Moondogs

Bram van Splunteren, Wim Bloemendaal
Vara Dutch FM radio 3

Editor's note: The indented text are the Dutch comments during the interview, 'H' meaning 'host'.

H1: Vanavond in Moondogs, John Martyn. En we gaan een hele poos terug, naar zijn allereerste plaat, die verscheen [in 1968].

[London Conversation]

H1: John Martyn, London Conversation. John, you recorded this fifteen years ago. What do you think about it now?
JM: It is very embarassing! Very very embarassing. I must confess, I blushed when I heard the first parts. The words were written by a friend of mine, called John Sundell, an American. Very much a New York intellectual. And that's me, just a baby boy - I was nineteen, at the time, that's me just starting up. Interesting, I suppose. Interesting.
H1: You're from Glasgow. What was Glasgow like in the sixties?
JM: Er... Glasgow never changes much. Glasgow is by nature very hard, very industrial. And relies for survival really on the good will of the people there. They thrive in adversity, it is a very adverse city. It is not really a good place to be, at any time. That hasn't changed.
H1: Is that the reason that you moved to London?...
JM: Yes.
H1: And you were discovered there as an artist? How did that work out? Was it going to the big city? In a way, a little bit afraid of it?
JM: Very much going to the big city, and not even slightly afraid of it. [laughs] I was more afraid of Glasgow than I was of London. Glasgow is a great place for killing people, you know. It can stifle any goodness there, it is a very difficult place to live. I was very glad to get away, as soon as I could I got out.
H1: Your second album was in the same year. Did the first album sell well?
JM: Well I think it did about 3,500, which in those days was phenomenal for me. My ambition was simply to make a living being a musician. And the very idea of having a record out was exciting to me. I think it sold a few thousand; it sold enough for them to finance the making of another one, put it that way.

H1: De tweede plaat, die heette The Tumbler en die verscheen in december 1968. En van die plaat, Dusty.

[Dusty]

H2: John Martyn, van zijn tweede LP, Dusty heette dit.

H2: The Scottish folk singer who sort of made you discover folk music, his name was Davey Graham...
JM: This is true, yes. He was the man who impressed me so much with his playing that I decided to go out and play myself. I had in fact heard him by 1965, and I was so impressed that I wanted to be Davey Graham. [laughs] Or if I couldn't be Davey Graham, I wasn't going to be too far away from him. So I went out and bought a guitar.
H2: I don't know Davey Graham, what can you tell in short about him.
JM: Well he started a movement, I think, which sort of culminated I suppose in commercial terms, with guys like Cat Stevens. Without him, there would be no Bert Jansch, no John Renbourn, no Pentangle. No John James, no Steve Goodman. All of those people, and me of course... Gerry Rafferty... All of these people stem originally from Davey's genius, to be honest. They all owe their livelihood, and mirror their thoughts a great deal to Davey Graham. He is the man who started the whole school of acoustic guitar playing upon which numerous people are based!
H1: Even the American Steve Goodman?
JM: Yeah, all of those people! They wouldn't be playing, unless it was... John Fahey... All of that stuff... Stephen Grossman... All of those people were very heavily influenced! He was the first of the great modern acoustic guitar players, I think.
H1: OK.

[Davey Graham: Maajun]

H2: De Schotse Davey Graham, één van de mensen die John Martyn ertoe bracht om ook met muziek bezig te gaan, en toen woonde hij nog in Glasgow. [...]

H1: In 1969, you played the second guitar on Bridget St.John's album. What could you tell me about Bridget?
JM: Bridget... [laughs] Bridget was a very nice girl, until I met her... She decided that she wanted to play the guitar and asked me if I would teach her. So I taught her what I could and she went off. And one evening around nine o'clock, I got this phonecall from a very angry man who turned out to be her father, saying: What have you done to my daughter?
I said: Nothing, I taught her to play the guitar.
And it transpired that he did not wish her to become a professional. She had five or six guitar lessons and decided that she wanted to become a professional musician. And I have been blamed ever since for the ruin of his daughter.
H1: What was her day job?
JM: She did not have a job, she was a student. She was going to become a research chemist, I think.
H1: What is her day job now?
JM: She... o, she's a barmaid in a club in New York.1
H1: Curl your toes...

[Bridget St.John: Curl Your Toes]

H1: Talking about New York, in 1969 you were in the States and even making recordings there. Who brought you there?
JM: I met my ex-wife Beverley the year before that, and she had a recording contract with a man called Joe Boyd (who since went on to do greater things; other things at least). And he took us close to Woodstock and sconced us there with a man called Paul Harris, who used to produce The Doors and do a lot of recording work in general. And he arranged the album.
H1: Wasn't that strange? I wouldn't have thought about somebody who arranged The Doors, and combining you with The Doors...
JM: Very odd, and it wasn't my idea. In retrospect, it worked very well. I was very very pleased with the outcome at the time. (Although the track I know [laughing] that you are going to play is also again very embarassing. Still, there you go.) I enjoyed working with Paul Harris and would do again. I see him, about every two years, our paths cross. And he is just an excellent musician.

H1: Van die plaat, Stormbringer, is dit het titelnummer.

[Stormbringer]

H2: Het titel van zijn derde elpee, Stormbringer, uit 1970. En die werd opgenomen in Amerika. [...]

H1: What was it like recording in the States? The difference with the recording you did so far in England.
JM: It was extremely different. It made the first two albums look exactly what they were, in fact which was very amateurish and very cheap to do. It was the first time I had been in a high technology, sort of session situation. The most interesting thing for me was working with obviously older, more experienced musicians. The guy you just heard, Herb Lovell, was at that time around fifty. He had a very wonderful air about him. I often wondered [laughing] what he thought of me in the time! I must have seemed very naive and innocent...
H1: And then came in the same year Road to ruin, in 1970, and on that album was New Day with Danny Thompson from Pentangle on bass. How did you meet him?
JM: Danny I met when I went to listen to John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. Bert Jansch was a great hero of mine, in days gone by, and I went to listen to him and I met Danny in the audience to be honest; we just liked each other. He had heard that I was working around the folk clubs and said he would come down to play, and that was how it started.

H1: Dit is dat stuk, New Day.

[New Day]

H2: John en Beverley Martyn.

H2: When did you meet Nick Drake?
JM: I met him through Joe Boyd, just after the recording of Stormbringer in fact, which would make it around 1969, about. I met him at a party that Joe Boyd gave for his artists; Nick Drake was one of his artists and there you are.
H2: You saw each other regularly?
JM: Yes we did, we used to live very close... He took a flat close to mine. We used to drink together and hang out together and play together.
H2: You played together...
JM: Only at home... we never played together live.
H2: No, you never played on one of his records.
JM: It was a very... it was one of those funny things, Joe was very jealous about keeping us apart. He liked to keep us apart. Another guy he used to produce, Dudu Pukwana, I had the same trouble there. Dudu and I became great friends, and we were never allowed to work together. Except one project I think I did with Dudu, but that was much against the management's wishes. I don't understand why... Something to do with diversifying one's financial interests, I think.
H2: For a while you have refused to talk about your relation with Nick Drake. Why was that?
JM: Well, no it's not... No-one... You're the first person to ask me a question in three or four years about Nick. It's just that, immediately after his death, there was a great curiosity as to why, and how he managed to kill himself. And to be honest, I was having three or four projected interviews... I never did any. But three or four people a week would call me up and say: What can you tell me about Nick Drake. Tiddlelada, isn't it sad, isn't it sad. And quite frankly I find that kind of interest ghoulish. I find it unpleasant and macabre, I didn't like it and I thought it was in very bad taste, so I refused to talk about it. As simple as that.
H2: Well you have known him, and it's true that he made a couple of records and they were hardly noticed.
JM Very sad.
H2: And he was such a talent!
JM: Oh, a genius! Wonderful fellow! Wonderful fellow. Very very sensitive though, very very fine. Like a racehorse, just very fine. I mean, he would just... The smallest thing would upset him. Just the smallest, tiniest thing would upset him.
H2: I see, we will play a track from his fist album, Time Has Told Me.

[Nick Drake: Time Has Told Me]

H1: Nick Drake, Time Has Told Me.
H2: One more question, John. When people listen to his records now, they know he has committed suicide, he's dead and they are going to interpret that into the music. I mean, by the time of making for instance the next song, Northern Sky from his second album, was he such a depressed person, really?
JM: He undoubtedly was, yes. It was very uncomfortable to be in the same room with him. He was obviously in a great deal of mental anguish. Very, yes, obviously suffering greatly.
H2: It was bothering him that he wasn't as successful as he hoped.
JM: He did say that to me once and that came as a great surprise! Because he never appeared ambitious, never ever, you know. You would not think that ambition was in him. But he once, about four or five months before he died, in fact told me. I said: What's the matter, old boy? And he actually said he was disgusted that he had not been more succesful. Which surprised me because I had not seen hitherto any hint of ambition in the man. It was very very peculiar.
H2: But Island is a very loyal record company...
JM: Oh Island did their best I think to help Nick. They had psychiatrists and everybody else. I had many conversations with Chris Blackwell about him. No, it was nobody's fault, not really. It's just one of those unfortunate things. Mental illness is mental illness, and if not diagnosed quickly enough and treated quickly enough, then it can prove fatal. And unfortunately, in Nick's case it did.
H2: What do you think is musically his strongest point. Is it the melodies he comes up with? Or what do you think?
JM: Ooo... I don't know, there's a certain... It's neither... You couldn't put your finger on it, it's neither rhythm nor harmony. It's just a certain air of being Nick Drake, there's a certain gentility, a certain tranquillity almost, that I find very attractive and very beautiful. I just think he's very honest, very honest; I like it, I like it.

H2: Van zijn tweede elpee, Nick Drake's tweede elpee Bryter Layter, draaien we Northern Sky met John Cale.

[Nick Drake: Northern Sky]

H1: Nick Drake; achteraf heeft men wel eens uit de teksten willen interpreteren dat er eigenlijk al een weg naar zelfdoding zou zijn... [...]

H1: In 1971 you moved to Hastings, from London to Hastings. Why was that?
JM: Basically because I didn't have anywhere to live! Joe Boyd announced on a Wednesday that he was leaving the country on Saturday. And his production company at that time was paying my rent, and looking after things in general. He left as he said he would on a Saturday and on Monday I went down to live in a friend's house in Hastings, because I just could not afford the rent on the place that I was staying. That was it, it's right there: necessity.
H1: Did it influence you, living in the country again?
JM: Yeah, I suppose it must have done that. It is one of those questions that I cannot really answer... I suppose it did, yes. It was a lot more peaceful, I got a lot more time to write.

H1: Van de plaat Bless the Weather uit 1971, Glistening Glyndebourne.

[Glistening Glyndebourne]

H1: Glistening Glyndebourne [...] van de volgende plaat, Solid air, en daar staat het liedje op Over The Hill. En dat beschrijft eigenlijk de laatste trein van London naar Hastings, hoe hij daar aankomt in de schemering. En vanuit de trein ziet Martyn zijn huis. Over The Hill.

[Over The Hill]

H1: What were your main influences, outside let's say the Scottish or the British folk scene, as far as you can talk about the British folk scene. In a way, it is ridiculous because there are so many sides of it, so we can't talk about 'the scene'. But were there any influences outside that scene?
JM: Er... Blues, I suppose. Blues in all it's forms, really. When I was learning to play, I learned to play all the blues tunes like Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, all those kind of things. And after that into the more electric side like Buddy Guy, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, Smokestack Lightning.
H1: Why that kind of music? Because you also could have gone to some country pickers as well, so why the black stuff?
JM: Well it wasn't just the black stuff, I mean I did not get around to the country pickers [laughs]. I loved Chet Atkins, I loved Doug Watson. But it never quite got through to my heart as much as the black stuff. I don't know why the black stuff; my taste remains much the same, even now. If I have to listen to pop music, I'd rather listen to black pop music than white pop music, really.

H1: Alhoewel er wel enige belangstelling bestond voor mensen die de gitaar hanteerden aan de blanke kant, en dan heb ik het over Doug Watson en over Chet Atkins [...]

[???]

H1: John, I can't pronounce this, what does it say?
JM: That's: "Eibhli ghail chiuin ni chearbhail."
H1: And what does it mean?
JM: [laughing] I haven't got the slightest idea!
H1: I'll tell you what it means: "The fair and charming Eileen O'Caroll."
JM: Ah! I have never heard of her...
H1: OK. It sounds to me like a bagpipe imitation.
JM: Yes, that's exactly what it is.
H1: How did you do it?
JM: With a fuzz box and a phaser on the guitar.

[Eibhli Ghail Chiuin Ni Chearbhail]

H2: John, you asked us if we would play something Bulgarian. A particular record by the Ensemble de la République Bulgare.
JM: Yes yes.
H2: Why is that?
JM: Well it's my favourite record of all time. If I had to take a record to an island with me and I had no others, I think it would be the record that I'd take. Harmonically speaking it has a great depth, rhythmically speaking it has an equal depth and I just love it. It's such a wonderful record.
H2: How did you discover it?
JM: It was given to me by Sandy Denny actually, strangely enough. I don't know where she found it. Probably from Bill Leader, one of the folkies. I noticed from the sleeve notes earlier that A.L. Lloyd, Bert Lloyd, compiled and collated and got all the information together. So I presume it be through the folk connection, one of the direct ethnic folk connections. Sandy was, before she became a folk-rock singer or whatever, was in fact a very straight-down-the-line, finger-in-the-ear folk singer.

H2: De plaat die John Martyn mee zou nemen als hij ooit naar een onbewoond eiland zou worden verbannen en hij maar één plaat mocht meenemen, dan was het deze. Van een Bulgaars orkestensemble onder leiding van Philip Koutev, en de titel van het volgende stuk is Fida Sept Ans Dormi.

[Le mystère des voix Bulgares: Fida Sept Ans Dormi]

H2: Ik gaf net de titel in het Frans, maar dat had natuurlijk ook in het Engels gemogen. Omdat het toevallig een Franse persing van deze Bulgaarse plaat is. We gaan nog een stuk laten horen van diezelfde plaat die John Martyn ooit kreeg van Sandy Denny.

H2: A very different piece from what we just heard that we are going to hear now.
JM: That's right, the Bulgarians have a tradition that the women only sing and never play, and the men only play and never sing. So you are going to hear the men playing ensemble now, which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

[Le mystère des voix Bulgares: instrumental]

H1: John vertelde net dat het traditie is in Bulgarije dat de vrouwen zingen en de mannen spelen.

H1: Is it difficult to play this kind of music?
JM: Almost impossible! I have tried and failed miserably, and better men than me have tried and failed miserably. It is extremely...
H1: Why?
JM: The time signatures are very very difficult, thirteen eights, eleven sevenths, all kinds of things that you just... I think, unless that's in your blood, unless you hear it from childhood, it is very difficult to understand it. From a theoretical point of view, it is very very difficult to understand and practically speaking, I never came close to it, and I don't know anybody who did.

[Spencer The Rover]

H2: Spencer The Rover, John Martyn, op verzoek van John Martyn. Indiase muziek van Bismillah Khan, en die bespeelt de shanai.

H2: What kind of instrument is that, could you explain?
JM: The shehnai is very close to the oboe, but it has a wider sound because it has a triple reed instead of just a double reed, which is what the oboe has; it has a triple reed. It sounds a bit more harsh than the oboe because it has a brass bell at the end, which gives it more ring. It is very very difficult to play, in fact, shehnai players play in banks of four. There is always one soloist, one major soloist, and when he gets tired, the other people in the ensemble will take up the theme and play until he can recover and use his lips again. Because the most that they can play at a time when they are playing really well and very fast, is about seven or eight minutes.
H1: Did we have this instrument in Europe as well?
JM: Er... The closest I think we came is the 'kromhoorn', which thankfully died the death because it was never a great instrument. [laughs] The oboe I think is the closest we can come to this kind of sound. I much prefer it, as it is more flexible.
H2: It seems you have a great interest in non-Western music...
JM: Yes this is true. I don't know why, I don't really know why, it just appeals to me and the very first time I heard all this music, I went: Right, OK, that's for me. There certainly isn't an intellectual reason for it, not one that I can sort of put forward and be reasonable. It just touches my heart, so that's it. It's good.

[Instrumental by Bismillah Khan]

H1: Shanai, een instrument dat in de regel door een groepje van vier mannen wordt bespeeld.

H1: Is it fascinating to watch these people play it?
JM: Well they play in banks of four, and because it is so difficult to play, there are four backing guys and the master soloist. Because it is so difficult to play, they are going to play for seven or eight minutes at a time and then their lips become tired, no matter how good they are. So when the guy is exhausted, which is usually after about maybe two or three minutes' playing, the band strike up the theme and he sort of relaxes and touches [demontrates mouth massage] and gives himself a swift massage around the moustache, you see, and then attacks again. It's very good.

H1: Hij legt uit dat je dus eigenlijk een hele snelle massage nodig hebt, en hij probeert dan, zit dan heel snel zijn mond weer in de juiste stand te brengen om verder te gaan op dit instrument de shanai.

H2: In 1975 kwam er nog een plaat uit, een live elpee, die maar op beperkte schaal verkrijgbaar was, van John Martyn.

H2: People had to send a letter to your address, I think, or some address and they could get the [Live at Leeds] album, right?
JM: Yes it was my address. And it took me a great deal of time and effort to do it. Because I foolishly undertook to sign every copy, and we made ten thousand copies [laughs]. And writing your name ten thousand times is not fun. It sounds easy but I promise you, after three or four thousand times you get a little tired.
H2: And you sold them all.
JM: Yes we did.

H2: Dat is een heel zeldzaam exemplaar, er zijn maar tienduizend gelukkige bezitters van die live plaat die persoonlijk door John Martyn werd getekend.
Tussen 1975 en 1978 hoorden we weinig van hem.

H2: What happened between 1975 and 1978?
JM: Ah... I just became bored by the whole business - not the art but the business. And I just decided to take some time off so I went to Jamaica. And there you are. That's basically what happened. I remember when I came back, it took me another year really to get round to playing again.
H1: Talking about the boring business. Why is the business boring? Because, you could have known before that is was boring, that part of it.
JM: I knew it, obviously I alwas knew it in theory [laughs]. But it took a few years of practice to kind of slap it into me that I really didn't want to have anything to do with it. I mean, there are some guys who just sit around, even musicians who are session musicians, who sit around and don't discuss music, don't talk about music or wine or food or anything else enjoyable. They talk about how much money they made on their last session. And: 'Hey, you should have hit him for double fee,' you know. 'I hit him for double fee and he stood in for me. Why would he...' 'Hey, you got a better...' Given all that. And there's the managers who boast to each other about how they managed to rip off two percent or three percent or five percent. And they had twenty-eight percent coming through seventeen percent of the channels. I mean, that just becomes boring. Because I hadn't got a great head for figures, and I am not that greedy.

[Certain Surprise]

H2: En uit Jamaica hoorde je Rico.

H2: [One world] was a very successful album, artistically speaking, I think. Do you agree?
JM: Yes I enjoyed it. To be honest, I make them and then I don't listen to them again. It is the first time I have listened to my own recorded music for... Obviously, I never listen to them in the home. And it must be the first time I have heard that track for three years.
H2: Oh really. But can you understand when people say that this is a turning point, you know, or a very important album.
JM: Yes, well it is definitely... I mean, to that date, it was the best produced album, undoubtedly, and the material was quite strong. I remember enjoying it very much at the time and it must be a mark of it's strength that I play a lot of the songs live.
H2: Right, on to the next album, Grace and danger. You did one track that you wrote with Lee Perry, it's Johnnie Too Bad. Did you meet him in Jamaica?
JM: Er... I met... [hesitates] Better get the record straight. I in fact did not write it with Lee Perry. The song that I wrote with Lee Perry was Big Muff. Johnnie Too Bad was a song written by, who were they called, Johnnie and the Shootouts. All of whom were shot dead, I might tell you, within a year of making the single. It was a hit single in Jamaica, around 1970, 1969, and I first heard it in Jamaica actually on a jukebox. That's how Johnnie Too Bad comes.
H2: Right, at this we have a version, a limited edition of, a remixed version of Johnnie Too Bad.
JM: Wotcher.
H2: And we will hear that.

[Johnnie Too Bad]

H2: Het origineel is van Johnnie and the Shootouts, een reggae bandje uit Jamaica en John Martyn deed dit opnieuw op zijn elpee Grace and danger. En deze remix werd gemaakt door Chris Blackwell en daar had Lee Perry niks mee te maken. Well met het nummer Big Muff dat hij samen met John Martyn schreef. Van diezelfde elpee Grace and danger uit 1980 nu het nummer Lookin' On.

[Lookin' On]

H2: Lookin' On, John Martyn, en Phil Collins hoorde je op drums. Het was zijn laatste plaat voor het Island label, maar daarover direct meer. Het was zeer jazzy...

H2: Very jazzy, this piece. Did you discover jazz this late, or?
JM: No, right about the time of, what, 19 sixty... No, I beg your pardon, 1972, that's when I first really got into it, through a man called Pharoah Sanders. It's the first album that really opened my mind, I must be honest.
H2: OK. Before we talk further, we'll hear a track from that album: The Creator Has A Master Plan.

[Pharoah Sanders: The Creator Has A Master Plan (from Karma)]

H2: Van zijn elpee Karma, de Amerikaanse negersaxofonist Pharoah Sanders. En na Pharoah Sanders ontdekte John Martyn Miles Davis.

H2: After Pharoah Sanders you discovered Miles Davis.
JM: That's true, yes. Pharoah Sanders in this case came first although chronologically speaking that is wrong. I just discovered them in the wrong order. The thing I like about Pharoah's track is the strength of his playing and the gentleness of the line combined. Because in fact he has a very angry, hurt tone. You know it is a huge tone he is using, but the harmony that he is playing, the line, is very very gentle.
H2: By the way, did you have a classical training?
JM: No.
H2: But you learned it along the way...
JM: Well to be honest, I don't have any theory at all. [laughs] I mean if you asked me to write down notes, I can't write them down. I suppose I could if I tried, but it is... I think at my stage, it might get probably negative rather than positive. I find I can communicate with other musicians quite well enough by singing and bumping, hitting the table at the right time.

H1: Geen klassieke opleiding; een bewonderaar van Pharoah Sanders en daarna pas van Miles Davis, dus [...]

[Miles Davis: Jack Johnson]

H2: Miles Davis, van zijn elpee Jack Johnson. En we zeiden het straks al, John Martyn verliet het Island label.

H2: You left the Island label, why was that?
JM: Purely financial reasons, I was very happy there. But what happened was: I decided I was bored with playing solo and I wanted to put a band together. And Island really could not come up with the money to finance the putting together of a band. And that was that.
H2: They did not want to invest the money?!
JM: No! They did not seem to. They saw me very much as a solo artist and they felt that my career lay in that direction. And I was at the point where I really just did not want to play solo any more. You know, I was interested in playing with other guys full time.

H1: Hij wilde niet langer solo artiest zijn, en Island zag weinig reden om geld in een band... Want dat wilde hij, hij wilde ophouden met solo artiest te zijn, hij wilde een band samenstellen, en Island wilde niet investeren in een band.

H2: And then you went to Warner Brothers. Did they put any restrictions on your music? Because they had to invest money now.
JM: Not that you would notice, really. They insisted on a producer, which in my case was also good because I had spent the last three or four albums either producing my own albums or being very heavily involved in the production thereof. So it was nice to take the back seat for a while.
H2: That was going to be Phil Collins...
JM: It was Phil Collins on Glorious fool and it was going to be Phil Collins on Well Kept Secret but I had an accident during the early stages of recording and Phil's schedule would not allow him to produce.
H1: I see.
H2: Is it better to have an outside producer? Or...
JM: I still haven't made up my mind, I still don't know. It is a very difficult question. It's... I find, having said: OK, let's have a producer, I wanted to take over the guy's job halfway through, you know [laughs]. So it is a very difficult question. I am still undecided as to whether it is best to maintain complete artistic control, or in fact to delegate.
H1: That's what I wanted to know: how does this work out? Because you produced a lot of your own stuff, and suddenly there is a producer involved. And you know what producing is. How does that work out? How do you talk then in that way to the producer?
JM: Well you obviously... I mean, there are tricks of the trade. Like, if the guy in the studio is not playing well enough, you go: Well, we have got a technical problem in here: I want us to take a break for five minutes and wel'll fix the microphone. [chuckles] Having used that maneuver myself as a producer, I know very well when it is coming from the other side of the desk. So I go: OK, I will go and have a rest and try it again in a few minutes; that kind of thing. It is essential to trust the man who is doing the production. If you have an element of distrust, even the slightest element of distrust, it can ruin the whole thing. You have to trust the guy very very much.
H2: One thing about the next song we are going to play, Amsterdam: when and how did you write that song?
JM: Er... Rather sad story, really. A friend of mine snuffed it in Amsterdam. He killed himself, and that what it was about, to be honest. Another doom and disaster song... [laughs]
H2: And what do the lyrics say?
JM: It's 'The night the kid left Amsterdam'.
H2: Ah, the kid left Amsterdam...
JM: Yeah, the kid left.

[Amsterdam]

[End of tape]


sitenotes:
1 Kenny's Castaways, NYC. After performing there Bridget moved in with the owner, Pat Kenny.

Transcription Hans van den Berk, tape courtesy Jos van Oost.