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Background to Our Songs: Strange Clock
Written by Jimmy
Strange Clock by AbubillaMusic
A little poem, forgotten and buried in a time capsule for 18 years. A realisation that London is just a collection of small villages.
Strange Clock was a poem I wrote on October 19 1992, the day after our son and first child was born. He’s Hunter, a product of years of IVF, frozen as an embryo for quite a while as poor Kathy flew back and forth between Moscow and Boston for IVF treatments. We called him Frosty as a kid and his blankie was a very dirty snow man. We wanted this kid bad and waited a very, very long time. So the words are simply the emotion you feel about everything changing – time will be different as you move from measuring years to weeks. He’s a new little clock in our lives – ‘with a very loud tick tock.’ And you worship him.
Hunter’s Uncle, also Hunter, gave him a time capsule for his ‘0’ birthday, and collected all sorts of things from 1992. Kathy gave him this poem and it was buried along with newspapers, videos, letters, etc… for 18 years. Over the summer of 2010 we re-opened the capsule for Hunter’s 18th birthday, and there it was. (Amazing gift, by the way, Uncle Hunter)
So Jimmy asked the band to help him turn it into a little song. One of Jimmy’s favourite band experiences. Andy came up with the piano bit relatively quickly and then Sophie (cello), Ed (guitar), Andy and Jimmy just went through it again and again, adding and changing the structure. One problem is it was a poem not a song, so no chorus, no verses… well pretty much like all the unstructured junk Jimmy writes. This was Sophie’s first real writing she did for the cello – it is all her – and was the start of her writing most of her cello parts now. A revelation and we fight hard not to have cello on everything. We then brought Rob in for bass and Andy played drums. We had to have me on vocals, because no one else sounds like a father of zero year old much less an 18 year old. Apologies.
Now two quick separate stories about Hunter and Frosty:
- Frosty and Waitrose: It’s 1997. We had moved from Moscow 17 months before and were just starting Hunter at the local state primary. In reception, one of his first home work assignments was to talk about a toy he really loved. He loved his Snowman, Frosty 2 (Hunter was Frosty 1) and wanted to know why he got it. So we tell him the whole story: he’s a product of IVF, he was a frozen embryo for a while, he’s actually about six months older than he thinks he is, etc… Really nice conversation and you could see his imagination whirl as he sees a little Hunter frozen in an ice cube tray in our freezer (which was his image). We had never been shy about telling about all the IVF bits (Tory and Morgan were more, … organic) — like miscarriages, we felt if you talked about it, you would end up helping someone who might be going thru it, thinking they were alone. Equally, we didn’t wear T shirts about it and felt telling little Hunter about it was a big deal. So he writes an essay about it. And he pretty much nailed it. All the facts. It leads to his conclusion that he and his favourite toy were both frozen embryo’s together and became good friends in the freezer. Well, maybe he didn’t totally nail it. So he reads his little essay at reception. His teacher loved it and send Hunter to the Headmistress where he read it to her. That afternoon, Kathy is shopping at the local Waitrose and the Headmistress is there. She comes running down the aisle saying how much she loved the story of Hunter, the IVF treatment and Frosty. From telling Hunter the night before, the story was the talk of Waitrose. At that point, we realised that London is just a collection of very small villages.
- Frosty and the Taxi Driver. So Hunter loved Frosty. A lot. And when we would take long trips to the States, we needed to make sure all the kids had their favourite toys – especially Frosty and Morgan’s blankie. So we are at Heathrow Terminal 4 heading to Washington and Hunter asks, ‘Where’s Frosty?’ And his little face falls as he realises Frosty’s back in the bed. Tears flow. No noise, just tears. The horror of thinking you’ll be travelling for 8 hours and living for 2 weeks without your best friend. Jimmy goes into action mode. Amazingly, our cleaner is at the house and we explain where Frosty is. We then call the local cab company to get him. Yes, this requires some rather long explanation when describing the passenger. We then send Kathy and the girls through security and Jimmy and Hunter go outside, hand in hand, waiting for Frosty’s arrival. After 40 minutes, and a 1,000 reassurances that Hunter would not travel to the US without his best friend, the cab arrives. And true story, the driver gets out, walks around to the passenger door and undoes the seat belt. Frosty had been driven upright in the front seat with a seat belt on. He picked up Frosty, shuts the door carefully, walk back around the car. Hunter is wide eyed now. He bends down to Hunter’s level, hands him Frosty and says, ‘Mr Frosty has arrived to be with you, sir.’ And walks away. At that point, we realised that London is just a collection of small villages.
Jimmy