2025 Competition Entry:

Lullaby by Arthur Wilson

Genre

Folk

Artist

Co-writer(s)

yes

Performer(s)

Arthur Wilson, guitar and vocals

Description

The birth of Ross our guitar player’s daughter Millie, inspired me to write this song. As a father with many years of experience, I recall how the arrival of my first child completely shifted my focus from myself to my children. When congratulating Ross on the birth of his first child, I felt compelled to express some thoughts but instead decided to share them through a song.

A brief note about the structure of the song. It doesn’t have a course, never repeats, and the title is in the last word of the song.

Bio

Since I retired, I’ve started to focus more on my songwriting, performing and producing. Over the past few years, I’ve independently released four albums via streaming platforms. A few sales have also come through Amazon and from my live shows. The focus now is to enhance my songwriting and production, maximising collaboration and sharing.

My guitar and singing journey began at 12 years old. My dad had a suitcase full of Embassy Cigarette coupons and a catalogue of goodies, and I convinced him to get a guitar instead of more fancy ashtrays. I’d never seen a guitar before the day it arrived.

With a few chords under my belt, I was off. Number one at the time, I began by playing Lola by the Kinks.

My brother and I, after a fight over the guitar, got another, formed a duo, and began performing Everly Brothers covers at school events and working men’s clubs. Guitars, a sound system, a Selmer Treble, and a Bass 50 were bought with the money.

Songs and songwriting have been my passions from the start. I went on to gig solo and play in bands while raising my family and working in IT.

While I did plenty of gigs, it wasn’t until I bought a four-track Tascam tape machine that I was able to make my first recordings of my own songs.

Working in my full-time day job as an IT developer, I am always comfortable with IT so I got my head around midi and built a small home studio setup.

However, after trying to record myself I decided to get my band to practice up a collection of my songs and we went into a friend’s small studio and probably recorded our first album.

Only in the last 10 years or so have I tried to focus on my songwriting and producing. In the last few years, I’ve released three further albums; one as a solo artist and two with The Scattered Notes. I’ve also started collaborating on songs with my friend Bob Shields. We meet once a week to share what we are working on and help develop and refine these ideas into properly finished songs.

Through recording and gigging with my own songs, I’ve brought together a bunch of talented musicians and formed The Scattered Notes. This is a vehicle for our songwriting and production. It features the very excellent Caitlin on lead vocals, Stuart (my son) on bass, the young Ross on guitar and my wedding band drummer Duncan.

We are currently working on recording some new songs.

Lyrics

You make me do
The things I never thought I’d do
And make me love
Like love was something new

The gift from above, your tiny hand,
This thing so precious its hard to understand.

But every smile is sweetly true
as tender as the heart of me and you.

And everyday,
I’ll watch you charge in tiny ways,
With every step,
I hope I’ll always be amazed.

The softest breath,
The gentlest touch,
I never thought that I could love someone so much,
But here you are,
And here to stay,
Now you are part of every step I take.

I have a dream,
That lasts through darkest deep and wide,
I take your hand,
We are together side by side,
through fairy tales, and bedtime tears,
you are the measure now of all my future years,
So I sing a song,
To hush your cries,
And this will always be
your lullaby.

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