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The Free Life

from The Overflow by Humphreys & Keen

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Lovingly mastered specifically for vinyl by Don Bartley, cut at the legendary Abbey Rd Studios, pressed on solid 140g vinyl, and housed in a glossy sleeve, this individually-numbered (001-500) record is THE way to listen to The Overflow.

    Also includes immediate download of 13 track album in your choice of 320k mp3, 24-bit FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire. Sorted!

    NB: some covers have seam splits so the vinyl price reduced to USD30 for all remaining stock.
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about

This music is by Alan Parker. One of my favourite TV themes of all time (Moody & Pegg). I adore great TV themery and this piece was always tops for me. I searched for it long and hard. (A trip to the UK from NZ and archive people face to face. Enough?) No result.
A record company dude who shall remain anonymous finally tracked it down. It turned out to be a piece of library music called "The Free Life" that sat on side 2 of a library piece of vinyl next to other gems like "Spooky Forest", "The Chase!" and "Unsettling Alley". Basically, mood music. I maintained that it deserved better. I wrote the lyrics and melody over the unchanged music and Peter sang the words beautifully. It remains "THe Free Life". It's about my Dad dying. The sample at top and end is Woody Brown at 81 telling the story of how he and his best mate Dicky Cross were forced to try and ride the big waves of Waimea Bay in Hawaii to safety in 1943(?). Woody made it. Dicky didn't. They were the first to do it.

lyrics

It's just that, you see, we're been looking for days and days
But he's lost in the last set and haze

If there was a half chance, a little something, like a new idea, well I'm sorry, there's no more and nothing at all can be done.
Its not looking good but what can we do

The sunset is final and here
It's the end and we all had agreed

Tail lights are faded and the free life to never sleep again, like before, if I could have done more, and the phone just rings cold,
I'm old

Where am I now, alive
Are you OK?
Someones arrived

credits

from The Overflow, released February 20, 2006
Humphreys/Keen

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Humphreys & Keen Auckland

Graeme Humphreys & Peter Keen were the primary songwriting partnership of the critically acclaimed Able Tasmans, an NZ band in the Flying Nun stable that produced 4 albums & one EP.

Named from the A B Paterson character Clancy of the Overflow, the ideas are drawn from many sources; Australian outback poetry; magic realism; a train between Bologna & Firenze; & our dark little rainy island. ... more

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