Songs from the Last Page
Songs from the Last Page - released August 11, 2023
1. Song from the Last Page of How to Be Both
from How to Be Both by Ali Smith (Penguin Books)
2. Song from the Last Page of Lanark
from Lanark by Alasdair Gray (Canongate Publishing)
(With permission from the Estate of Alasdair Gray)
3. Song from the Last Page of The Pink House
from The Pink House (Reality, Reality) by Jackie Kay (Pan Macmillan)
4. Song from the Last Page of Treasure Island
from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (Cassell)
5. Song from the Last Page of News of the Dead
from News of the Dead by James Robertson (Penguin Books)
6. Bà Bà Mo Leanabh
Words by Calum Mackinnon from Litir Chun an t-Saighdear Gun Ainm (CLÀR)
7. Song from the Last Page of Duck Feet
from Duck Feet by Eli Percy (Monstrous Regiment Publishing)
8. Song from the Last Page of Sonny and Me
from Sonny and Me by Ross Sayers (Cranachan Publishing)
9. Song from the Last Page of At the Loch of the Green Corrie
from At the Loch of the Green Corrie by Andrew Greig (Quercus Publishing)
10. Song from the Last Page of The Valley of Fear
from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle (Penguin Classics)
11. Song from near the Last Page of Peter Pan
from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie (Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity)
Credits
All Tracks written & arranged by Gareth Williams, PRS/MCPS
except Bà Bà Mo Leanabh written by Deirdre Graham
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Piano - Gareth Williams
Vocals, Backing Vocals - Deirdre Graham (tracks 3 & 6)
Violin - Aisling O Dea
Cello - Justyna Jablonska
Photography & design by Kris Kesiak
Recorded & engineered at GloWormRecording by Keir Long
Mastered by Andrea Gobbi at Carrier Waves Mastering
Permission for text usage kindly granted from all estates and publishers. All rights reserved.
Album Sleeve Notes
These songs all have one thing in common - they begin on the final page of a book. And, all the books I chose for this collection also have something in common - when I read them, I didn't want them to end. So I took what I found in the final lines, with no words added and none taken out, and built verses, choruses, bridges, and refrains. Stories never stay on the page anyway - these ones just became songs.
In each song, we hold on to the moment that comes just before we close a book for the final time. Remain there in the melancholy, the awkwardness, in the joy or the chill, even in the silence. Some of these stories end with trauma or heartache, some end with the promise of another adventure, some end in solitude. One ends with a slushie. All of them have allowed me to celebrate Scottish people, places, writing, and language. And they have allowed me to explore the notion that nothing is ever truly over- you can find a new beginningat the end of any story if you sit at the piano for long enough.
Of course you will find outliers here. Every concept album must have them. Ali Smith's How to be Both has not one but two possible endings - the song will lead you down the path I took to one of those final pages. Deirdre Graham’s stunning contribution is a Gaelic song she gently pulled from a single page in the book Litir Chun an t-Saighdear Gun Ainm, drawing from a letter by Calum MacKinnon. And lastly, I’m afraid I fell for a sentence just a few pages from the end of Peter Pan. So, for now, we must settle for a Song from near the Last Page of Peter Pan.
GW