The girl from Northern Exposure

06 Jan 2013
Maggie O'Connell, from Northern Exposure

I think this is my favourite song from all of those I've played on in these recordings, Glen wrote it, and Caroline provided the line 'Her brow is ploughed' and I improvised the bass line. It's really just right, quirky, and to my ears at the time certainly of record quality, well at least flexi-disc.

The girl from Northern Exposure being 'Maggie O'Connell' of course, and this was another of our 'unlikely American heroines' tribute songs. I was really convinced if we could just find a drummer and do some gigs, Manchester / Nottingham or wherever this could perhaps lead on to something else.

Girl from northern exposure lyrics

The only trouble was it also made me realise my shortfalls, I could never write anything as natural and simple as this that would sound great, all my ability was mathematical, I could learn chords and sequences and write poems and lyrics but there was always something missing, something fake, missing that je ne sais quoi, (I don't mean I should have been writing things in French), whereas Glen's guitar chords on this are not even 'proper chords' and seem largely selected for their nearness to each other on two strings, but sound magical and so does the solo at the end that ebbs, fades and comes back.

Glen did write to say he had a gig in Nottingham, but that he was going to do it with another band he was playing with at the time called 'Mitten' (that all made a bit more sense then)

So I sort of gave up a bit on writing songs and being creative and moved to London to try and get a proper job.

All the Songs