Charlie Barnes is both one and many.
A deeply individual artist, the name also adorns the songwriter's band project. Debut album 'More Stately Mansions' arrives on May 11th, taking its title from a short story by noted American author Kurt Vonnegut.
Clash is able to premiere the title track, and it's a soothing introduction to Charlie Barnes. At times sparse – often with little more than Charlie's voice and a strummed guitar – 'More Stately Mansions' is capable of rising up into enormous swells of sound.
Both personal and epic, it's a track which is clearly close to the songwriter's heart. Charlie Barnes introduces 'More Stately Mansions'…
'More Stately Mansions' was one of those songs that, for the most part, came together without my really realising. Writing it was a case of putting together a patchwork of little ideas I'd had lying around, but the trigger that brought it all together was singing the melody for the chorus (…and I use that term very lightly in this case) into my phone on the way to the cinema one night.
I'm so proud of this song. It's one of the most bonkers things I've ever written, but without being obtuse. It's still fundamentally just a pop song with a melody you can whistle. Unusually for me, the lyrics came together very quickly and easily. I don't even remember writing half of them. It's nothing groundbreaking really; early twenties contemplation of your place in the world and why we do the things we do, how the hell to keep your head above water and all that.
It's actually one of the least personal songs on the album, at least in an autobiographical sense, but I feel it's some of the most succinct writing I've ever managed.
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