Words & Music by Peter Carroll

Fellow author, Peter Carroll, joins me to introduce his choice of songs. Peter hails from Andy Murray's home town of Dunblane and has two books published with Ravencrest Books called 'In Many Ways' and 'Pandora's Pitbull.' I'll leave you in Peter's capable hands as he lists some of his favourite tunes.

I don’t habitually listen to music while writing. Therefore, when Sinclair asked me to list my top ten tracks I like to write to, I needed to think of something else. Then an idea struck me. What do we have as common currency, us writers and musicians? Words!

So, here are ten great lyrics that I love for varying reasons. I hope you enjoy checking them out.

1. AC/DC - Ain’t No Fun (Waiting Round to be a Millionaire)

I love AC/DC and have done for nearly thirty years. This song is from early in their career (they are in fact all now multi-millionaires) and the thing I love most is a cheeky spoken word segment towards the end. Scottish born singer Bon Scott says “Hey, hello Howard (Hughes and at that time reportedly the world’s richest man). How ya doin friend? My next door neighbour. Oh yeah. Get your f*****g jumbo jet off my airport!” I smile every time I hear it...and I’ve heard it a lot!

2. Pearl Jam - Unthought Known

I love this song on so many levels, including the wordplay of the title, but the lyric I love is “See the path cut by the moon, for you to walk on.” Beautiful imagery and a beautiful song.

3. Motorhead - Ace of Spades

This song is two and a half minutes of powering rock that also qualifies as a great pop song. I love playing this song in a band and, as a bassist, the intro is a blast to play. My fave lyric is “You know I’m born to lose, and gambling’s for fools, but that’s the way I like it baby, I don’t wanna live forever!’

4. Biffy Clyro - Folding Stars

Biffy are a great wee rock band from Scotland. Lead singer Simon Neil wrote this song after his mother died from cancer. It’s so poignant, it actually made me weep the first time I heard it.

5. The Waterboys - A Man Is In Love

I really admire Mike Scott’s love poem that forms the lyrics and the lovely ‘reveal’ about who the man in love is. I also adore the traditional Irish folk music ending to the song.

6. Audioslave - I Am The Highway

Featuring ex-members of Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine, this track has great lyrics throughout. However, I particularly like the line “I am not your carpet ride, I am the sky”.

7. Rush - The Pass

When I was in my early twenties a good friend of mine killed himself. It was an event that had a profound effect on me and was the first funeral I ever attended; and then as a pall bearer. This song is about a young man and friend of the band who also took his own life and it never fails to move me. My friend Iain, was also a Rush fan, which makes it all the more affecting.

8. Led Zeppelin - Kashmir

I love the pictures painted by the lyrics and it’s musically sublime. Not much more to say about such an iconic tune.

9. Elbow - One Of These Days

I really like the hypnotic chant as the song progresses “Throw those curtains wide, one day like this a year would see me right”. A lovely song of hope from a great British band.

10. The Honeydrippers - Sea Of Love

This version was performed by a ‘supergroup’ featuring Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Nile Rodgers and Jeff Beck. This was the song that me and the missus chose as the first dance at our wedding. I love it for all sorts of reasons but I think it’s possibly one of the most romantic lyrics ever written.

Guilty pleasure…I have always loved Duran Duran’s ‘Ordinary World’.

Thank you Peter for a brilliant collection of songs that brought back some memories.

You can read more about Peter and his work at http://petercarroll.ravencrestbooks.com and follow him on Twitter @PeterCarroll10.

A poem for Calum

With apologies to genuine poets, here is a poetic tribute to my son who died five years ago today.

The Empty Chair

There's always one

An empty chair

A silent reminder

Of the gaping hole

In our shattered lives

It follows us

Wherever we go

Taunting, torturing,tainting

Silent laughs

And faded smiles

But the chair

Will never win

We carry you with us

In our hearts

In cherished memories

The empty chair

Will follow us

All our lives

But so will our love

Of all you were

Love you, son

Now and for ever more

xx

The Truth - At Last

The Truth - At Last

On Saturday 15th April 1989 I went to a football cup semi-final. My brother and I, indeed everyone who attended that game returned home safely. Unfortunately, for 96 people 260 miles away in Sheffield that was not possible.

The horror of Hillsborough unravelled on the TV screen when I returned home and as a Liverpool supporter, albeit at a distance, my heart broke for the victims and their families.

I attended Liverpool’s first game after the disaster and wept for those who hadn’t come home. Little did I think that it would be 23 years before the truth of that terrible day would be acknowledged.

Yesterday’s report from the independent panel highlighted the organisational failures of the FA, Sheffield City Council, Sheffield Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police, Ambulance service and the Coroner’s Office. All of these organisations should feel truly ashamed at how poorly they performed but the worst part of the story is the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The despicable attempt to shift the blame from those responsible to the victims and the survivors is surely a low point for policing and indeed public life in the United Kingdom.

I have some questions for the individuals who conspired in this disgrace.

How would you have felt if it had been a member of your family who had died due to someone’s negligence?

Was your career so important to you that 96 people’s lives were so insignificant?

Was there no point in the intervening years where your conscience pricked you towards breaking ranks and telling the truth?

And finally and most importantly, how the hell do you sleep at night?

This country has been subjected to a number of moral failures over the past few years. Unapologetic bankers, greedy politicians and phone-hacking journalists but this is by far the worst. This is a conspiracy that goes into every branch of the state machine, all of it designed to protect the incompetent and the corrupt.

If the UK is to move forward from this low, every single individual person in public life should put morality at the very heart of everything they do. Treat those you serve with the respect they deserve and stop putting money, career advancement or self-preservation before what is truly important.

To my fellow Liverpool supporters and people of that wonderful city on the Mersey, I send my hope that finally there will be justice for the 96 who went to a football match and didn’t come home.

Paul Vincent Lee's Musical Journey

I must apologise to everyone for my lack of blogging activity recently. I have been throwing myself into getting book four written and have neglected these humble pages.
I am cheating a little on my return as the first blog is by another guest. Paul Lee is the first graduate of our "Self Publish & Sell" course to have released his book to the reading public. In this blog he reflects on some of the songs that he has loved through his life and that he still returns to when he is writing.

The first single I bought was Young Girl by Gary Puckett & The Union Gap back in 1968. Despite the controversial theme, it's a great song.

As I grew older my tastes began to change. Canadian, Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind Love" was thought provoking even if I didn't know what it was about.

Equally puzzling was "Tom Traubert's Blues" by Tom Waits. Although I love the original, I am going to pick Rod Stewart's cover version as I had to have Rod somewhere in this list.

As life progresses, inevitably your taste in music diversifies. The king of reggae - Bob Marley - gave me a whole new perspective and "No Woman, No Cry" is one of his finest songs.

For a period in my life, music and work went hand-in-hand. One of my favourite songs from that time is "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" by Michael McDonald, who I think is the best white soul ever.

Which brings me Soul and the best years of my life. I ran the Rococo Club in Hamilton where both the music and the atmosphere were amazing. There are almost too many tracks to choose from but I've decided to go with the genius that is Marvin Gaye and "Sexual Healing."

Life then took me to Spain and although I enjoyed my time there, I did get homesick from time to time. "Home" by Michael Buble" captures that feeling.

Another song which evokes that time for me is "Loch Lomond" by Runrig. This sentimental folk song was transformed into a raucous stadium anthem by the band from the Western Isles.

I'm still exploring new music and one artist I've grown to love recently is Lori McTear and here she is performing in George Square in Glasgow.

And that leaves the one song that is my number one choice. Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road", a song that encapsulates all that is great about music, singing and life.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. My guilty pleasure is "McArthur Park" by Richard Harris. It's a naff song but I like it.

Thanks Paul for this diverse list of songs and my apologies for the delay in posting it. He did mention "Seasons in the Sun" as a possible guilty pleasure but I couldn't inflict that on my poor readers. Sorry Paul.

Paul's book is called "Defending Joe" and it is a dark, twisting tale of murder set in Glasgow and Spain. It's a great read for anyone who loves a crime story with multiple suspects, a Glaswegian sense of humour and shock or two along the way.

You can follow Paul on Twitter - @Leeauthor or visit his website.

If you would like to follow in Paul's footsteps and publish and sell your book, why not learn more about it at our "Self Publish & Sell" course at the end of this month.

An Inspirational Teacher

The third book in the Reluctant Detective series, The Killer Performer, is the first to feature a dedication to someone other than a family member. That dedication reads:

In memory of Alison Graham, teacher, friend, inspiration

and the lady who introduced me to Raymond, Dashiel and Ross

I thought it would be good idea if I explained a little more about why this wonderful woman meant so much to me.

I was a very shy child and often lacked self-confidence. The first time that I felt some measure of self-belief was in the drama class. Alison was Mrs Kennedy at that point and she had a way of controlling the class quite unlike any other teacher. In that first year, she inspired both respect and a little bit of fear among the pupils. I loved what we did in those classes and my confidence began to grow.

In second year, myself and a friend approached Alison with an idea for the school pantomime. I didn't know what I was expecting but it certainly wasn't a suggestion from my teacher to write the script. 

It was the first of several shows that I was involved in over the course of my school career. I have a very strong memory of our regular script meetings at lunchtime. At that time she smoked Gauloises cigarettes which have a very particular smell. She wore Blue Grass perfume and loved to drink coffee. The combination of those smells was so distinctive that any one of them can take me back thirty years to that tiny office in Possilpark Secondary.

During the production of the shows, Alison's leadership as a teacher and director coaxed more out of us than any of us knew we had. In a tough area, she did everything she could to involve as many of the student body as were interested. Every show had a large cast, loads of dancers and a big squad of stagehands.

She was also a guidance teacher and cared passionately for the pupils under her care. She did all in her power to help the poorest pupils who came from tough backgrounds - her 'wee efforts' as she used to call them. Although she came from a middle-class family and had been educated at a private school, her belief in social justice was absolute.

During my time at the school she was working with some colleagues to get drama recognised as an important part of the curriculum. She asked me to write an essay about the effect drama had on my life; I was only too delighted to help. Her work was rewarded and not only was drama recognised, it now forms part of the exam schedule.

As part of that drive to showcase what drama could do for people, a show was organised with groups coming from a variety of schools across the old Strathclyde region. Each group staged their own original play and ours won high praise. I don't think she was ever more proud of a group of pupils but everything we had achieved was down to all that she had taught us and the faith she had in us.

Among the huge number of conversations we had down the years, one day I mentioned to her how I was struggling to find a crime author that I really liked. The following day she brought in a copy of 'The Big Sleep' by Raymond Chandler and 'The Maltese Falcon' by Dashiell Hammett. I read them in a couple of days and became hooked on hard-boiled noir fiction, a love I have to this very day. It was the beginning of a regular supply of books for me to read; she introduced me to Graham Greene, John Le Carré, John Fowles, Robertson Davies and a whole lot more. She also taught me about art - she had a particular passion for Picasso and the impressionists. She tried to educate me on classical music but that was the one thing that didn't stick. 

Over the years we became friends and long after I left school I still visited her and her wonderful husband, Stuart. When I introduced Kim to her, there was an immediate bond between them and Kim had passed an important test in our fledgling relationship.

Alison passed away in 2008, not long after we had lost Calum. She left a legacy of people she had touched profoundly during her life; people like me who were inspired by her love of life, her kindness, her humour, her intelligence and her sense of fairness. If every pupil was lucky enough to have a teacher like Alison, the world would be a better place. I know that after my mum and dad, Alison helped me more than anyone to become the person I am today.

Were you lucky enough to have a teacher like Alison? I would love to read about them.