(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down
‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’ started it’s life instrumentally in 1986. I had in mind a two-part guitar piece and it progressed out of jam sessions with a friend I’d met whilst working at Huddersfield’s Electronic Arts Workshop, Colin Ramsden, who I was trying to start a band with at the time. I came up with the claw-and-slap guitar riff, and at one point he jammed along with a little repeating section using some picked harmonics, which appealed to me.
I can’t remember now what Colin’s version was like, we made no recordings of those little jam sessions, and so when I did get chance to do my own recording of the track some time later at Rick Cocker’s home-studio, I had worked out my own version of the picked harmonic, but for me, it was a finger-picked pattern.
Having recorded the backing tracks, and adding a synth bass-line and drum machine, I had little idea where to take this. I had a melody, and a hook for the chorus: ‘Don’t hurry, slow down, slow down,’ but little else for the rest of the song. I played a few of my demo tracks to my old college friend and writer, John Helliwell, including ‘Slow Down’, and he was keen to have a go at helping me finish it. Within a week or two he had something, and the verses were formed. I used my hook and added a pre-chorus, and we had the song.
Over the years, I’ve had two or three versions of ‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’ in demo form, either on cassette, as it was originally, and then later on CD and digitally, but nothing made it beyond this point.
Fast forward 37 years or so…
I knew I wanted to do something with the song, but it was my daughter Amy who sparked it all off again. She came across to us in December 2023 for Christmas, and I did a little set for friends at a gathering at home. Amy said she’d been working on a harmony for ‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’, and could we have a go at singing it. We played and sang it for our small audience unrehearsed, and it went down a storm. It was then I realised it was ready to do another, more polished version.
I had already part-recorded a slimmed-down version of the song, with two acoustic guitars, and added a bass-line and percussion in Spring 2024. Amy agreed then to come across for an early Summer break in late June/early July and did her vocal for me during that week.
What astounded me was that Amy took to recording very easily. She hadn’t used a studio mic before, or recorded using DAW software either, but adapted very quickly, wasn’t phased by any of the repetitiveness of the comping process, and could stay on pitch like a pro. It made the whole session very enjoyable.
If anything, other issues got in the way of my finishing the song. I released ‘Wry Smile’ back in October ’24, and then we had family health issues to deal with. Claire lost her Dad in December, a long journey with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and then her Mum was seriously ill too. We went back to the UK for Christmas and to support the family through crisis, and so my planned releases went on hold for a while.
On the 29th December Amy and I did get chance to shoot video scenes in Ealand for ‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’. I had this idea to try and portray the ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ themes of the song using slow-and-fast frame videoing. It was difficult but fun filming all my scenes singing at double-speed, and Amy’s at half-speed. The result you’ll see for yourself on the video.
Our test-shots originally were made indoors with a plain-background, which just didn’t work. It was only when we shot outdoors, with the Ealand sea of wind-turbines behind us, did it help and I think aided the fast and slow element of it.
The sad conclusion to this story though is that we learned in early January that our good friend and collaborator on this song, John Helliwell, died on December 31st, after a short battle with cancer. Our song therefore has become a tribute to him and his generous and creative spirit.
We miss you, John.
There are a few more songs that John and I collaborated on, which I intend to release sometime in the near future. More news about this soon.
‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’ is out NOW.