Penelope Swales lost in London

Penelope Swales is an independent artist.
PO Box 136, Emerald, Victoria, 3782

The last lines of Penelope Swales Lost In London which celebrates an Aussie battling against the crowd at the Rose and Crown, Newport was recorded at Cambridge Folk Festival in 1996 and turns up on
Vaguely Sunny - Isle of Wight Rock anthology CD, price £10 p&p

Penelope Swales, Cambridge Folk Festival 1996

Australian Songwriter 'Lost in London'

Penelope Swales

Lost In London

I was sitting in Soho square listening to the mobile telephones ringing
Having just descended out of the air I was trying to get a grip on everything
The out of love agony of ice cream vans
beggars, and people with outstretched hands
private book readers, public school kids
beggars and stony faced matrons
airplanes and car alarms and the unending cacophony
abounding this wee droplet here of relative tranquility

Didn't expect it to be so full on
I expected empty benches like in Kirsty's song
but its summer now, but its winter where you are
but its summer here now but its winter in my heart
but its summer now and what's more it's peak hour

My poor feet were pinched and smarting walking the streets in my new Doc Martens
My old heart was sick and sore pounding the squares of the Monolopy Board
People say 'Oooh your from far away now, can you sing the theme from Neighbours, a Country Practice, perhaps Rolf Harris or the song from Home and Away.'

Here the cyclists wear gas masks
and beggars spit brimstones in the politely ignorning parks
and people of all shapes and shades beam the same London drawl
To look at an elm tree and see that it belongs here was something I hand't expected at all
Harlequin couples warm my cockles, smacked out madman, hassles and hustles,
man that looks like Bowie goes sloping by in platform shoes,
other solitary women wear the same hunchback of caution that I do

And I was thinking of his shyness and his slender hips between my thighs
as my fingers sought the handgrips on the back of his motorbike
Dipping and weaving in the traffic and noise and my bare knees got paranoid
There's no margin for error in New Cross and not an opportunity in sight.

When I'm lost in London I try to keep close to couples in love
I warm my cold soul on their radiance,
tell myself one day I'd be back in that sweet fold again
Observe the city from the cocoon of a train

And I'm amazed at the persistence of life, weeds growing out of window sills
flowers blooming on asbestos roofing and pigeons nesting in factory grills
and how do children still skip and glow with that same pure luminosity while they drink this hard water and breath this foul air.

And the pissed old farts at the back of the pub sang skippy the bush kangeroo
all through the chorus of Already Begun
In a smoky dive where I played with a band called the Wayward Sons.

'The Farewell to London Gig'
Weaver's Arms, London,
September 26th, 1996

Tucked away in London N1 is the Weaver's Pub. A haunt for obscure Texas country singers and off-the-consumer trail musicians. Perfect setting for Penelope Swale's 'Farewell to London Gig'. She leaves for Melbourne next week after two and half months. A tour that has taken the songwriter into 'finger-in-the-ear' folk clubs, festivals from Sidmouth, Cambridge, Tralee in Ireland and the Edinburgh Fringe. London pubs, Bunjies folk cellar and the Acoustic Cafe off Tottenham Court Road. One and all, they have played host to this very singular songwriter and storyteller.

Tonight she recalls the odd quirks of her first UK visit. That Australia's folk audience is fully prepared for original songwriters but in some parts of the UK they hanker after the more traditional. Scottish and Irish audiences she finds more receptive than some English folk clubs. This trip the 26 year old songwriter has struck more than her fair share of dyed in the woolcloth tradionalists asking her for sheep shearing songs.

At one folk club Penelope Swales is announced with "There's a young lady from the colonies here to sing for us." At a small provincial festival she takes the audience by the genitals with the Panther and they don't raise as much as a cough. Also hard to get the head around is that her new song Lost In London has been rejected for inclusion in a CD of songs about the capital. "They hated it," she shrugs from the stage.

Lost In London gives the mass marketing image of Australians a sharp jolt. Dumps the prawn on the barbie, Crocodile Dundee, lagers in the fridge, Qantas video, soap opera soundbites into the waste bin. The songwriter tangles her emotions with London trees, parks and lovers hand in hand. Squeezing her knees tight "on the back of his motorbike" because there is "no margin for error in New Cross". The streets of London as experienced by the songwriter. Vivid, alive, awake. More than might be said for the promoters of the London CD.

Finger-in-the-ear folkies were not in evidence tonight. Gone 'a whaling fal de ral de ro'. No one shouts for a sheep shearing song. "There are only three anyway", laughs Penelope Swales from the stage. Nothing wrong with traditional folk. Yet this singular songstress has discovered a stereotyped flock. So up to their ears in whale meat that they have failed to appreciate the calibre of the artist before them. No such problem tonight. No finger-in-the-ear folkies, no record company liggers or 'bored' hangers on. Just fans.

Penelope Swales set was long. Nearly two hours of music and tales. She began with Swallow. One of those enticing mixes of guitar and distinctive vocal. The kind of voice that parts the clouds, lifts the spirit and kicks the dancing feet into gear. "Warm air, strong sun, warm wind is pouring in the door of this house," she sings. Rolls the verse around this beautiful clipped string beating melody.

An autobiographical song followed about "having the courage to follow your dreams". "I saw you on the dizzy edge to freedom, it takes courage to take a leapt," she sang like a definite enticement to make your own road to Damascus. Or as Bobby Dylan once said 'Don't follow leaders'.

Penelope Swales covers bore much of her own style. An American songwriter, Fred Small, who had written a song about New South Wales. "The kind of song you wished you had wrote, damn . . ." and one from Ellen McIlwaine, who once sang backing vocals for 'a guitarist called Jimi Hendrix . . .' Both were amazing, particularly the latter. She had sung Cure My Blues at the Acoustic Cafe. A neglected Canadian songwriter was how Penelope Swales described the writer. A song from a ten year old album called Everybody Needs It. The song has this sweeping, wailing, lope to it. Fit for a corking Hendrix solo. Totally stunning. Absolutely gobsmacking beautiful.

After the earlier attacks on straight line folkies, the young Australian songwriter directed her spittle towards Sylvester Stallone and the absurd rewriting of history on the subject of Judge Dread. She said she had been advised not to put the Thin Blue Line on her new CD. A song about the Australian police's record of depleting the population with some fast gunplay. She delivered it like Tom Paxton at his most impassioned. No doubt this one will turn a few wigs.

More passion for issues came with Black Carrie, Aunty Betty and Our Apartheid. The songwriter championing respect for aborigines and treating them "As you want to be treated". Cutting into the hip rock stadium hurrahs for Mandela, to remind us that an apartheid, with Aborigine's as second class citizens, is very much alive in Australia. Even those seeking inner truth were given a timely slap from the stage:

"Australia's Nouveau tribal types, hippies, new age, whatever you want to call them. A lot of people are looking for tribal ideas, to bring some sense into their lives. Nothing wrong with that but its sad in country like Australia, where tribal people still exist, for people to be slipping off down to the Crystal Wholemeal Spiral Bookshop, and buying some little treatise on the American Indian, medicine wheels or something. Not that I've got anything against them but it's safe, sanitised and far away. As opposed to dirty, complicated and in your face . . ." - Penelope Swales

There were lighter moments. The touching message of Miss You dedicated to a friend back in Australia "Unable to speak or understand if I say I am going away." A song as warm as a hug before Penelope Swales changed tack again. The next four songs autobiographical tales of love and losses.

Lost and Found detailed how it all began some years ago. Homeless, not old enough for the dole, unable to get a job, Penelope Swales took to busking on the streets at the age of sixteen. A couple of years later she met a girl pretty much in the same predicament. Except that her new found friend sold sex for cocaine. All this came in her pre-song introduction. The nights of falling asleep in back street clubs, taking overnight railway trips to sprawl out in the carriages. When Penelope Swales finally sang the song it was stark and filled with a passion. A passion that comes from experience. As if every word wounded like a knife blade into her flesh.

The Panther definitely came from experience. A song that has had finger-in-the-ear-folk twitching on their seats:

"I played the Panther at a folk festival and the audience died. They really didn't cope. Like I realised this halfway through the first verse. These people were curling up in their seats. I'd spoken to the organisers, what about songs about sex and they'd said we've always had songs about sex on the folk scene but they meant with a fal de rol de rol but it was another matter to get up and sing a song that implies that you might have actually had sex yourself. And you don't repent and your probably going to do it again, pretty soon." - Penelope Swales

Less corsetted were her audience in the Club Tent at Cambridge when the Panther shook the tent pegs and brought ecstatic applause. Tonight the song comes at its rawest. Pulsating, hard on, orgasmic. Just like the real thing.

Already Begun and Jacaranda were bleached with Australian sun, images of fermenting fruit, wild flowers and falling in and out of love. The former a lengthy heart hung stormer. The latter juxtaposed between a bitter flower and a loving heart.

It had been a very special performance. Penelope Swales closed it with the spirited Back To Me. The final song from Between Light and Dark. One of two CDs by the artist. Between Light and Dark, a tightly focused, superbly instrumented set of songs. Returning on Foot, a double CD, painted on a broader canvas. Same kind of paintings, just bigger brushstrokes.

With the applause ringing in her ears she put down her guitar, dropped off stage, fell back into a chair. She had a grin like a Cheshire cat.

Penelope Swales, Australian travelling folksinger. Does not sing sheep shearing songs. Will not hum the theme from Neighbours. She will be back next summer to pitch more of those earthy, real songs and travelling tales into the air. Better get the folk purists a stiff drink.

Mike Plumbley

Set list: Swallow, Dizzy Edge of Freedom, Cure My Blues (Ellen MacIlwaine), Fred Small song about New South Wales, Thin Blue Line, Our Apartheid, Aunty Betty, Miss You, Lost and Found, The Panther, Already Begun, Jacaranda, Lost in London, Black Carrie, Back to Me

CDs:
Between Light and Dark (Radio 3CR 1993)
Returning on Foot (Girl Zone Records Double CD 1995)