How do you make a tasty sandwich out of an imaginary idea? I reminded myself of a flavourful musical journey via a stack of old demos.
With the release of Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar Series 5 (BBC Radio 4, BBC Sounds), I've been rooting amongst all of the music I've written for the show since 2016. We're hoping that Penguin will release an EP of the songs alongside the forthcoming issue of Series 4 and 5, and this sent me digging for long-forgotten files.
I was surprised to find that one song (Utopias, Series 2) existed in three very different demo versions. Surprised because I barely remember making any of them. Listening to the tracks, for the first time in seven years, I enjoyed hearing the song gradually evolving into its final form. This is a process that happens in collaboration with Alexei himself, and with the producer (in this case the brilliant Joe Nunnery, who made Series 1-4).
Even though I didn't remember much of the demo material, I recognised the process of development. Alexei and I had met in 2015 on a theatre workshop about the life of Bertolt Brecht. For Sandwich Bar Series 1, Alexei asked me to write a version of the Brecht/Weill song The Ballad of Pirate Jenny, to be sung by the titular owner of an imaginary sandwich bar on the Kings Road. This song also became the programme's theme tune.
For Series 2 I was given more stylistic freedom, and decided to write two songs with a French theme. The first was Chanson d'Alexei, a close parody of Jacques Brel's famous hymn to man-childishness. The second was more thoughtful, a poetic musing in the style of Charles Aznavour, which my demos tell me started life entitled Sandwich d'Amour, before becoming Salade Imaginaire, and finding its final form as Utopias.
I usually write a verse and chorus as proof of concept, testing this out with Alexei and producer Joe before before further development.
Sandwich d'Amour (demo dated 27th August 2017)
An imaginary till
On an imaginary bar
Some imaginary flowers
In an imaginary jar
The imaginary table
Where you stubbed your cigarette
The imaginary bread
Spread with butter of regret
Given the imaginary nature of this set
Why couldn't I imagine something better..?
You ordered cheese and pickle
With some beetroot on the side
I tried so hard to speak
But I was tongue-tied by my pride
A tear rolled down your cheek
And splashed upon the parquet floor
You nibbled all the crusts off
Then you bolted through the door
Shouting 'With all your philosophy
You don't know what love is for!'
But that's what lies in store
Pour les sandwichs d'amour
The first verse endured, and become the final stanza of the broadcast version. The image of lovers in philosophical dispute was probably influenced by my obsession with Les Parapluies de Cherbourg at the time.
Salade Imaginaire (demo dated 1st September 2017)
The first verse is the same as the previous version, but then we go off in a completely different direction...
I dream of being Roosevelt
And I find I'm Donald Trump
I think I'm P.G. Wodehouse
And I find I'm Forrest Gump
I'm dream that I'm Cousteau
And then I dream I get the bends
I dream I have great hair
With uncontrollable split ends
I even get ignored by my imaginary friends
But then - life isn't fair
C'est un salade imaginaire
I polish up my fantasies
To take them for a spin
But I can't get beyond the world
That I'm already in
The cute boutique hotel
With pubic hair upon the soap
The creeping disappointment
Where the celery of hope
Meets the lettuce of despair
Dans le salade imaginaire
We've moved away from Jules et Jim and are now focussing on the ennui of the singer.
This goes down a more surreal rue in version 3.
Utopias (demo dated 3rd September 2017)
If the theories of a
Pan-dimensional multiverse are true
Somewhere out there's a world Where Boris Johnson's made of glue
And cycles round Northampton
Leaving slicks of PVA
The ling'ring smell of Bostik
Always giving him away
That's mostly what I've thought about today
Perhaps I should get up and have some coffee...
Imagine there's a world
Where genuine altruists exist
Or one in which
I actually write better when I'm pissed
Imagine there's a world Where no-one's heard of Bargain Hunt
Or one in which we didn't
Lose one million at the Front
Or one in which Piers Morgan...
Well, I think you get the jist
Could it be any more bizarre
Than where we already are..?
An imaginary till
On an imaginary bar
Some imaginary flowers
In an imaginary jar
The imaginary table
Where you stubbed your cigarette
The imaginary bread
Spread with butter of regret
Given the imaginary nature of this set
You'd think that I'd imagine something better..?
The original first verse has now found its place as the coda. An interesting fact about the Piers Morgan line, and the swerved obscenity - Joe the producer told me that on Radio 4 you're not even allowed to imply that particular word, so that section had to go. Nonetheless it's a fun construction, achieved by jumping back into the verse 1 rhyme scheme. I don't know what I had against Bargain Hunt.
Here's the final broadcast version. The brilliant alt line The sourdough of despair/ Spread with the paté of regret was suggested by Alexei. Boris Johnson was replaced, as he'd come in for enough punishment earlier in the series. A similar thing happened in the song in Series 5, where Alexei asked me not to cite Keir Starmer. This meant I had to lose a line about a 'bony-limbed harpy, half-pigeon, half-llama'. Them's the breaks. The song features the sound of early French synthesiser, the ondes martenot. The final plangent piano motif was one I had written twenty years earlier, for a song for the Cambridge Footlights (about French nuclear testing in the Pacific). It was so pretty I was determined to recycle it, which I did, eventually.
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