GINNY CLEE: Hold On Tight

Ginny Clee

Hold On Tight

© 2005 Ginny Clee (634479998621)

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Warm, literate, heartfelt, intimate, vulnerable, callused........

notes

Sometimes in life it's obvious when you should hold on tight: like when you've just strapped yourself into a rollercoaster or climbed on the back of a racehorse. But then there's that stuff life chucks at you when you least expect and you're in danger of being swept away and you just wish there was someone to whisper in your ear 'hold on tight'.

I'm quite a happy person with an unfashionably happy childhood. But I prefer sad songs. Always have. I love a good weep at a tortured tale. I have a deep empathy with sadness and over the years I seem to have become a raconteur of other peoples misery. I spent 12 years working with Barbara in The Dear Janes (www.dearjanes.com) who was professionally tortured till she met the man of her dreams and I had to head out to find some new por soul to feed my desires. Come in old compadre Pete Smith.

The Songs........

1.I Wrote Your Name
Graffiti for lovers...

2.C'est La Fucking Vie
When Pete and I wrote this we had a big fat fight as
THAT WORD scotches any chance of radio play and I wanted
to find another way of saying it,to give the song it's
best shot. But Pete would not. Wouldn't even consider it.
I gave it a go without him and he was right. It
would have become a fluffy thing without that thorn. So
there it is. Fucking take it or leave it. It's self-
explanatory.

3.Touch
I'll be truthful. I wanted to write a Lucinda Williams
song. Like that fantastic track Essence. So I listened
hard. This is my Essence.

4.All That Matters
Did you ever have that time with that person when you
first met and your breath, your veins, your sandwiches,
your whole fucking reason for being were filled with
them? This was my moment. (And I married him).

5.Sam
I go to Scotland every summer to a magical place. Sam had his 17th birthday while we were there. I
wrote this on a rock on the highest part of the
peninsula. I am crazy for planes especially fighter-jets.
My dad was a pop-star-pilot so I grew up on air bases,
lying on the ends of runways as a child, inches beneath
the jets. Magic. As I wrote this I got buzzed by a Hawker
Hunter. They were out to scare me. They didn't. I
orgasm'dd..d.
I'm always on that rock when I sing this.
This song is an older woman's view of 17yr olds. We women can appreciate that budding youth too. But I'm old enough to know better. It is only bittersweet memories of pain and
desire.



6.God Don't Never Change
This is an old old song originally recorded by Blind Willie Johnson.I recorded it for a compilation CD called Dark Was The Night which is a collection of songs by various artists including Mary Margaret O'Hara (I am a huge fan) and Ben Mandelson's and Lu Edmond's Mississippistaphas. (Ben's lap-steel is all over Hold On Tight). I have a major problem with that guy in his skirt.(I'm talking God here not Ben). But in his mysterious way he did bring me-and-music together.
I'm an ex-convent girl.
At St Mary's Convent I met Mrs. Carol my music teacher. Clichéd but true. She gave me the solo in Handel's Messiah (I died and went to....heaven?)and sang Benjamin Britten's Missa Brevis with 6 other girls in Worcester Cathedral when I was 8. It is still in my soul.
I have a collection of squeaky nuns.
God has his uses.
But not many.

7.Love Drain
I'm swimming through the drains of London full with
unrequited love. Endlessly-swimming-overarm-slow-motion.
In a floaty dress. All the sad love flows through the
creases and gets caught for a moment before it drifts on.
It has nowhere to go. Along with your dreams.

8.Lament
When I had my daughter I downloaded a whole new version of love. Terrifying love. It amazes me that shop-doorways are not filled with babies every morning.

9.Gotta Do
This was originally on a soundtrack for a documentary about the artist David Tremlett, but I wanted to do a new version. A 'what the fuck' version. Giles Perring is a big-bear and I asked him for his Gilesness and it was more fun than you can imagine singing my socks off in his sunny North London garden while he whooped and yelped behind the mixing desk. You can hear him.
Sorry for the Americanism of 'gotta' but I can't sing 'got to' Pete is Argentinian. Blame him.

10.Jen's Lament
The credits roll.......... Jen plays the piano in her kitchen in Hackney with Elmore snuffling on her lap....


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reviews

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  • Hold On Tight
    author: Mike Sauber

    This Beatles fan has crossed generations to find songs here that move me as much as did the kids from Liverpool in my adolescence.

  • Ginny has heart AND soul....

    This CD is fantastic. I bought 10 copies to share with friends and loved ones. Lament is an unbelievable work that clearly displays Ginny's depth and caring.

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