Grassroots Sustainable Futures is the album opener, and the most developed song on the album (ie it has a didgeridoo and drumming on it too, as well as vocal overlays). I wrote it as a sort of mantra at first, thinking of a chain of nice words to describe what i wanted to bring into my life, partly inspired by friends singing Indian and Sanskrit mantras. I wanted a mantra that worked for me, in my own language, of some of the things i wanted to call into my life and onto the world. It swiftly developed a few verses (one about canal boats has since dropped off!), and a second section where the structure changes and it all goes up a gear. Resolution comes in the form of 'working it out for yourself'.

The chords are D-A-G-A for the chorus, D-A-D-A-D-A-G for the verse,and D-G7-D-G7...D-A-G in the second section.

Living in a Bender takes a look at where i used to live, and where i live now, and contains repeated and joyous usage of the phrase "Yes I'm f**king glad that i live in a wood" - just so you know. I am planning on recording a more family friendly version sometime this year... This is my most requested song to date, and includes visions of motorways being grown over by trees, weapons maufacturers being closed down and ICI being taken over by a forest. I started writing it while in bed with a German girl called Ira, to whom i am very grateful. I find it hard to come up with a less profane chorus that maintains the emotional oomph of the original, but i will get out a version that you may feel happier playing to your relatives soon.

G7-C-G7-C-F-C-F-C-F-C-G7 verse, F-C-F-C-F-C-G7-C chorus.

Szeged is a song i co wrote with my friend Ken Moon while we were hitch hiking to Romania for an international eenvironmentalists gathering called Ecotopia, organised by EYFA. It was our sixth day of hitching, and we had walked for miles to find a decent spot outside Budapest, but no one wanted to give us a lift. Szeged was a town on the border between Hungary and Romania that looked like a good place to be heading for on our way to Timisoara, so our cardboard sign said "Szeged please". But no one stopped, and we eventually walked back, and ended our week long epic hitch with a few train journeys to the gathering. It was very dusty, and i remember buying some watermelon from a road vendor near our hitching spot, and writing this song together to pass the time, sitting in the dust with Ken and my stickered guitar. (The oh-so-trendy foreign stickers on my guitar came from a German activist sticker vendor at this gathering).

G-C-G-Dsus2 verse, Em-A chorus.

Silver Birch Tree is the song i wrote for the funeral of my grandmother Muriel (or Moo...) Cow. She was the only one of my grandparent i knew, and i miss her, and i wish she had been happier in the last part of her life, and that i had found a way of getting closer to her than i did.

C-Am-F-G picking sequence.

London Town was written opposite Victoria Station, on a small patch of fenced in grass, with a big old tree in one corner, which i sat against and wailed out my feelings of frustration about being in London for however long. I was staying at the Campaign Against Arms Trade office in Finsbury Park, sleeping between computer hard drives at night, and planning actions and publicity during the day. This is all well and good, but it was not nourishing my body and soul very much, and i clearly longed for some space and trees. Its a lie that all i had to share was that song, but that was what i wanted to say at the time. Maybe i was pretending inmy mind to be a homeless busker, i guess i identified more with them than the smart business people or logoed shoppers hurrying past with their eyes shying away from human contact.

Am-G verse, Am-F-G bridge, C-G-G7-C-Am-F-G chorus.

Calstock 14-3-99 celebrates a piece of land on the Devon/Cornwall border that the group i was in was considering buying. The song tries to capture the inspired hopes and dreams of that moment, envisioning the possibilities of setting up a shared life with 10 other people in some beautiful fields overlooking the mighty Tamar river, trying to find our more wild selves, and helping the fields reforest themselves. We decided not to go for that land, as it was a little expensive, had too few trees, wasn't south facing enough, and the neighbours unnerved us a bit.

Am-Dsus2-F-G first section, F-G-Am second section.

Lyminge Forest Victory Song was written next to one of the Douglas Firs in the West Wood car park at Lyminge forest. I couldn't resist the opportunity to perform at the open mic night scheduled as part of the "tat down" (vt.- to dismantle, pack down) celebrations. I had visited the protest camps near Lyminge a few years earlier, at the height of the protest, and had made myself a home for a summer there in a suspended net/bender between 3 trees at camp 'Asterix' (the last camp to hold out to hold out against the Romans you see... other camp names included Treacle Mines, Gone to Pot, Camp Bastard, Rat Trap, The Curry House and Hecklesville). It was lovely waking up and looking through the net at the tops of trees, then abseiling down to the firepit for breakfast. It probably wouldn't have been a good structure for the winter time though - it was basically a net between a scaffold pole square, covered by a shell of bent hazel poles (a bender) and plastic tarpaulin.. Protest camps are where i got to really develop my passion for constructing places to live in from basic and recycled materials, and i got to live in them too. They were much nicer than the damp Victorian terraces in Cardiff, where i occasionally studied towards my degree in English Literature.

C-F-C-G7-C-F-G7 verse, Am-C-D-F chorus.

We Will Survive is a new version of the disco classic, reworked with a political, anarchist, DIY culture edge. I can't remember where or when i rewrote it, but it goes down a treat at summer gatherings, unless the person before me has just sung the original version, as happened more than once last year... I have a feeling that many people will get the parallels between modern voters or consumers and disenchanted, wronged lovers. "You promised us so much, and did not deliver, so just walk back out that door."

Am-Dm-G-C-F-Bbm7-E-E7 throughout.

Other songs on the cd include one called Priceless, which details the angst and woe i used to derive from trying to price up woodland products for sale. I now know that i was embedded in dramas and false beliefs about money being dirty and comtaminating. I also think i lacked the self belief to trust myself to put a price on something. Thanks to some work i have done on myself, and a lot of excellent people i have been learning from, i am moving free from these patterns, out into a better place, although i still haven't phoned that guy back about those Larch trees he wanted....

C-F-C-F-G7 verse, F-G-F-G-C chorus, Am-D-Am-D-Am-D-G7 middle eight.