‘nonsense rhymes’ in the style of Edward Lear
Suddenly, he sings her a song about a girl he used to know
And in the last remains, of the party games, a feeling broke, because she knows that girl and knows they’ll go on dancing
The band plays a new refrain

Travelling players, sack the dark and whistle while they play
A song that they sing for them now
The King smiles at her, tells the band it doesn’t matter if they make a few mistakes

The Queen and her lover dance on

Travelling players, sack the dark and whistle while they play
A song that they sing for them now
The King smiles at her, tells the band it doesn’t matter if they make a few mistakes
The Queen and her lover dance on, dance on

Dance On

Travelling players, sack the dark and whistle while they play
A song that they sing for them now
The King smiles at her, tells the band it doesn’t matter if they make a few mistakes
The Queen and her lover dance on
The Queen and her lover dance on, dance on

Dance On