We're goin on down to Swingtown
The girls are hot and the beer is cold
The nights are long in that town
And we never ever ever get old
So we're rockin on down
We're rockin' on down
And we're never ever coming home
We're diggin' that crazy sound
I'm gonna get my baby and hold her tight
Maybe dance in the soft moonlight
In Swingtown

We're goin' nuts for swingtown,
It's everything I want
You can have anything you like
At the swingtime restaurant
Pay the price and treat her nice
No time to stand and stare
It'll blow the stormy clouds away
To be dancing with that girl

The beer is cool in Swingtown
There's everything I need
Blow a kiss to the Empress
Shes a Queen indeed
Pay the price and treat her nice
No time to stand and stare
It'll give you shelter from the storm
To be dancing with that girl

In Swingtown. Swingtown.
John Brown in Swingtown
If you make her smile on a Saturday night
Buy her schnapps and treat her right
You will feel quite outta sight
In Swing town



The Legend of SwingTown (as told by John Brown)

The idea for ‘SwingTown’ came about after a chat with a customer during lockdown. He was a music lover too and I had just received from Steve a song I had written called ‘One Dance’ that we had previously worked on. I played it to my customer for his opinion. We were all starved of company back then and he was more than happy to listen at arms length of course for safety reasons. He liked it and Steve will be pleased to hear this, he especially liked the sound of the THE SINGER! So the conversation turned to Steve and it turns out my customer had been to see him when he had played with the ‘Casablanca Boys’. As I left thinking ‘it’s a very small world’ I started reflecting on the days past when I had heard Steve’s band and how much I’d enjoyed the performances too. Before I even reached my car the title ‘SwingTown’ was already being typed into the notes on my phone. I wanted to write a song in the Casablanca boys style almost as a reminder of happier days, lockdown certainly had a lot to answer for! As the day went on I would stop occasionally as more words came together and a very rough outline began to form.

As restrictions began to lift Steve visited for a chat and the strange sight of an open door with two men sat far apart laughing like drains for all to see must have intrigued the passerby. As Steve was about to leave I re-enacted the old columbo line, “I’ve got just one last thing to ask you”. I read the first draft of ‘SwingTown’ to him. Always a little nervous to share something that comes from inside you, it’s personal and never existed before. The fear that it’s not strong enough to take life’s knocks that another person could kill the entire idea with one crushing sentence or turned up face. Thankfully Steve didn’t do that - this time 😂 but instead said, “Mm your getting better at this songwriting lark, I like it, send it to me and I’ll have a proper look at it. I like the way the story develops all the way through”. Well I was happy with that but as time went by I heard nothing. Those where tough days to cope with, lockdown was finally coming to an end but the mental anguish of the previous two years had taken its toll on many of us. Depression had ‘raised its head’ once more and the battle to stay ahead of it had taken a lot of effort and even though I knew ‘SwingTown’ wasn’t complete I didn’t have the capacity to think deeply enough to add much to it. Steve encouraged me at times saying, “I haven’t forgotten that song, I’ve got an idea for the tune”. When the first recording dropped into my email account - I was overjoyed. A friend had worked hard on something for me! Something that didn’t exist before was now ‘alive and kicking’. I had years before talked to Steve about the creative side of life and wished I could do something that lived longer than me. Maybe that’s why people paint or write or sculpt. Our own fragility is constantly chasing us, unseen but ever pursuing us to the end. Maybe our victory over our foe is to leave something behind that can not be erased by times' cruel glare. I was happy and excitedly began the chase for feedback from customers and friends, all the while this positive happy song helped to ‘quieten the barking black dog’.

At this point I have to make an admission, I can’t claim credit for all the lyrics, the song although in my eyes was brilliant, what I had given Steve I would later come to term as a ‘bag of bones‘ that he then crafted in to a body of work to be proud of. Maybe depression and not “finishing” the words has led to an absolute pip of a song that may never have existed if Steve hadn’t taken up the project and out of loving care for his pal finished what I could not at that time…. a month or two passed and Steve had said “It’s got something, and I’d like to see what we could do with it.” Now that was music to my ears! I can’t sing, I can’t play an instrument and have a touch of the old dyslexia but maybe possibly I could help create something beautiful that will last forever. I was not going to pass this opportunity up “so what do we do next Steve, let’s do it”!

Steve has worked in the industry for years, Virgin records, bands, clubs, you name it he’s done it so I was happy to follow his lead. He would always ask my opinion first before giving his own. Clever lad knew his opinion would influence mine so always I had to speak first. I began to love that and as my confidence grew our way of working together become one of great enjoyment and laughter.

We found a picture for the cover. I absolutely love this picture, it’s taken in the Roof Garden Restaurant above the Waterfront Hotel in Hull. The bucket in the rafters just makes me chuckle every time I see it and the expressions on their faces is so atmospheric. Strangely enough the first time I ever became aware of Steve was in the cellar bar in the basement of The Waterfront Club. Steve was playing with his band and my friends and I would regularly pop down there for the music and midweek quiz. Just to show the attention to detail and getting it just right we had several goes at positioning his name on the picture. Something that no one will notice or care about but we did so several attempts later we finally settled on the picture you see now and we love it and hope you do too. We then turned to the track itself. One of the earliest things I noticed was that Steve’s vocals became swamped by the music so he increased the vocal track but still I thought it needed more and then we hit the sweet spot! ‘SwingTown master 2’. The vocal just bounced perfectly over the music and it was transformed from something that was almost flat to something that was now 3D and asking for your attention, no, demanding your attention with a great tune that sticks in the mind on replay and vocals that sit perfectly on the ear. Why do we as people never leave things alone when they are right? Two weeks we spent trying to make ‘perfect’ even better until I had to admit we needed to go back to ‘master 2’. I felt uneasy saying it because Steve had spent hours finely moving things around looking for that something we already had but to my great relief Steve thought exactly the same. When do you stop? We had gone too far but now we knew we had something special so back tracked to ‘master 2’. We did keep some of the many improvements that Steve had put in but largely discarded two weeks work. It’s amazing how immersed you can get in a project when you are enjoying it. Many an hour was spent on the phone, “what do you think of this” or “what if we did that”. All good questions but the answers are always subjective. We hope we got them right mostly, and far from disagreeing we largely were on the ‘same page’. One really good improvement came from the piano solo. It started off my least favourite bit then as life often does it changes and then became one of my favourite parts. Steve asked his trusted ‘piano wizard’ Paul Rogers to work his magic. The results had us “goin nuts for SwingTown.” Loved what you have done Paul and thank you!
We let the song ‘breathe’ for a day or two, it was ready but we needed to catch up to that idea and live with it for awhile, strange how doing nothing to it was making it better and better on ours ears. Our work was done ….. or so I thought. Steve threw into the mix the idea of ‘mastering’. I didn’t have a clue what that was so a happy few hours was spent educating myself on the dark arts of mastering and what they can do for a track. So now who do we choose to look after our baby! That was never going to be an easy decision to make, letting go and letting someone else have an influence over your cherished baby. We decided all they were going to do was ‘brush the babies hair’ very gently and I told myself to not over worry 😂. But who? After researching ‘free mastering’ which normally would have appealed to two Yorkshiremen we decided to give it the best we could, to have no regrets. Enter Abbey Road Studios, what a fantastic reputation they have in music. I can’t express how excited we were sending our ‘little baby’ to the ‘big city’. Frank Arkwright has done an amazing job, the song now feels polished and beautiful to the ear. ‘Beatles’, ‘New Order’ and now ‘Larkman and Brown’ ha love that. Abbey road and my mate Frank - you are on the guest list in SwingTown and if you dear reader go to Spotify and give us a listen your name will be too. ‘Come on down to SwingTown - yeah’

PS Oh just one last thing I must mention. Before Steve had seen this incredible rough first draft I read it to young Freya and waited for her opinion. She’s a good song writer in her own right and I was looking forward to hearing her thoughts. She said very little at the time but a couple of months later I asked her why she hadn’t said much about it, did she not like it? She looked a little uncomfortable and finally said, “Well John it’s rude isn’t, fancy writing about going to a swingers club.” 🤦🏼‍♂️ The youth of today have no idea 😂 but when it was explained that it’s got nothing to do with rude things all was well with the world once more, but it still makes me chuckle to this day thinking I’d shocked my little pal.
Towards the end of the project I retold this story to Steve and he said, “Oh great she thinks it ‘rude’ - that’s good.” My reply ‘No Steve she wasn’t using the modern way of twisting things around where bad means good, she was genuinely convinced it was rude’ 😂. Hope you’ve enjoyed a little of the back story to SwingTown
Your new friends, John and Steve