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This is my cover of Richard & Linda Thompson's song ‘Dimming of the Day’. I learned to play like this: sat at the upright piano in the middle of my house, playing and singing my favorite songs. Only ever for my own entertainment.
Eventually, that tumbled into me writing my own words and melodies. But I had the typical problem of every fifteen-year-old with no life experience writing songs: I had nothing to write about. So I made it up! In the spirit of the folk songs I had grown up with, I began fabricating characters and narratives to tell stories of heartbreak, corruption, or generalised revolution.
It was then I fell in love with the American singer-songwriters of the 70s like Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks (a favorite of all ‘witchy’ women, myself included), and Carole King. Whose lyrics, steeped in poetry and emotion, left me (and still do leave me) in a state of amazement at just how raw and honest music could get. My songs (tried to) follow, and I would mull over being a hopeless dreamer - I suppose you could call it an emo phase.
Finally, my love for folk music came out of its dormancy, and activly into the songs I play and write. I regularly spend hours flicking through the old, crumbling traditional songbooks about my house, to find things with both narrative and honesty.