Gitmo Stomp is a cheeky little tune about the residents of Guantanamo Bay. It was written before Barack Obama claimed he would shut the place down. Still waiting… By the way, I didn’t actually write this song. Another guy called Danny Mulligan did. We share the same name. And he’s kindly allowed me to pass it off as my own 😉

I got the chance to stay in a big old house in Co. Monaghan where all these artists, painters, writers and creatives go to get work done. Every night we met for a home-cooked dinner to share stories before scuttling back to our creative caverns. I was nocturnal for the entire week and wrote this song at 3am.

“The Anticipation Is Killing Me” always struck me as a good title for a song. And given the way I was feeling about the world at large, it made sense that lyrically it was the antithesis of something to look forward to. Musically I knew it needed to be a repetitive, descending chord progression. I knew this because I nicked the idea straight from Donovan’s The War Drags On.

The sound guy at the Pavillion had heard me play a few times when he handed me a Phil Ochs CD. I can’t remember the guy’s name, it’s been that long, but I can’t thank him enough for the CD. You can trace the origins of Microchipping Me by listening to Love Me I’m A Liberal by Phil Ochs.