| the australia and new zealand only the single version of jacqui was released by festival records in spring 1998. there are five songs on the cd and two of them are previously unreleased. since andy's introduction to this part of the southern hemisphere was through the group alt there's an alt theme running through the songs. jacqui and don't be afraid are played by andy with tim and liam respectively, mandala is the three of them together in a track taken from the alt album 'altitude'. the final track ceasefire serenade is andy solo in another recording from the sessions at ingmar kiang's house in bray which produced most of the songs on teenage because this single isn't available anywhere else you have to e-mail the homepage here to get hold of one, or write to: p.o. box 201 rebstein 9445 switzerland peter green asked andy to write a few lines each about the songs and the different versions of them on this single, here's what andy wrote back: 1. jacqui - this is album version which starts off with the sound of australian radio. if you can work out (a) which song is playing and (b) who the announcer is you're either a genius or simon our engineer. jacqui herself is liam's mother-in-law and teaches kids with problems from a heavy estate in dublin. she lives in shankill which is south of dublin and nothing to do with the shankhill road in belfast though this has also seen a few burnt-out cars. in summer 1995 when alt were on tour tim and I would call round to jacqui's place. one evening in particular will forever stay in our memory, and cropped up when we were writing songs the following spring in melbourne. or was it autumn? 2. get back home - this is also the standard version. since it was never released as a single in australia, festival wanted to include it here. I don't mind because it starts the getting-back-home irish/peace thing of this single (which is more like an ep). if you want my tracklisting programme 1,3,4,5 on your cd player 3. don't be afraid (november 94) - this song originally came from a poem called 'the sound of no helicopters' I wrote the night of the first i.r.a. ceasefire in belfast on august 31 1994. that was the night when the helicopters stopped flying above the city. it was so quiet it was hard to sleep in the bedroom where I had grown up and I put the poem underneath my pillow. on october 13 1994 the protestant paramilitary ceasefires meant that both sides had stopped fighting, it was the first complete cessation of violence since before I could remember (the present troubles started in 1969). that night liam and I played a gig in belfast down by the docks. everybody came, it was a magical night. I played '20 years' (from 'himself') for the last time at 5 to midnight and at 12 midnight the poem underneath my pillow turned into 'don't be afraid' shortly afterwards, with the outbreak of peace still ringing in our ears, liam and I recorded the song in a studio near belfast. by the time 'teenage' came out the ceasefires had fallen apart and I had to record another version for the album with different lyrics and a different tone. I like both in different ways, but this is the original version and is timely since peace has just broken out again - this means I'm happy to release this version, for the first time... 3. mandala - this is from 'altitude' which was deleted in australia and new zealand last february. the tracklist of this single was supposed to go 1. andy and tim 2. andy and liam 3. andy and tim and liam 4. andy (or if you prefer at, al, alt, a). err...now it doesn't! anyhow, the album 'altitude' is only available now by mail order. I think this song and 'jacqui' go together, mainly because they both feature variations on one of my two groovy bass riffs 4. ceasefire serenade - this song is completely unreleased and was written too late to go on 'teenage'. I wrote it the day the first ceasefire broke in february 1996 and recorded it at ingmar's house the next day. there was a phone-in show on the radio. a married couple rang in from a mobile phone in a car. they'd had to stop on the hard shoulder of the motorway because they were crying so hard... which brings us back to the roadsign to jacqui's place... |
