Notes From The Front

Writer and director Gerry Nelson, whose recent films have included 'Dear Frankie' and 'DeValera and the Irish Press', and whose documentary work has taken him to such far-flung locations as Lebanon, South Africa and Kosovo, talks about his experience making 'This Note's for You' for RTÉ.

The idea for a documentary on songwriting sprang from an idle conversation between producer John Murray of Crossing the Line Films and Ray Harman from Something Happens. Both concluded that there were no decent music programmes that are actually analysing songs. My previous films have taken me around the world making documentaries about such diverse topics as landmines in Lebanon, the war in Kosovo and the Catholic Shrine at Lourdes, but at heart I'm a music enthusiast, and having played in bands for most of my life I knew that I was the perfect person to make this programme...after all, as a drummer I'd been listening to musician for years!

Initially we were to make a one-hour documentary but after a couple of weeks' filming it became obvious there was no way we could fit what we needed to say into 52 minutes and thus the six-part series 'This Note's for You' was born. The series is, of course, named in homage to Neil Young's great anti-corporate anthem.

The goal for the series was simple. If you take current music programmes they generally go down the route of a quick interview and a bit of a performance and the ball doesn't roll any further than that. With 'This Note's For You' we wanted to look more in depth at songs, songwriting, why we love the songs we love and what makes it all so magical. But above all we wanted to make a series that was visually interesting, stylish and befitting such creative subject matter

We were blessed to have the series presented by Tom Dunne, a respected songwriter himself; his imprimatur most certainly offered a level of credibility that was second to none. This allayed with my own experiences, both with my band The Judes (who incidentally appear as the series "house band") and my years making pop promos (for bands including Something Happens), informed my questions and helped convince songwriters that we were very serious about this piece of work.

Taken as a series, we've got an incredible array of songwriting talent; Damien Dempsey, Paul Brady, Declan O'Rourke, Gemma Hayes, Fiachna Ó Braonáin, Phil Coulter - such a craftsman - these people are revelations, real songwriters.

These people are the glue that holds our society together, they are the people who live out on the edge and allow us to go about our daily lives, but yet are full off humility and eager to expose their inner workings and motivations. As Neil Hannon says, "We give the bricklayer something to whistle while he lays his bricks."

For me, though, the biggest privilege of filming this series was being treated to personal performances by some of the finest songwriters this country has produced. Then there is spending time with Gemma Hayes, who talks so candidly about the tough business side of music; being feet away from a modern Irish bard like Damien Dempsey as he blasts out 'Negative Vibes'; or with Ash's Tim Wheeler as he deconstructs his classic, award-winning composition, 'Shining Light', in his parents' garden shed.

Tim flew over on an economy ticket from New York - distinctly un-rock 'n' roll - we met up in his parents' house up in Downpatrick, one of those lovely, welcoming homes and his mum even had the lunch out for us! It was freezing outside, there was no heating in the building, you can even see Tim's breath in the air, but no matter, he performed this beautiful song...twice.

One of the most magical moments of the series was when we conducted an experiment with Bundoran singer-songwriter, Aine O'Doherty. We wanted to film a song actually being written, so Fiachna Ó Braonáin from Hothouse Flowers came and said, "Yeah, I'll write a song with Aine".

They met in his living room one morning and they'd written a song by that night. But this wasn't something just thrown out, you could really feel when the muse arrived. The end result was this cool, country-inspired song called 'Keep Em Guessing', and everyone involved was just floored by it. The song met with the approval of Aine's former 'You're A Star' mentor, Thomas Black.

There is no doubt that making this series was a true labour of love, it has taken over a year to complete. The editing process, I can safely say, was one of the most difficult challenges of my twenty years in television as we wanted the songwriters to drive the programme with very little voiceover. Selecting the music alone was torturous, but great at the same time. I wanted to get a snippet of every great song that I could and at one point we had one thousand songs in the edit machine to choose from.

'This Note's for You' is not a guide book; you will not learn how to write a hit, let alone a song. What it might do is give the music listener a fresh appreciation for the creative process that begets a song, why songs are so important to our lives, and maybe when they hear a songwriter say, "I wrote this song in ten minutes," they might remember that it took decades of learning the craft of songwriting to produce those ten minutes of genius.

The beautiful thing about this series is that there is no end, there are no real answers. Like music, it is all about the journey. Gerry Nelson