Chapter 2 – 1966 – 1973
I tend to write songs not only from my own experience, but also from imagining other people’s experiences. In the 60’s and 70’s my songwriting expanded but I was not fluent with my lyrics, which were often “corny.” This was a frequent stumbling block. But I did occasionally hit on some slightly better lyrics, such as Office Romance, Easy Riding, and Just Around The Corner.
The word “oodles” may not be used much nowadays, but in the sixties it meant lashings, a generous amount. There was a chain of vegetarian restaurants called “Oodles”. My first wife Penny sometimes used to ask me how much I loved her, and I would answer “A million oodles.” This led to Love Me A Million, which sounds good on the Hidden Treasure CD. Penny helped me with Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees when she suggested ‘People have to work from morn till night’ could be followed by ‘Others have to sew by candlelight.’
With the help of some of the Cherry-Tones, I recorded You Don’t Know, and their guitarist, Brian Hollett helped me record stuff in later years, such as Step out of My Dreams, and Master Key. Penny and I split up after 5 years, and this led to Clouds In My Eyes in the early seventies, and Listen to the Wind which became a “New Faces” winner. Other songs that I wrote later are When I Think Of You Now, and When I Look Out Of My Window, both nostalgia songs. For a cheerier song, you could listen to A Little Bird Told Me, or Hallo Mausi, a comic seduction song in German.
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