Alison O' Donnell w/ Head South By Weaving - Day is Done/ Frozen Warnings

…so I said to Jonesy, “do you know, it’s cheaper to press and release a record by Alison O’Donnell of Mellow Candle than it is to buy an original Mellow Candle album?”
That got him thinking, I can tell you.
This was a short time after the great ‘Internet Social Networking Site Pays Dividends Shock’. See, it’s all virtual, but Alison had already hooked up with Graeme (Head South By Weaving), then Jonesy connected with Alison, shortly thereafter Jonesy met Graeme, I already knew Jonesy (obviously), who spliced me together with Graeme and Alison, Alison used her contacts to get the vocal recorded, Graeme called in a few favours from his network of technically minded friends, memory sticks were passed back and forth, and I called in Aritomo to do the sleeve art, thus Dublin was connected to Hampshire via Surrey on to Virginia linking to Japan and Ohio…it really was that simple.
Somewhere in the midst of all that, we had to decide which tracks to do. Alison had the final say…
Alison - “I gave my two tracks a lot of thought. I'm not in the habit of doing other people's songs, so I wanted to ensure that I did something I was really happy with. I always want to make songs my own and I felt I could do that with these two. It's also important that songs suit my voice, which they do in this case. Both songs have an emotional depth that appeals to me. Lyrics are equally important.”
FdM - Both ‘Frozen Warnings’ and ‘Day Is Done’ could be seen as quite fatalistic songs – lyrically gritty but musically pretty…
Alison – “Yes, they've gathered a bit more from their writers being semi-tragic figures who died before their time. I was attracted to the darkness and starkness of 'Frozen Warnings'. Nick Drake's a man after my own heart: the combination of string-laden sweet backing track together with the grittily regretful theme of the lyric is masterly.”
FdM – How did you hook up with Head South By Weaving and how was the experience?
Alison – “I bumped into Graeme when I noticed he was a Mellow Candle fan. I liked a few of his tracks and sent him an email. We got into a bit of a correspondence and I invited him to write a track with me if he could come up with it in time. He did and 'Harbour Boy' was written; and will be on my next album. He has done a very good job on everything, including this single, and has been a pleasure to work with.”
FdM – What do you say to people who might think your best work is behind you?
Alison – “I'm in the best singing and writing shape of my life, and to that I add performing. So, I'm way better at all those things now.”
We can’t help but agree.

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