Richard Hawley

Richard, The Ocean was the first song of yours I'd heard (for once radio wasn't tuned to Radio 4) and it knocked me sideways. Couldn't remember your name and searched through racks and racks of cds at local record shop until I found it. I had never done that for any other song.

It is one of the most emotionally powerful, raw, unpretentious songs ever. It is masterly in its composition - and does that thing you claim all songs should do ... it submerges me in waves of emotion. It is very beautiful. Don't know if it's the most technically, musically, lyrically most sophisticated of your songs but it has the ability to stop me in my tracks, to blot out whatever's going on around me, to take me to a different world

.... none of which is a good idea if I'm driving when it comes on.

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The way your face could light the bitter dark of every street
In every town I'll ever go

three chords and one arsehole to sing it.........................he he he leadbelly did the same but way better than i ever could x

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now,then!

I heard 'Cry a tear for the man on the moon' on something or other and I was blown away. I can remember being about 8 or 9 when the Americans first went to the moon, and wondering (I must've been a bit strange, even then!!!) how the hell anyone could go to the moon and come back sane and able to get on with their life, and this song brought all that back to me.

This song just sums up loneliness and feeling on the edge of things, not quite fitting in -( it's probably not about that at all, but that's what it says to me.)
Around the same time Johnnie Walker started playing 'Hotel Room' a lot - and that was what really got me started on Richard's stuff.

that song was wrote after a dream i had about Neil Armstrong,its about how you can be surrounded by life but feel quite detached from it all a sense of seeing other people's loneliness clearly.........yeah its unhinged,detached........in a semi kind of way

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now,then!

That's just what it brings to my mind too, maggie. Also reminded me of the film, and theme song, 'Man On The Moon', about the actor Andy Kaufman.

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The heartbeat doesn't change, only the faces surrounding it.

I find the thing with The Ocean is that it seems to stand alone somehow, sort of 'Wow, where did that come from?' If I'd heard it on its own I wouldn't have associated it with any other of Richard's songs.

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The heartbeat doesn't change, only the faces surrounding it.