Singer-songwriter-undertaker

A MUSIC-loving funeral director could soon be playing a key role in a national songwriting competition.

Distinguished figures like Sir Terry Wogan, ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris and Johnnie Walker may be casting a critical ear over a song penned for charity by Neil Brunton – if he can secure enough online votes.

Neil’s song, ‘Jacob Street’, is among 50 which struck a chord with Oldie Composers – “a UK-wide songwriting competition, open to the older generation, to showcase their talent and raise money for Barnardo’s”.

‘Jacob Street’ was loosely inspired by an episode at Kirkcaldy bus station, where he saw a man and a woman busking.

A couple of years later, Neil saw the man there again but the woman had gone.

“I started wondering what became of her,” he explained.

“Had she gone on to bigger and better things, while he was left at Kirkcaldy bus station?”

The 50 melodies are all up for public vote and the 20 which gather the most hits by January 7 will be judged by a panel of Radio 2 personalities.

After that, the leading cheap cialis online canada four will be recorded in London by professional musicians and released on i-Tunes to benefit the charity.

Here at the GFG-Batesville Tower the toiling cadres have been listening to Neil’s song and offering their opinions, for what little they’re worth. They like its air of elegiac melancholy, reinforced by repetitive cadences. Said one, “Just the job for two o’clock in the morning after your relationship has broken down and you’ve drunk too much whisky.” Most agreed they like it very much indeed.

Other songs in the final 50 are Eyes Wide Open, Heaven’s Not So Far Away, Cry, House of Tears, Getting Away, Losing the Light and Heartbreak. It is our belief that these songs were not composed by undertakers. 

Vote for Neil now. There’s no more to it than a click. Hear his song first. Here.

Read the entire article in Fife Today here.