My Boy by Marlon Williams

"My Boy is a ‘pop’ song with a Māori ‘folk’ strum. Or it’s a ‘folk’ song with a ‘pop’ hook.

The urge to turn every song on the planet into a Māori strummer descended on me like a fever sometime during the long and winding tour cycle of Make Way for Love. So writing it into my artistic life became the only way to get the fever to lift. I turned up at Mark ‘Merk’ Perkins studio early in 2019 with My Boy and a small handful of other tunes.

Some simple songs will try to tempt and lure you into over-complication; this one showed no such insecurities. For the first time in my writing life, it didn’t even demand lyrics in the chorus. It laid itself out, buoyed by its own sailing rhythm and lightness of phrase: Mark and I fleshed out the demo with a simple drumbeat and a whimsical mellotron descant and dinner was largely on the table. Going in to Roundhead with Tom and the band, we kept that simplicity, adding only some extra percussion from Elroy Finn and a “folk” electric guitar solo from Tom.

This is a song that is light as a feather and deeply entrenched. A song of soft but utter devotion. My Boy is dedicated to all the older brothers of the world. The Famous Five Julians and the Brighton Rock Pinkies; the ones that decide the game, dangerous though it may be. To pleading ignorance, pledging obedience and taking a hand with eyes closed and heart full; to the enfants terribles, the pocket despots; those tiny, furious gods of the playground.”

Singer and songwriter from Lyttelton, New Zealand.

marlonwilliams.co.nz
Facebook
YouTube
Twitter
Instagram