Album · 2017

The Lighthouse Years

Commuters, shopkeepers and night workers, scored like a film about one very long morning.

Tracks

1. Headlights Into the GreyFive in the morning, no visibility and a horn theme that sounds like dawn deciding to turn up. This is the opening I always wanted.cinematic pop, film score4:01
2. Eight Forty-Five and MovingEight forty-five is the hour the whole city becomes an orchestra. I wrote it in a station cafe with a coffee going cold.orchestral pop, brass3:41
3. Milk, Bread and Good MorningThe shutters go up, the bell rings and for a moment everybody is hopeful. It is the warmest tune I have, and I mean to keep it that way.neoclassical, pastoral3:32
4. Meter Running, Stories FreeA taxi driver told me his best stories before sunrise, so I gave the song a meter that keeps running. The brass sways in the back seat.orchestral pop, light swing4:07
5. The Airport Fare Before SunriseFour in the morning, the airport road and someone's daughter flying away. I wrote the strings so they never quite land.neoclassical, nocturne4:51
6. The Drummer Kept Our Seats WarmThe line about the drum kit still in time is true; an old friend rang me with the news. It is a song about loyalty, the quiet kind.neoclassical, chamber ballad3:40
7. I Held the Umbrella a Little Too LongI held it a little too long, as the title says, and so does the arrangement. A romance that lasted as long as a shower.orchestral pop, romantic ballad3:43
8. Dawn on the Groundsman's LineThe groundsman marks the line before anyone arrives. I wanted to give him the stirring music the players get.cinematic pop, anthemic5:01
9. Streamers on the Gym FloorA school dance remembered through floor wax and punch. I kept the arrangement soft so the memory could do the dancing.neoclassical, nostalgic ballad4:48
10. The Doorframe Keeps Our HeightsThe echo comes to live in all the chairs. This is the song I find hardest to hear, and the one I am proudest of.neoclassical, elegiac4:45
11. The Last Night Under the Old RoofA homecoming I never quite had, set to a slow march. The last horn line is the lighthouse beam going round one more time.neoclassical, film score4:14

Liner notes

I took the title from a lighthouse keeper I met on a holiday, who told me the best years of his life were the ones nobody saw. That became the spine of this record: ordinary people doing something faithfully in the dark. We recorded it in a converted chapel with a brass section borrowed from a colliery band, and the choruses are as slow as I dared. If there is a signature to my music, it is on this record, in the horn theme that opens the first track and returns, quietly, at the end of the last.

Leopold Marsh