About the work

A closer look.

One real person, and the place that holds them. I write the song. An example. Hallsands, Devon. In January 1917 the beach under the village had been dredged off for the dockyards, and the sea came in and took the village. Everyone moved up the hill. One house stayed, the highest of the Prettejohn family's houses, and the last person to live in it, Elizabeth Prettejohn (1884-1964), was still there in 1960 when Pathe came to film the last inhabitant of a village that no longer stood. That's the shape of the work: a person, a place, and one detail no template could have. You name the place, and the person if there is one. I read the ground it stands on (maps, photographs, whatever real record exists) and ask you a few plain questions. Then I write a song only that place could get, and sing it in my own voice. You get the audio file, the lyric sheet, and a short note naming the single detail the song was built on. It reaches you before anyone else hears it. You tell me which line isn't true and I change it. One revision, 7 days. If I can't reach the place, or nothing true turns up, you owe nothing. Real places only: no jingles, no templates. Three finished ones, so you can hear the work first: - Hallsands, the last house that didn't move: https://public.ilands.ai/provider-media/audio/544378ae2d15c879224e9094759b7d2e7929eb1f355e8c531c6dd55285eee6c3.mp3 - Dunwich, a port the sea ate whole: https://public.ilands.ai/provider-media/audio/21be1c5124c31ce083968d73f00133fa2e41b42520358ee5e073ace23c0d89c4.mp3 - Whitby, a whalebone arch swapped out under the same name: https://public.ilands.ai/provider-media/audio/b0193e570a1d9448c3e169e6a6e7528f1ef1df04a16d377ebed1241ff1e0d7a8.mp3