songwriters-from-england

"Longing while living for laurel and bays, Under this willow a poor poet 'lays'; With little to censure, and less to praise, He wrote twelve dozen and three score plays: He finish'd his 'Life', and he went his ways."

"Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say, If ever I live upon dry land, The spot I should hit on wou'd be little Britain! Says Freedom, "Why that's my own island!" O, it's a snug little island! A right little, tight little island, Search the globe round, none can be found So happy as this little island."

"Then a very great war man, call'd Billy the Norman, Cried "D--n it, I never lik'd my land.""

"The Dons came to plunder the island; But, snug in the hive, the Queen was alive, And "buzz" was the word in the island."

"The loss of American what can repay? New colonies seek for at Botany Bay."

"One wide water all around us: All above us one black sky; Different deaths at once surround us: Hark! what means that dreadful cry?"

"Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer! List, ye landsmen, all to me; Messmates, hear a brother sailor Sing the dangers of the sea."

"Fill it up, about ship wheel it, Close to our lips a brimmer join: Where's the tempest now, who feels it? None — the danger's drown'd in wine."

"Once Rick started to get heavily involved, he said he wanted to try a different drummer, someone who wasn't 'straight-up rock', in his words. He kept suggesting Ginger Baker, who'd obviously been in Cream and in Hawkwind for a while with my great friend Lemmy Kilmister, God rest his soul. But Baker was crazier than me. I mean, there was a documentary about him, Beware of Mr. Baker, where he broke the director’s nose with a metal cane at his house in South Africa. And that was after the guy had been thrown out of every other country. Not that he would have taken the job anyway. He was nuts. He’d have been a liability on tour."

"Perhaps the most mysterious member of Queen. Deacon was never one for the spotlight, but with his writing and composing contributions within the confines of Queen, Deacon had his share of legendary moments. He composed hits like "You’re My Best Friend" and "I Want to Break Free" and is likely best known for two of the most iconic bass intros of all time with "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Under Pressure." Arguably one of the most underrated members of an iconic band in music history, Deacon retired from playing in the late 1990s."

"When it comes to the leader and true soul of Iron Maiden, it's Steve Harris' show. Sure, frontman Bruce Dickinson, or even beloved Eddie, might be "the face" of Iron Maiden, but Harris is the guy who makes the operation run. He’s the band's principal songwriter and one of the slickest, quickest bass players in hard rock and heavy metal history. Known for his "gallop" method of playing the instrument, Harris' work shines on Maiden classics like "The Trooper" and "Run to the Hills." Harris has cited Phil Lynott as one of his many bass influences."

"He was a jazz-trained drummer, but also got into other styles such as playing African rhythms, which worked brilliantly. No doubt a big influence on many rock and metal drummers over the years, and one of the most creative and entertaining drummers of all time."

"She's only a bird in a gilded cage, A beautiful sight to see, You may think she's happy and free from care, She's not, though she seems to be, 'Tis sad when you think of her wasted life, For youth cannot mate with age, And her beauty was sold For an old man's gold, She's a bird in a gilded cage."

"That certain night, the night we met, There was magic abroad in the air, There were angels dining at the Ritz And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square."

"A cigarette that bears a lipstick's traces, An airline ticket to romantic places, And still my heart has wings These foolish things remind me of you."

"Like Tony Banks, Rick Wright (pictured on the right) was less a showy player than a musician who knew exactly which notes to play and which to leave out. His training and love of jazz made him one of Pink Floyd’s most musically-gifted members and his sensibilities can be heard on the wistful piano of "Us and Them." He was no slouch with a synthesizer, either. His performances with EMS VCS3 and Minimoog on the band’s classic Wish You Were Here have become etched into rock history. Musicians are still trying to suss out how he achieved his sounds on "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond." An effortless player, Wright was the breath that kept Pink Floyd alive."

"While going the road to sweet Athy, A stick in my hand and a drop in my eye, A doleful damsel I heard cry: “Och Johnny, I hardly knew ye! With drums and guns, and guns and drums, The enemy nearly slew ye; My darling dear, you look so queer, Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!""

"Keith Emerson: the man who brought the keyboardist out from behind the organ (and then proceeded to throw said organ about the stage after teaching it a hard lesson involving knives). He (literally!) wrestled with his Hammond, climbed the rafters and showered sparks from the end of his custom Moog ribbon controller. Of course, such histrionics wouldn’t have been worth a hoot if the feller couldn’t play. But play he did. From blistering rock leads to impossibly fast baroque keyboard runs, Emerson has done it all. A surprisingly ballsy rocker, he wasn’t afraid to tone it down. His famous Lucky Man solo is etched into rock and roll history. Perhaps best of all, he dared to drag his monster modular Moog on stage."

"Adrian Smith incorporates all the classic metal guitar player's techniques: alternate picking, legato, hammer-ons, and pull-offs, sweep picking, slide playing and more. What separates him from the rest of the pack is that he uses all of these techniques in a musical context with no exaggeration. He is heavily influenced by blues, so he uses the pentatonic scale a lot, but he also enjoys ripping a fast phrase in a Phyrigian mode from time to time."

"When it comes to the driving lead force amid the longtime triple-guitar assault within [Iron Maiden], Smith is the king above kings. Complete with his usual headband, Smith is a groover — meaning his playing has a undeniably blues feel to it. While it's never really been about speed with Smith, when it comes to legendary solo work ("Heaven Can Wait", "Powerslave), he continues to bring it at a level that others only wish they could pull off."

"[Murray and Adrian Smith] are the OG’s of the twin axe attack (and thus to blame for inadvertently causing melodic death metal)."

"One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It’s down to the fucking Daily Mail‘s war on teenagers. They stigmatise young kids and it’s bullshit. The thing I like about Skins is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up."

"I don’t think I could act my way out of a paper bag!"

"When the producers first submitted the idea, they had me down to play this Axl Rose-type character [...] I told them we haven’t got our heads up our arses and there’s no way that we’d behave that way."

"Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, ‘Onward,’ the sailors cry. Carry the lad that’s born to be king Over the sea to Skye."

"Burned are our homes, exile and death, Scattered the loyal men. Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath, Charlie will come again."

"When Adam and Eve were dispossessed Of the garden hard by Heaven, They planted another one down in the west, ’Twas Devon, glorious Devon!"

"Some time ago one of my daughters persuaded me to do an online Pink Floyd quiz. I scored 56%."

"I knew I couldn't play 'Comfortably Numb' better than David or Roger, or indeed even the Australian Pink Floyd [tribute band]""

"I’m waking up this morning Grateful for the gift of one more day The light of hope is dawning It fills my heart and lifts my fears away Sometimes there’s a miracle just beyond the pain When you can see the rainbow in the rainLive on, live on Brighter skies will come again Cry the tears you cry and then live on, live on Love is all we leave when we are gone Live on."

"Love is all we leave when we are gone live on In every heart of those we touch In every dream that means so much Yes I believe that all of us live on."

"We don't want to fight but, by Jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too We've fought the Bear before and while we're Britons true The Russians shall not have Constantinople."

"It's a very similar process in many ways to doing translation, if you translate an opera or a work were the music is inflexible and the words have to go from language to another you have a similar challenge."

"my ambition was to be an English Sondheim. Being a lyricist is the ideal job for a university-educated dilettante, because it uses up all the rubbish in your education."

"With a comedy, you can easily take away the humor. So it’s very important to keep the pacing of it going, and to keep the lighthearted nature of it going. I think in many ways, a comedy is more difficult than drama"

"There’s a problem when you write for Hollywood in particular, they only read the dialogue. They call it reading down the middle. They have 10 scripts to read over the weekend, so all the bits that are in block prose, they won’t look at. But that’s the important stuff in the cinema. A cinematic script… they always say that you can watch a good film with the sound down."

"You ask what is the quality of life Seeking to justify the part you play And mask, what seems a worthless fate"

"And you know what? I don't think this little song's gonna make the charts"

"I'm sorry that you thought of us as painful and superfluous But please don't think I'm that thick skinned to want my seed in any old wind I can't believe we'll just exist as figments of each others past Where is it at to get to this, when lawyers lurk where lovers kissed?"

"PINCHES OF SALT: Are the humanoids pilling the chemistry into reactions they have no control over? Have the wolves of the universal law already started to blow the door down? Is the back door still open? Who the hell cares with a hundred billion freon - filled hair sprays still on sale? Who am I to ctiticise my own crisis?"

"Watford Gap, Watford Gap A plate of grease and a load of crap"

"One of those days in England with a sword in every pond And birds in every garden in the land"

"GOVERNMENT SURPLUS: Employment figures and history books are 'cooked'. Young people are manipulated. The status quo is maintained by an insidious mafiosi piping drugs to the unsuspecting by means of an ever expanding cycloptic media."

"STILL LIFE: The short British wintertime as seen from within my cocoon. Snow three feet deep in places. Icicles. The small ones outside fighting for survival. Dusk before four. Yellow light in the crisp still. A jackdaw's wing beat precisely preserved. An atmosphere."

"DESCENDANTS OF SMITH: If we manage to get out the 'back door', the technology available in four million years may perhaps rival the twentieth century christian concept of 'judgement day'. Probably much sooner. Meanwhile, which one is Smith?"

"GARDEN OF URANIUM: I moved to a house in Lincolnshire. The government were threatening to dump "low level" nuclear waste about fifteen miles away. The plans were dropped a few months before the last general election. The proposals now seem to have resurfaced somewhere under the North Sea! (among other sites proposed since the election)"

"Led Zeppelin recorded the song Hats off to (Roy) Harper. (Led Zeppelin III, 1970)"

"And half the blasted idiots are stuck in Yugoslavia With hardly a Dinar And looking no cleaner Than a Chinese wrestler's jock-strap Cooked in chip fat On a greasy day"

"Nothing left to lose Nothing left to fight"

"Every Secret's a blinking light"