Beginning a dream

It was during a steamy recording session late one summer’s night in 1989 (Armadillo Studios in Perth, now metamorphed into gold dust construction) that I had the idea of illustrating the words of some of my favourite British songs of the sixties and seventies.

15 years later I actually got round to doing it - and I guess it was much much harder than I expected it to be.

What was the meaning behind Jagger’s epic ‘Sympathy for the Devil? Was Lucy in the Sky really John Lennon’s spoof on LSD?

Did Bowie have his own past in mind when he wrote ‘Rebel. Rebel’?

These fascinating conundrums and many more awaited me back in 2005 when I started the first series of paintings. I will shortly be starting a new set and hope, through this blog, to gain more insight into the subject and more feedback on the work already done.

So - here goes - I shall begin with ‘Sympathy’ as in many ways it is the most intriguing lyric. I think Jean Luc Goddard’s film of The Rolling Stones recording the song interspersed with those dark, enigmatic sequences of Black Panther inspired urban evil is incredibly powerful.