Lyrics

For more than forty years, off and on, I have written lyrics for the music of Pete Atkin. Though our songs never made a fortune back in the days when a musical act had to earn big money or else fold its tent, there has been a revival of our work in recent years, with a loyal audience big enough to make a travelling song-show a viable theatrical venture. In 2003 we toured Britain, in 2004 Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, and in 2005 Britain again. (A sample of what our touring show is like can be found in the Audio section.) During these travels, people have been kind enough to ask where they can read the lyrics. There was once a booklet called A First Folio with some of the early lyrics featured, but it has been out of print for a long time. A much larger selection is included in my verse collection The Book of My Enemy (2003), which is still in print. But the easiest way to read all the lyrics written up until the time when we resumed work around the turn of the millennium is to click through to the Pete Atkin website. In the Discography section of the site, the entry for each album opens up onto a transcription of all its lyrics. The site also contains a shop where the Pete Atkin CDs can be bought on line. These CDs include the latest, released in April 2008: Midnight Voices. Further links on this page lead to other material relevant to our partnership, although “long working holiday” would be a better descriptive term.

— March 2008