Love, the passing of time , mortality, memory – all the great themes that pass through your head when you lie with your child asleep on your chest and you can just feel her growing.

I wrote these words many years ago, inspired by my first daughter, Niamh. A few days later, I got a chance to sit down with Gene Poole-Skimmings at the piano in a little jazz bar on the Left Bank in Paris after most of the clientele had gone home. I picked out the notes of the melody that had been floating around my brain for so long and he started playing. Sensing the magic of the moment, Aldo Sachs, our alto sax player recorded it on his very fancy smartphone. It was a very rough recording. In the background, you could just about hear a couple of chaps in trench coats and berets, who stubbed out their unfiltered Gauloises and joined in quietly on bass and violin. Before we could thank them properly, they vanished into the mist, heading towards the Boulevard St. Germain. Thank you Serge and Maurice, whoever you were.

Years later, back in the studio (i. e. our guitarist Dee Sharpe’s granny’s living room in Broughty Ferry), after enjoying a huge plate of Mrs. Sharpe’s famous scones and homemade strawberry jam, the lads and I sat down and recorded this new and improved version.

Video

Keen historians of the band can listen to the original version in this video, although I wouldn’t advise it. It’s not good. Unless you’re writing a doctoral thesis requiring you to chart the musical journey of the Mysterious Beings, just don’t do it.