The opening track is your classic 'break up' song. Laced with a pinch of sarcasm and tired distain. I envisaged a couple who have just had enough and, as is so often the case, have flogged a dead horse for too long. I am particularly drawn to the pessimistic line "true love is more than just a slogan framed in the bathroom babe!"
In 'Set Sail' we encounter a man who is in later life. Facing all he has lost through his love of material things over anything else. Realising that life was not really about that all too late. The imagined setting here is a desert island. One of his own making, on which, he is stuck and struggles to escape. Surrounded by an Ocean of love from which he is stranded. So he attempts to go to another place where he will find happiness and something more than the drowning weight of his own his own wealth.
Another area of darkness for the love theme. But one very much intended to be as hidden as the problem usually is itself. An up tempo, happy sounding ditty which explores the idea of loving someone who treats you badly. Loving unconditionally when all you receive in return is the minimum. The title 'True Love' and its content being ironic. The happy sound of the track representing the way that this pain of this is often hidden by those who experience it.
Based on the concept we are considering throughout this album. Love truly is a mysterious and curious thing. This song is my overarching comment in relation to that. I believe in love. In magic. In ethereal possibility. In wonder. In light. But I am absolutely lost for words when it comes to describing and understanding what I see as love and its affect on people as I've witnessed it. It is a curious and sometimes toxic thing in the wrong circumstances.
Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Slight complication!! Boy is with someone else and so is the Girl. So they make a pact to come clean and tell the truth to their respective partners before anything should develop further. He then tells his partner and leaves. It is in this moment. Him being free to proceed, but Her being still in a relationship, where we have the concept of this song. In that moment from his point of view. Waiting. Nobody knows what's going on. Definitely fiction!!
I did mention that we where exploring the dark side of love right?! No study of such would be complete without a murder mystery. A love gone wrong. A woman gone. Some mention of her then visiting him in the small hours. Perhaps an imagined scenario in his mind. Or something which has happened. But the nightmare ensues.
Promised land represents the moment that she will finally love him back in the same way that he loves her. Simple song. Gentle vibes.
When I look across a breath taking vista. A beautiful landscape. I can see and imagine the violence that put it there. The symbiotic love which we have for mother nature. Our want to save the planet. But what if Mother Nature was a malevolent force. Ready in any moment to violently remove our very existence from the face of the earth. The later guitar solo aimed purely at representing the data and electronics which would probably be all that remained once we where gone. A surviving A.I. perhaps.
A simple but heart felt look at how it is possible to continually let someone close to you down without knowing or trying to do so. How love can be a bitter thing if the love you feel for someone else is met with rejection and distain. Some bonds should, indeed, never be broken!
Based on a very real collection of conversations I had with my late, very good friend Rob. Imagining at first what would happen to a person who has a love of the esoteric and a will to be spiritually enlightened. If they actually and suddenly, without warning, became enlightened in the true sense of knowing the universe. The ALL.
The first half of the song deals with the reality of that in a persons life. The second half of the song which brings the album to a close imagines the crossing over of a person, perhaps intimated in many ways at my friend, to the other side. How their love of the world and their family would convey itself back into reality.
There were other concepts in this project that never made it to the cutting table. Somewhere in the region of 12 tracks were scrapped because they just didn't feel right. Didn't fit. I'm very interested to discuss the concept above and how people perhaps felt that these were or were not conveyed through the music and lyric. And ideas for future ideological material. I'm already working on some!! Reflection has to be a healthy method of improving in the art. Get in touch info@neilkellow.com
This collection of work is based on my thoughts around the idea of Love. Love should be a wonderful thing. Something that we come across which enriches our existential experience. But often is the case that love can create a dark force in our lives that leads us to treat each other in ways that we never normally would. To do things that we would otherwise find deplorable.
The Concept
This is the thought process behind "The curious mystery of love" album and the track content. Each track exploring a different perspective of love. "Writing this album was like creating a set of screen plays. Inventing characters. Some based on me and my own feelings. Other based on people I have known and observed. Others completely fictitious and imagined".
"I have always tried to imagine, when I listen to a fresh bit of music, a riff, a melody, a sound, a musical texture. What is it that I am hearing? How does it make me feel? Where do I imagine that I am? What can I see and feel?"
"This conceptual imagination leads me to want to create scenes of music on which stories can be told. And this album was really the first time that I have had the confidence to attempt to do it. Certainly in terms of adding my own vocals. Something which, previously I had only tried in isolation. Never having the confidence to play anything to anyone else."
"Only through the encouragement of friends and colleagues have I somehow found the confidence to allow myself to place a recorded vocal onto a public forum. So far so good. Nobody has shot me down completely...... Yet!!!"
