chris home
made from home
Follow your dreams and never give up
Having worked and lived and helped to raise a family, I finally decided to capture the songs that have been there all along in my head and on my guitar. They've never seen the light of day before now, just something I did on my own as a break from working.
Getting something recorded and released in lockdown is as much as I could have ever hoped to do with these songs. It's taken a long time to get to this point but that just reinforces what I already knew and tell my kids often - follow your dreams and never give up.
'Made from Home'
Album Out Now
So this is a song I wrote for my wife, Sarah. We went on a short trip to Lake Garda in 2013 - one of the few times we’d been away without the kids. The hotel was great, perched in the hills above the lake with amazing views. It was lovely just to slow down for a minute and have some time for ourselves. We’ve been lucky to be able to have those moments, I know many don’t. This is an out and out love song. I’d been playing around with the different parts of the song for ages but it was 3 or 4 years ago when the lyrics and music came together. I wanted to express something of the uncertainty and complexity of any relationship - natural human doubts that can creep in from time to time. But also I wanted to express the joy of properly loving someone over the best part of a lifetime. I probably don’t tell Sarah that I love her often enough so I hope this makes up a little bit for that. Check it out here .
This was my second single and the last song on the album. You can play it on different platforms here . The chords and melody for this were largely written in my mid-20s. Really easy one to play - easy three chords, like most of my songs - and it was fun to sing along to. I rewrote the lyrics 20 years later and decided to write a song about taking a risk in life and going for it.
Whatever your circumstances, however bad things are, there is always the possibility for the hope and joy that small everyday things can bring. Like a nice cup of tea or sharing a smile with a stranger. That’s what this song is about. So this was single number one and the first song that Jason and the band worked on. I love the energy they added to it with the guitars and that piano riff - made me so happy when I first heard them play it. You can play it on Spotify here .
As a young fella I had hopeful dreams of becoming a singer-songwriter. Over 25 years ago, I sent a demo tape to a record company after recording a few songs on a 4 track with an acoustic guitar, drum machine and synth. I got a letter back asking if they could come and see me play at a gig. I wasn’t doing gigs, I’d never done a gig, very few people had ever heard my music. I didn’t have the confidence to go for it and I never replied. I spent the next couple of decades or so building a career in technology and providing for my family. My music was always there in the distant background but I hardly even played my songs to my wife and kids. And then when covid hit, I decided to try again, dust off some of those old songs and write some new ones. I recorded a demo of a song I wrote early in lockdown called ‘Long Way Round’ and thought I’d have a go and put it out on Spotify. You can hear it here . This was one of ten songs I'd written that I thought could work as an album. I had rough demos of everything, but it was obvious if I was going to do this properly I needed some help.
