roughcut #3

jot that in yer jotta. notes app roulette.

Thinking about my school ‘jotter’. A small yellow notebook with my name in my best joined-up hand writing in the little rectangle on the front. Just a spare exercise book for notes and whatever. It was mainly used to play MASHED or tear pages out for secret notes and fortune tellers or any other game that told you how many boyfriends you had. But it would also house the occasional half formed poem, lyric, letter, some plot outline for the new Pirates of the Caribbean that I was gonna cast myself in, just whatever thought I could snatch between being flung from maths to P.E. I do still obviously have notebooks and sketchpads that I scribble my brain in to, but there’s something about the unadulterated chaos of a JOTTA that I’m remembering fondly.

Then I thought, ah yeah, kinda like my NOTES APP. Last week a mate who is also a songwriter suggested playing ‘notes app roulette’ over a pint and I had to decline. It’s a hellscape in there. Who knows what you’re gonna get. I wanted him to still like me after our pint. But it did encourage me to sift through and see what’s up in my own brain. Amongst the reams of to do lists that include eat and shower (yikes), and music musings like, snare crunchier in outro no flams no fuckin around, there’s a lot of quick little poems, usually hastily jabbed in to my phone in transit, between places, or just before bed, in attempt to get that final thought out. They weren’t ever meant to have another destination other than my phone, but in the spirit of keeping this substack rough, unedited and all about *process*, I thought I’d share a few.

What follows are some true roughcuts from my skull during an extremely busy and intense time. Enjoy !! Send me yours back. I guess that is Notes App Roulette (with choice) xxx