Album:    Laughs,
Giraffes & Epitaphs

   LAUGHS…..

 “I interviewed the Dalai Lama last year and I asked him about humour…….  I just looked at him and after a moment we just started to laugh and we laughed for about 2 minutes.  I don’t know still what we were laughing at but I know that it felt absolutely wonderful.”                    John Cleese  1993

   GIRAFFES……

“…. and what’s more, it doesn’t even look like a horse.  It looks more like a bloody giraffe!”                     Cassandra of Troy  c1250 BCE

     & EPITAPHS…

“In a way, waiting is a shabby way to live, and it goes against nature, but - each one can fill in their own but’s, or throw them all away.”     Eric Berne  1966

“Who once lived here?  Were they content?   -  They must have been or surely they’d have changed?”       EH 1987

            AND……

“Then what day is it?” asked Owl.

 “It’s Today!” squeaked Piglet.

“My favourite day” said Pooh

        AA Milne   .

“Slaves to the future and slaves to the past -
           Our freedom lurks under our nows.
  So come like a child with your smile and at last
  We may find ourselves touching our Taos.”

                                                      Arvad 1994 .     .

   Guest appearances

 James Butler
    - harmonica plus vocals on No More Heroes

 Richard Skinner
    - bass on No More Heroes and Ed's Sofa
    - drum programming on Ed's Sofa

Blackberries

Sea-sick

Clocks, Cobwebs & Chalk

Retreat 

Washing Machine

Big Dig

Rumble Mountain

No More Heroes

Residue

Ed's Sofa

 Peg, Picture, Piece - the Square Pegs: Some Answer & That Hammer; Unfit! -

  All songs were written by Ed Hooke except:-

      Blackberries - words by "Not Me", music by EH

      Washing Machine - words by EH, music by Jon Hunt

      No More Heroes - original words & music by The Stranglers:
            words hijacked by James Butler, music hijacked by EH

      Ed's Sofa - music by Richard Skinner & EH

Laughs, Giraffes & Epitaphs was recorded at Cassandra Palace studios, Muswell Hill, July-December 1994 except:-

No More Heroes
- recorded in The Extension
, Old Coulsdon, March 1993

Ed's Sofa
 - recorded at Dick's Pad
Fulham, March 1994

I bought my sofa from a shop in Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill
in February 1994

Songs can be a bit like photographs, snapshots of an instant in time.  Some of the snapshots in this photograph album are already starting to brown and curl.

 It's said that the camera never lies, but does it tell the whole truth?

In listening to this collection of songs, it is as if you are looking through a photograph album containing rather haphazardly arranged snapshots of my life.  I hope you find something of interest here.

1994 was a turbulent year for me but it is represented here by only one song (my entry for the Eurovision Song with the Longest Title Contest).  Look out (in whatever sense you choose) for my next collection, provisionally entitled "Emerging into the Brightness of the Day", which should bring my repetoire of recorded sounds a little closer to the present.

Blackberries - words I would have been proud to have written myself and was so flattered when I discovered that they were written for me.

Sea-sick - really this was a Bad Tune Men song, which BTM never got around to recording.  I am proud to say that this song features possibly the ugliest music I have ever written. The words were inspired in part by a Sector 27 (Tom Robinson) B side, whose name I have long forgotten, about a ship-wreck.

Clocks, Cobwebs & Chalk -inspired by the memory of stumbling across an abandoned cottage on the slopes of Cader Idris in North Wales as an impressionable 12 year old schoolboy,

This is me wondering what impression someone might form if, after my death, they were to stumble across my home in a similar way.

Retreat - me being impressionable again, but this experience came 14 years after the one which inspired Clocks, Cobwebs & Chalk.  Walking alone, discovering an oasis-like park (flanked by"a dusty track concealed by hedges") near the flat in South Croydon that I shared with Lynne.

Washing Machine- almost detached bewilderment as the strain begins to tell on a relationship presented to friends, and seen by them as 'perfect'.  The music was written by Jon Hunt who attempted to imitate my musical style!

Big Dig - it's intriguing that, for many of us, the things we're most scared of are actually aspects of ourselves which we try to deny or run away from.  I think that one expression of this fear is the stigma we attach to things like psychotherapy eg the alarmed defensive cry of  "I don't need therapy!", which can act as a major obstacle to finding out that maybe we don't need to be so scared after all.  This song was written about my early experiences in my first psychotherapy group.

Rumble Mountain - back to being an impressionable schoolboy for the origins of this song.  Tales of Pompei, a city buried under the ash of the erupting volcano Vesuvius.  The theme and structure of this song are similar to those of Clocks, Cobwebs & Chalk - both feature 'flashbacks' - or 'flashforwardses', depending on how you choose to look at them.  Musically this song features "a swarm of Bs" in the "the higher they climb" section, as well as a snippet from a certain national anthem which suggests an alternative historical context.

No More Heroes - I remember someone suggesting that if you're going to do a cover version, you have to do it better than the original, or at least do it very differently.  I suspect we got close to the latter here!  Good fun though.  Thanks Dick & Jim!

Residue - hints of the different worlds we enter when we experience loss. Written for Lisa after the death of her mother.

Ed's Sofa - Dick had a bass line and some drum machine patterns and invited me to record some keyboards and guitar on top.  This was the result.  I had just moved into my Muswell Hill flat and was very excited and enthusing about the multicoloured, patterned sofa I'd just bought (and which I still own today) so Dick named this piece of music in its honour!

 Peg, Picture, Piece - the Square Pegs: Some Answer & That Hammer; Unfit! - written about 6 months after my split from Lynne, a period when I had tried far too hard to get involved, fortunately with an impressive complete lack of success.. 'Some Answer' was 'Samantha' and 'Hammer' of course doesn't rhyme with 'banner', whereas 'Hannah' does.