When I Loved You (Yesterday)

Greenwing’s new release is out on 1st July, once again featuring the sublime vocals of Jane Milligan, singer, multi-instrumentalist, dog-lover and now official West End Wendy (of which more later….)

“When I Loved You (Yesterday)” has been a long time in the realisation. Following the single “Irreplaceable”, which was my first collaboration with Jane, I took a break from writing and producing (and performing! Did I mention I play on all the tracks?) songs under the Greenwing banner to concentrate on the instrumental album “Train Tracks and Travelogues Vol.2”. “Irreplaceable” had been a real pleasure, from writing through to recording, and indeed video-making, but the whole promotional process was incredibly time-consuming. The miracles of modern technology enable you to reach out across the globe, but by the same token the globe is also trying to reach out to you and it can all feel like we’re just shouting into a void. Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Milligan, J., we did manage to get some much-needed radio play for “Irreplaceable”, but I can honestly say I spent more time on the phone chasing up radio producers- (in the guise of my alter-ego, PR specialist to the music industry and totally non-existent person “David Charles”)- than I did working on any new music.

Thus, a break from Greenwing to work on the electro-acoustic minimalist material that became “Train Tracks and Travelogues Vol.2”. To be honest, I questioned the wisdom of trying to release and promote a single off my own bat again. I say “Questioned the wisdom”, I think the exact phrase was “Fuck this for a laugh”, and so some three years passed before I felt minded to give Greenwing another outing.

Having said all that, alot of the delay was in reworking the song, tinkering with it whilst working on the “Train Tracks” album, and taking time to find the right sound for it. Jane’s voice is amazing for wrapping itself around anything, and you could go in any one of a thousand different directions with it. I also enlisted the help of guitar guru Julian Littman, a long -time friend and collaborator, and go-to-guitarist for so many people. It’s difficult to know with Jules which is more exciting, the people he has worked with- Madonna, Gerry Rafferty, Brian May, Dexys Midnight Runners, Steel Eye Span, to name a few- or the unprintable anecdotes that always accompany his experiences of playing for the great and good (coke and hookers in a limo anyone?!). His playing is so instinctively musical that it’s always a joy to hear him turn up in the studio and do his stuff.

And so off we go again… Jane is about to appear in the West End in Mama Mia!, so now seemed like as good a time as any to set off on the promotional band-wagon once more. I finished making the accompanying video for the single a couple of weeks ago, out of old home movie footage garnered from The Prelinger Archive, a site hosting literally thousands of hours of public domain video material, most of which I seem to have sat through in the course of making the promo. All the footage, including that of the loving couple, was filmed in San Francisco, where the song is set.

“When I Loved You (Yesterday)” is out on 1st July, but you can listen and preorder it now, and as ever, tell all your friends, and then tell them again…