Martin McCoy

Genesis of the songs

"The Winterside of Nowhere"

1. Louisiana

I am a lover of fench american culture and Cajun music. Some years back I had a dream during which I was spending my vacations with my dad near Lafayette. We were in one of these shops selling all kinds of outdoor equipment. A radio station was playing Cajun music a I said to my dad: "Here I want to die." I couldn't get over that dream until i processed it in a song. I made the song sound a bit like Louisiana was a paradise kind of place, just like California which inspired a lot of songwriters.

2. The Best old Friend of Mine

I think this song speaks for itself: It describes my relationship with music.

3. Time for the Last Farewell

I wrote this song in a phase of a lot of personal uncertainties. It's about life sometimes taking unexpected turnings.

4. The Winterside of Nowhere

A whole lot of songs out there are about summer: Summertime Blues, in the Summertime etc.. I wanted to do something different, so I took the song "Summer Side of Life" by Lightfoot and tried to figure out kind of an opposite, and that brought up the idea of the Winterside of Nowhere. The song itself is about a guy who loses everything and in the end finds rescue in God just like I did many years ago and thus became a Christian by experience.

5 Praryland

I was shortly before losing my first home in the Black Forest when I wrote this one. It's about losing a home place.

6. Shoeshine Working Song

This song by Canadian singer / songwriter Murray Mclaughlan was played on radio Canada quite often in 74. I felt very touched by the message of it, and it became part of my musical all-time memory.

7. Willy

Unfortunately we hear a lot about crazed actions committed in schools, especially in America. I tried to figure out a pattern that may cause these awful deeds. It shows how mental abuse in early childhood can turn a young man into a monster.

8. The Ballade of Tom and Isabell

Again, this one too is about mental problems: Tom thinks that he could cure Isabell with just his boundless love. This works in the beginning, but then the mental disease comes back. That's real: A lot of mental issues never completely disappear. They always come back and need regular and constant care and attention.

9. The Music Man (May they Find Someone to Cling to)

This is about people always struggling in order to make ends meet, living their lives on the edge somehow.

10. Mama

Tony Hazard wrote this song, the man who is the author of hits like "Ha-ha said the Clown". When I first heard this one it just made me get chicken skin. It's so authentical and so real.

11. The Holy Spirit

This is about our Christian belief where the Holy Spirit, though part of God in his trinity, is the link between God Father and Son and us down here.

12. Laredo

I guess before writing that one I must have heard "Walking on the Water" by Creedence. It's about a mojo blocking a guy and preventing him from moving on. Fogerty wrote quite a few songs like that originating from his close relationship to Southwest Louisiana.

13. Warm Wind

I wrote this one during our honeymoon to Madeira Island in Portugal. It was October, and we were aboard a sailing ship cruising along the coast.

14. Wheels of Life

This is more or less my autobiography summarized in a song.