''Simon Fowler's Merrymouth'' is the debut solo album by

Simon Fowler Simon Geoffrey Fowler (born 25 May 1965 in Meriden, Warwickshire) is an English singer and acoustic guitarist, best known as the frontman of Ocean Colour Scene. The Fanatics Simon Fowler commenced his music career as the lead singer and songwr ...

(the singer/songwriter from

Ocean Colour Scene Ocean Colour Scene (often abbreviated to OCS) are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Solihull in 1989. They have had five top 10 albums including a number one in 1997. They have also achieved seventeen top 40 singles and six top 10 sin ...

) it contains six original Fowler compositions, one of those ("Over My Head") being an OCS re-working. Released on 26 March 2012, it features Fowler (vocals and acoustic guitar),

Dan Sealey Dan Sealey is the former session bass guitarist for the rock group Ocean Colour Scene. He was drafted in by the band after Damon Minchella left the band in 2003. Sealey is also in Merrymouth, a folk band with Ocean Colour Scene bandmate Sim ...

(vocals and guitars), Mike McNamara (double and electric fretless basses, piano, organ, percussion and guitar),

John McCusker John McCusker (born 15 May 1973) is a Scottish folk musician, record producer, and composer. An accomplished fiddle player, he had a long association as a member of the Battlefield Band beginning in the 1990s and was later a band member and p ...

(violins, cittern and low whistle) and

Andy Cutting Andy Cutting (born 18 March 1969) is an English folk musician and composer. He plays melodeon and is best known for writing and performing traditional English folk and his own original compositions which combine English and French traditions w ...

(melodeon). All songs are written by Simon Fowler, unless otherwise stated. The album contains a

Bert Jansch Herbert Jansch (3 November 1943 – 5 October 2011) was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s as an acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter ...

song, "Courting Blues", and the lyrics of a

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

poem "

The Stolen Child "The Stolen Child" is an 1889 poem by William Butler Yeats, published in ''The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems''. Overview The poem was written in 1886 and is considered to be one of Yeats's more notable early poems. The poem is based on I ...

", put to a melody written by Fowler and music by Merrymouth. Produced by Dan Sealey and Mike McNamara. Recorded at Gospel Oak Studio, Warwickshire, England by Barry 'Baz' Bayliss. Engineered by Bayliss and Alfie Manders

Track listing

All tracks composed by Simon Fowler; except where indicated # "Holy Day" # "

The Trees They Grow So High "The Trees They Grow So High" is a British folk song (Roud 31, Laws O35). The song is known by many titles, including "The Trees They Do Grow High", "Daily Growing", "Long A-Growing" and "Lady Mary Ann". A two-verse fragment of the song is found ...

" (Traditional) # "Sweetest Words" # "Last Train But One" (Dan Sealey) # "Courting Blues" (

) # "Midst of Summertime" (Sealey) # "Prometheus" # "

" (Poem by

. Melody by Fowler. Music by Merrymouth) # "The Shadow Knows" # "Mr Marshall" (Sealey) # "Over My Head" # "The First Rites of Spring"

References

2012 debut albums Simon Fowler albums {{2010s-folk-album-stub