Many years ago I set up a WordPress blog and fully intended to use it regularly to document elects of my life and creative process…

I called it “Until We Reach Dry Land”.

I posted twice in 15 years…

So here we are again and I’ve set up a new blog with the same title with the intention of doing a better job at this!

A lot has changed in those 15 years…

This first post is intended as an introduction to the name of the blog and my reasoning behind that choice.

When I first dabbled in the world of the internet around 1995 I set up a website and called it “Until We Reach Dry Land” coding it all in HTML and feeling very proud of myself. I’d been active on various message boards at the time and was (and still am) a HUGE Julian Cope fan, so it made perfect sense to make a Cope themed site with elements of music, stone circles and various other things that interested me at the time. I’m sure it’s still there somewhere on the “way back machine”. Inevitably my time to maintain the site dwindled as real life (work, family etc) took over and it got left behind and forgotten about as I’m sure many great sites from that period did.

The name itself was inspired from an excellent track hidden away as the B-Side on Julian’s “Trampolene” single.

The track really resonated with me from first listen and the whole “We are drifting needlessly” refrain and that pay off line at the crescendo at the end, “Quick! Before our ship can reach dry land”. As with many of the Drude’s b-sides it’s an absolute barnstormer of a song. Here’s a video of the studio version:

https://youtu.be/juPEihY_low?si=9da77Wlfv3cqS1R3

And here’s a great almost acoustic version from a Janice Long radio session in 1984, three years before it was officially released. It’s gallops along at a breakneck pace!

https://youtu.be/S4Mes733xzY?si=3wt9QTTgY2Ddhn7c

DISASTER (Julian Cope)

Confident at last, we have set our sails for Egypt
Penury and Newgate left behind
We are all alone, oh, but we have new horizons
Saviours of the feeble and the blind

Oh, we have fled from disaster
Oh, we have fled from a sign
Oh, we have sailed all these passing days
Sharing friendship and praise

Taking men aboard, we began to have misgivings
Victims of an opulent parade
But smiling now we leave the golden island of our fathers
Seeking out the arrows of our way

Oh, we have fled from disaster
Oh, we have fled from a sign
Oh, we have sailed all these passing days
Sharing friendship and praising the day

When the cold sea mist was lifting
Cold that drives a wedge into our eyes
I am smiling, smiling at a restlessness I’ve known
Looking for an old is my own

But now I leave the shanty towns and castles in the south
Should I trip and stumble, fall into the lion’s mouth?

Oh, we are drifting needlessly
Won’t you come and marry me?
Oh, we are drifting needlessly
Won’t you come and marry me?
Oh, we are drifting needlessly
Won’t you come and marry me?
Oh, we are drifting needlessly
Won’t you come and marry me?

Quick, before our ship can reach dry land!

So my brain slightly twisted the lyric to become “Until We Reach Dry Land” and that became the title for my little Copey site.

The name stayed with me through the years and I was determined to use it for something in the future. Some thirty plus years on and here we are…

In some ways the name is more appropriate than ever: Like many I feel cast adrift at the moment and out of sync with the world, hoping to find dry land and stability and a respite from this stormy sea.

I hope I can actually maintain impetus and get this blog started this time. “Real” life is of course still complex and time consuming but I feel if I set some time aside to do posts each week and get organised it will help me focus on more of my creative work. The bonus now is that smartphones make it so much easier to post from anywhere, so I’m hoping that will help too!

I think I’ll probably do the next blog on the creative side of things as I’ve reached a bit of a fork in the road with this and am looking forward to seeing what’s ahead..