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“Ah, singles. When I was young I’d buy one every week. Theyused to spin round 45 times every minute. That’s loads of times ina day. Then a few days later, next Saturday, I’d buy another one.Beatles, Beach Boys, and later, Blondie, Buzzcocks. Lots of singles.

When I grew up they’d got bigger too. Now it was my turn to makesome singles. We’ve made six of them, and these days you can’talways watch them going round any more.

This is probably all the singles we’ll do, brought together for onelast spin. But I can’t promise.” – William Jones, 2008

You’ll Never See That Summertime Again Released 24 July 2006 – CD single

You’ll Never See That Summertime AgainThis Is The StartInto The SunBeautiful To Me (acoustic version)

I’d always regretted that You’ll Never See That Summertime Again had missed out onbeing a single. Ever since it was written it’s closed our live set, been our mostbroadcast track, found its way onto sampler albums and generally been people’sfavourite Friends song. But I’d never been entirely happy with the original recording –the singing, the clarity of the instruments and the speed, which I felt was fractionallytoo fast. In those days too (1989) we were generally not releasing singles fromalbums, so it never happened.To give it one more chance of radio play and international acclaim we re-recorded thesong at Fairview and kept very closely to the original arrangement. The process wasalmost an act of historical reconstruction. We added Kath’s voice to the choruses andsharpened up the electric guitar sound a bit, but otherwise the arrangement remainedthe same. Even the cowbell at the end.We chose the other three songs to give an idea of our range of styles, from full-onpop, to semi-acoustic, to ultra-minimal. We reckoned that if the title track wasn’t ‘pop’enough, then This Is The Start was pop supreme. Into The Sun showcased the stringquartet arrangements we’ve occasionally used since Sundrowned, and Beautiful To Mewas a solo version of my favourite Friends song. I recorded it in one take during an epic night in a recording studio when eight songs went downin one rather traumatic session. You don’t needto know.

Special You Released 29 July 2002 – CD single

Special YouVillage In My MindDownstreamEvery Summer (acoustic version)

It had been seven years since Folk Songs when we went back to the studio to makeBeautiful You. It was a good session. We were happy with the songs, and the musicflowed. We recorded and mixed the album in our usual two weeks.The idea of a single from the album was a fairly late decision, and we went for Special You as the most direct and immediate pop song of the set. It was one of theeight I had originally recorded acoustically in a one-night session as a specialbirthday present for a friend.Village In My Mind was one of my favourite songs from the album. It mixes unclearmemories of places and scenes from my childhood and sets them in the time aroundthe First World War, an era which fascinates me. The village in the song seems tohave become a mirage or a trick of the memory and you’re not quite sure if it everexisted.I once acted in an amateur production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and wroteincidental music for it. Downstream was created for the opening of the play – theDuke is listening on headphones, it stops abruptly and the first words of the play are:“If music be the food of love, play on…”

In spare moments in the studio I’d occasionallyplay one-take versions of our songs, and for awhile we had an acoustic set with just guitar,percussion and voices. Every Summer featuredin that set because we felt it worked very wellacoustically, and it’s always fun to play. But Idon’t recommend trying it at home.

Foreign Money Released 28 November 1994 – 7” single

Foreign MoneyYou Can Do

Foreign Money was the opening song from Sundrowned and we felt it would makeone big belter of a single. It did indeed belt, but unfortunately not up the charts.The brass arrangement was something I worked on with Rick Taylor who was stillplaying with us and, when we didn’t need him, with people like Elton John andGeorge Michael. It was a nice thick chordal arrangement for two trumpets andtrombone which really drove the song along. The album was our second with JohnSpence at Fairview and our first very long recording, with 16 songs offered as greatvalue for money. I was very happy with the whole song. The initial riff came out of theblue early one morning and I just had to keep playing it as I was getting dressed, tomake sure I didn’t forget it. Fortunately it lodged itself in my mind long enough tocomplete the song, and then had to be forcibly removed. The lyrics weren’t so muchabout earning foreign currency as trying to dispose of it dishonestly in your change,and using this to point out the probable benefits of honesty in a relationship.By the time we recorded Foreign Money, Martin Parker had joined the band andbecome half of the partnership that has remained ever since. You Can Do was athrowaway item, an acoustic number that I developed with Martin, and which werecorded together with Hesitant Smile (later to appear on Folk Songs) one evening at Fairview. I still like the whimsical, optimisticquality of the song, although I no longer entirelyshare its sentiments.

The First Day Of SpringReleased 16 April 1990 – CD single (originally released as 12” single, now unavailable)

The First Day Of SpringAs Years Go ByI’ll Never See YouWanting

We recorded The First Day Of Spring a few months after the second album Roads Leading Everywhere. It was the same line-up and the same studio, and in many ways it felt like an extension of the album. The performances, though, hadmoved on, and I felt they had a solidity and maturity that our previous recordingsperhaps did not. It was Stewart Moffat’s last recording with Friends, andforeshadowed a period when I didn’t know if the band would survive. The title trackwas a piece of ecstatic nature-worship, which we used to describe as a crossbetween pastoral pop and rustic rock.As Years Go By was our first anthemic, doom-laden rocker and we still play it livetoday. The two cowbell hits which open I’ll Never See You are a conscious nick from,and tribute to, Fairport Convention’s classic folk-rock album Liege And Lief, which Istill love.Wanting was a very special and memorable recording. By that time we had releasedtwo singles, and the prospect of the first album coming up a couple of months laterwas worrying me, mainly as to whether my singing would be strong enough to carry a

whole LP. We recorded Wanting on one beautifulspring evening in Darlington and finished beforethe sun went down. There was the most blissfulfeeling of satisfaction and of all being well with theworld, and the wonderful clarity of the recordingtakes me straight back to those couple of hours ina small room every time I hear it. Part of thepleasure was from coming out of the studioknowing that the album would be fine.

“…Wanting to be wanted, needing to be neededAnd it’s harder as the time goes byWanting to be wanted, needing to be neededAnd it’s easy, and it’s easierIf I don’t try…”

“…We’ve come far from where we startedSeems like only yesterdayFeels as though we’d never partedOnly waiting till you say okay…”

“…We’ve come far from where we startedSeems like only yesterdayFeels as though we’d never partedOnly waiting till you say okay…”

Far And AwayReleased 14 September 1987 – CD single and 12” single

Far And AwayBurning BridgesOver And OverThe End Of The Affair

The genesis of Far And Away, in a taxi on the way from Billingham to Stockton-on-Tees, is hardly the stuff of romantic songsmithery, but my frantic scribbling on scrapsof paper came from a determination to strike while the muse was hot. I’m not sure whether our recording the song five times means that we’re just veryfond of it, or that we never thought we got it right. In retrospect I feel that the singleversion was as right as it could be. We’d tried it out first in a studio demo, later re-recorded it for Let’s Get Away From It All, and subsequently did two acousticversions.Burning Bridges and Over And Over were examples of the Gothic element we had toour music at that time, apparently quite at odds with the pop side, but somehow inkeeping with the band’s sound. We borrowed Fairview Studios’ Norman Baron, whowas granted day release from his tape-copying duties to play the trumpet becausewe hadn’t found anyone else who could cope with the tricky time changes onBurning Bridges. The solos in Over And Over were originally improvised by RickTaylor for an earlier demo of the song, and I liked them so much I transcribed themand asked Norman to play them.The End Of The Affair required a trumpeter withbetter ‘chops’ and a bit more stamina thanNorman, who was already retired, so we hauledour session trumpeter Martyn Clarke down fromNewcastle. The song contains a blatant lyricalquote from The Teardrop Explodes which Ithought was rather clever at the time.

It’s Getting LouderReleased 13 October 1986 – CD single (originally released as 7” single, now unavailable)

It’s Getting LouderIsland

We got our biggest mistakes in early. Having paid our dues, as we thought, recordinggood-quality demos (although not good enough, obviously, to land that multi-millionpound recording contract), we headed for a ‘real’ studio to record a ‘real’ single. Wetook some well-intentioned advice to go to the best that we could find, and bookedinto Strawberry Studios in Stockport, which at that time was pretty much top of therange. We, on the other hand, were not.The songs were the best we had in our ten-song collection, and It’s Getting Louderwas a plausible ‘alternative’ single, although maybe a little too mainstream to makeeven an indie impact. We spent three days at Strawberry with a producer who hadworked with us on demos, but the whole situation felt different. In particular, mysinging didn’t really rise to the occasion, and our drummer, the late Chris Wood,didn’t enjoy hearing his real drums replaced with Go West samples.I left the studio and drove the van back to Stockton feeling profoundly depressedabout the recording we had just made, wondering whether we should even releasethe record at all, and thinking about finishing the band immediately. Six singles, ninealbums and 22 years later we somehow never quite got round to packing it in.

“…It’s getting louderI feel it ringing in my head…”

1 You’ll Never See That Summertime Again . . . . . . 4.58

2 This Is The Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.53

3 Into The Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.00

4 Beautiful To Me (acoustic version) . . . . . 5.01

5 Special You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.22

6 Village In My Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.21

7 Downstream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.47

8 Every Summer (acoustic version) . . 3.30

9 Foreign Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.20

10 You Can Do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.45

11 The First Day Of Spring . . . . . . 2.38

12 As Years Go By . . . . . . . . . . 4.23

13 I’ll Never See You . . . . . . . . 3.25

14 Wanting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.30

15 Far And Away . . . . . . . . . . 3.43

16 Burning Bridges . . . . . . . . 3.58

17 Over And Over . . . . . . . . . 3.53

18 The End Of The Affair . . . . 3.47

19 It’s Getting Louder . . . . . . 3.23

20 Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.15