I’m on the road in my caravan Aurora for the next two weeks playing the UK festivals with my wife Lily-Jo and our two kids Dylan and Nico. We left Focus Festival in Bournemouth today to head to Sidmouth in Devon for a few days before the next festival in Cornwall. It’s the start of a new month, I have instruments with me and a musical family...so here starts the challenge to write a song a day for the whole of August!

DAY 1

Song name: You’re Around
Instrument and key: Mandolin Bm
Creation time: 35 minutes

I've had a bit of writers block over the last few months and so I've been inspired to write one song a day throughout August. Sometimes you've just got to push through even when inspiration seems far away! Let's see how this goes! Let me know in the comments which ones are your favourites...

Lyrics:

Mend the broken pieces of my heart
We knew each other from the very start
I wasn’t looking but I found you
I wasn’t looking but I found you

We fell together more than once or twice
Force of nature intertwining life
I didn’t know it but I knew you
I couldn’t know it but I knew you

Hear it call, the voice inside your soul
That fills the empty hole
And lifts that heavy load

They don’t make them like you anymore
Forevermore favour will knock at your door
I hear the sound of that old grey cloud crashing down
Whenever you’re around

Sold your old belongings to the crowd
Traded them for ones that made you proud
And now success is searching for you
Success is searching for you

I hear the hungry beating of your heart
You stitched it up and gave it a jump start
And now it’s leading you to something
And now it’s leading you to something

Hear the crowd that old familiar sound
Ringing through the town
And now nothing's gonna bring you down

Chorus

Weather report:
Sunny and hot with bits of cloud.

Doing today?
Packing up caravan, helping festival neighbours jump start car, driving from Bournemouth to Devon, all four of us went to play golf, throwing stones with kids on the beach, fish and chips in Sidmouth.

Feeling today?
Positive.

Who/what inspired you?
Talking with Debbie Wattis about her book release where she drew a picture every day for a year.

Song about:
Lily-Jo - I have crazy ideas all the time and some don’t happen but on this songwriting one she pushed me to do it and sat humming a first melody with me so I wrote it for her. She has traded bad decisions for good decisions since the day I met her and now is living her dream because of it.