Reimagined (Volume 2) – A track by track guide

When I wrote the songs that became ‘Fear’, I was just recording demos for songs we were going to work on together at rehearsals. Every song I committed to tape and put my voice over was an extremely rough version of ideas I’d had for motifs, melodies or rhythmic grooves. When I reached something like 20 demos and put them all on a C90, I sent copies to the band and started on a new tape with new demos. I soon realised, as we were approaching the end of 1994 and we were all away at University in different parts of the country, these demos weren’t going to get worked on and the demos were starting to stack up. ‘Stranger in the Mirror’ was the first song I wrote after collating the first group of demos which I’d since called ‘Fear’ and decided that this next group of demos should, appropriately be called ‘Fear II’. This is another demo that never got worked on or re-recorded until now. This re-imagining, doesn’t really re-imagine so much as make the original more enjoyable to listen to.

(Lyrics and Music : Peter Nuttall)

By September 1995, the collections of demos were stacking up and I’d started to collect them as ‘albums’, just for cataloguing purposes. The ‘Intermezzo’ album felt like the first one that I’d given thought to the running order and for the first time, I enjoyed every song on the album – they all felt like complete songs (if not for the terrible production values of still using  tape to tape dubbing). This, along with “Dance on” was the first song written for Intermezzo and was in a collection of lyrics Doug sent me from Ilkley which included ‘Demons and Angels’, ‘The Hardest Road’ and ‘Easy Money’.

(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

After writing this song, I started to feel a bit of confidence as a song writer and gave me the spur to keep writing, probably for the next 30 years. I’d go as far to say this is the most important song I ever wrote – not the best by any means – but very important in making me believe that there was a point to what I was doing, even if nobody could actually hear what I was doing.

(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

This is one of two songs that were written in the same session. Doug sent me ‘All I Need is You’ and ‘Your Move’ which kicked off the ‘History’ album in March 1996. I never really thought anything of the initial demos of either but this re-imagining is the first time I’ve considered ‘All I Need is You’ as full sized pop song. I think this version transforms the ideas in the demo into something enjoyable.

(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

There used to be a shop in Newcastle called ‘The State of Independence”, after the Donna Summer song. I used the phrase in the original demo. ‘Motive’ was recorded along with two other songs in between albums in June 1995. I lent the tape to a friend; stupidly, I didn’t keep a copy and when I got the tape back over a year later, I found it had been recorded over. I could barely remember the original so set about writing it again from scratch using what memory I had of it. This song was the one that appeared on ‘History’ and this re-imagining is the first time I’ve been able to look this song in the face, so to speak. I’m still annoyed about losing those three songs.

(Lyrics :and Music : Peter Nuttall)

The ‘Dark Heart’ album was a difficult one. I’d just bought a new synth – the PSR-90 – which was quite complicated. I wouldn’t get the hang of it until mid-way through the “Magic” album and it came into it’s own on the “Transfection” album. You can hear how awful I was at this synth by listening to ‘Better to burn out’ and ‘Perfect World’. ‘Prey’ wasn’t too bad but I stole the chorus for the outro to “Another Place to Hide” where it sat much better. “Look at us now” was the only decent song on this collection of demos, along with the slightly maverick song ‘Little Miss Ego’.

(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

The “Magic” album was such a fertile time – June to October 1996. I wrote a lot of the lyrics in the garden around midnight that summer. I found the night air so inspirational along with the starry skies and full moons. This lyric was a combination of two different songs, both written on a really hot day – hence “needed to cool down, you had the coldest heart that I could find” lyric. It was a rant about a particular person and I absolutely loved the song – it would have been the lead single from the album. However, as with all of the demos from the first ten years, any re-recording we did never really captured what was intended in the first place. This re-imagining is the third attempt in two years to re-record this song to capture some of how I know it should sound but we’ve still not managed it. It’s led to me falling out of love with the song somewhat – which is a devastating thing really, considering I thought it to be the best on the “Magic” album for so many years. Familiarity breeds contempt or something.

(Lyrics and Music : Peter Nuttall)

I didn’t write on guitar much but this was written on acoustic guitar. The previous songs I’d written on acoustic guitar had all been horrible, even if we’d got together to work on these songs as a band, they would still have been horrible. This was the first time it had worked – it was a selfish song. Rather than the love song it looks like, I’m actually saying, I’m sick of love songs, now I’m going to think about me instead. This re-imagining probably doesn’t add much to the original demo beyond making it slightly more palatable to listen to.

(Lyrics and Music : Peter Nuttall)

We rehearsed several songs in the summer of 1996 so that we could get into a studio and make some decent sounding demos to start sending off to A&R. ‘Before the Fall’, ‘Demons and Angels’ and ‘Whatever it Takes’ were the main ones we chose but after meeting someone who said she’d be interested in providing some backing vocals for us, I wrote this song as a duet. She came to a few rehearsals but we never got round to learning this and she left the band soon after. I recorded the demo with me doing both parts and, with effects, this re-imagining at least gives you a flavour of how it was meant to sound.

(Music and Lyrics : Peter Nuttall)

After demoing this song in late 1996, it always felt too familiar. It was years later when I was listening to Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Paradise City’ that I realised where some of the melody had come from. Regardless, this re-imagining captures exactly what was in the demo, with an unaltered melody. The song is about homelessness.

(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

I’ve always considered this song as a sister to “Demons and Angels” but the demo never sounded up to much. When I chose it for this project, having never attempted to re-record it, I was pleasantly surprised at how bright and fun it turned out. It’s quite nice to listen to.

(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

There’s quite a lot of darkness around this song. The lyrics at the time, seemed not to have come from me. They were a kind of cry for help and without going into any detail, I’d started to realise a few things. I wrote the song in bed one dark February night in 1997 and it came together quite quickly – the whole premise being me, escaping and wondering if I was the last person on earth, and I met myself, even I’d ignore me.

(Lyrics and Music : Peter Nuttall)

I’d mastered the PSR-90, I’d got the hang of looping and layering and the two-bar bass line with drum pattern provided the basis for this entire song. The lyric was superb and as a demo, this sounded pretty decent. However, maybe even in 2024 with the ‘studio in a box’ production, it’s not quite good enough. This is probably as close as I’ll get however.

(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

There were two different sets of lyrics for this as I lost the first set but could kind of remember some of the content – then, I found the original set which led to a few different versions of this song being demoed. We played this live a few times and it always went down well. Of course it’s inspired by The Four Tops’ ‘Reach out’.

(Lyrics and Music : Peter Nuttall)