Lonely Avenue

How I came to write an album with Ben Folds

Twenty or so years ago, I published a little book of essays called Songbook, in the US, and 31 Songs in the UK. They weren’t my favourite thirty-one songs, just songs that allowed me to write about certain things: solos, my eldest son, harmony, ‘edginess’, England and so on. For the piece about lyrics, I chose Ben Folds’ beautiful song ‘Smoke’, from the second Ben Folds Five album; I love Ben’s songwriting, which has maintained a remarkably consistent quality right up until the present day. I think he’s a genius. Some time later, I received an email from Ben thanking me for my kind words, but pointing out that Smoke was the only song in his oeuvre to date for which he had provided only the music. The lyric came from a friend. I blame CDs. If I’d owned that album on vinyl, I’d have noticed the shared credit in the brackets. But we were in touch, which was a thrill, and he seemed to bear no ill-will.

And then one day I received a message saying something like, “Hey! Want to write a song with me? It’s for William Shatner.”