200 episodes

Be entertained with a song and an extended chat, ranging from off the cuff banter/humour to life observations and song analysis.



Welcome to Song and a Chat. This is the podcast where you'll have the pleasure of listening to a new song each week - plus, you'll get to step into the shoes of a songwriter : You'll hear about the background of the song, the inspiration, how/ why the song came into being.  After the song finishes, I'll go over the lyrics and finish each episode by looking at the song from a songwriting point of view. If you just want the song and no talk, the time where the song kicks in will be in the title of each episode.

Hi, my name is Pete Pascoe. I am a performer and composer - I love lyrics and I love a melody. I play piano and sing. I have a number of albums to my name. 

I have written over 800 songs. Of course, not all of these songs I written will make it onto an album. As a songwriter, the first step for a new song is ( or was ) to record a demo. Often you catch something unique in this demo - something that is often not replicated in the studio cut....a certain feeling. 

If you're looking to be entertained, like listening to new songs and live recordings, I hope you'll enjoy what's on offer here.

I have a stack of demos from which I'm sharing one on a weekly basis. Plus I relate anecdotes about my life as a piano man, from around the time each song was written. I treat each show as a mini intimate concert - with extended chat, which ranges from off the cuff banter/humour to life observations and analysis.

The idea is : the song can be listened to for pleasure in its own right, or the listener may choose to also be entertained and informed by the story around the song. 

I'm really enjoying recording these podcasts. Each week I look forward to getting behind the mic, setting aside my current musical and artistic projects and casting my mind back in time by focussing on a song I've composed. It's turning out to be a satisfying - and sometimes surprising - time of reflection and discovery for me. 

The lyrics and the recordings take me straight back to when the song was written.

Gain an insight into songwriting and listen to a series of snapshots of life of a songwriter / performer / artist. 

It's a great way for me to archive a song and it's 'back story'. Music is to be shared. What point is there In having five songbooks and piles of demos gathering dust? 

I welcome feedback - whether you're tuning in to enjoy music for music's sake, you enjoy finding out about the origins of songs, you're looking for tips on songwriting or perhaps you've got tips for me. Either way, I'll be learning plenty as I go along. Thanks for a having a read. Come on and join me for a listen.

Song and a Chat Pete Pascoe

    • Music

Be entertained with a song and an extended chat, ranging from off the cuff banter/humour to life observations and song analysis.



Welcome to Song and a Chat. This is the podcast where you'll have the pleasure of listening to a new song each week - plus, you'll get to step into the shoes of a songwriter : You'll hear about the background of the song, the inspiration, how/ why the song came into being.  After the song finishes, I'll go over the lyrics and finish each episode by looking at the song from a songwriting point of view. If you just want the song and no talk, the time where the song kicks in will be in the title of each episode.

Hi, my name is Pete Pascoe. I am a performer and composer - I love lyrics and I love a melody. I play piano and sing. I have a number of albums to my name. 

I have written over 800 songs. Of course, not all of these songs I written will make it onto an album. As a songwriter, the first step for a new song is ( or was ) to record a demo. Often you catch something unique in this demo - something that is often not replicated in the studio cut....a certain feeling. 

If you're looking to be entertained, like listening to new songs and live recordings, I hope you'll enjoy what's on offer here.

I have a stack of demos from which I'm sharing one on a weekly basis. Plus I relate anecdotes about my life as a piano man, from around the time each song was written. I treat each show as a mini intimate concert - with extended chat, which ranges from off the cuff banter/humour to life observations and analysis.

The idea is : the song can be listened to for pleasure in its own right, or the listener may choose to also be entertained and informed by the story around the song. 

I'm really enjoying recording these podcasts. Each week I look forward to getting behind the mic, setting aside my current musical and artistic projects and casting my mind back in time by focussing on a song I've composed. It's turning out to be a satisfying - and sometimes surprising - time of reflection and discovery for me. 

The lyrics and the recordings take me straight back to when the song was written.

Gain an insight into songwriting and listen to a series of snapshots of life of a songwriter / performer / artist. 

It's a great way for me to archive a song and it's 'back story'. Music is to be shared. What point is there In having five songbooks and piles of demos gathering dust? 

I welcome feedback - whether you're tuning in to enjoy music for music's sake, you enjoy finding out about the origins of songs, you're looking for tips on songwriting or perhaps you've got tips for me. Either way, I'll be learning plenty as I go along. Thanks for a having a read. Come on and join me for a listen.

    One Thing We Know

    One Thing We Know

    Episode #200 :  One Thing We Know. (Song starts at 4:26)

    Welcome to episode #200! It’s such a great feeling, because I honestly wasn’t sure I’d get past episode #1. It’s become like a ‘Songwriter Speaks’ sort of an online gig for me - something I really look forward to each week.

    Whether you’ve been here from the start with me, or a new arrival, or perhaps you pop in from time to time, regardless, thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you’re enjoying this podcast as much as I am.

    I wrote this song back in 2009. I was at a school where I was a piano teacher, as a contractor. In between lessons, I found myself thinking about my own young family - and I was thinking about the school kids racing around outside at lunchtime.

    The feeling came to me really strongly to write some words.

    I can’t believe you’re growing so fast, eyes on the future , you’re free from the past

    Loving your life is the thing you do best, doing what’s right and forgetting the rest

    Those are the words I started out with.

    I recorded a piano vocal version as part of this episode., which was fun. At the end I’ve included a produced version which appeared as track #4 on my self-recorded album The Man In Blue (2014).

    As usual, on this episode, I let the song lead the way - and the little mistakes: sometimes just playing and having fun allows me to get near to the mystery that songwriting is. And a mystery it is - the creative force, whatever you want to call it, the muse…

    As I compose, a gentle give and take sort a process seems to happen. I stay ‘on the breath’, certainly not over-thinking things, but my logical self is across all the theory. My hands are on the keys, and my voice floats above the chords on the piano. The feeling never ceases to amaze me.

    To demonstrate this process, I end up improvising the beginning of a new piece on this episode.

    One Thing We Know, song #552,  came together easily, once again.  It’s concise and is an easily understood song.

    Of all the things I’ve talked about on this podcast, perhaps the main thing has been the idea of making the commitment to catch the little bits and pieces as they come through, writing it down in a note book and and away you g, .creating and composing. Personal freedom would be the key.

    If I hadn’t made that commitment years ago I wouldn’t have 800 songs up my sleeve here in 2024.

    Thanks so much for having read. I hope you enjoy the 200th show.

    Here’s the blog which I mention www.petepascoe.Wordpress.com. The last 200 posts will give you an idea of not only what I’ve been up to these last 200 weeks, ( painting, drawing, composing, writing, etc), but it shows what I’ve been up to in my life on this artists path. It’s a joy.

    Ok here we go.  One thing we know….episode#200 - Rollin’ !

    • 32 min
    Song for August

    Song for August

    Episode #199: Song For August   (Song starts at 3:08)

    Welcome to another song - and another 30 mins of observations, humour, with a particular focus on songwriting.

    For this episode, as it happens, I found a couple of different of versions of Song #396, Song For August, using the same lyrics. Both done in 1994. One was written on the piano by myself. The version we went with ( and quite rightly) is the one Paul Dredge and myself wrote on guitar (Paul) and voice (me).

    This was one of 12 songs which Paul and I decided to record one weekend, years later in Melbourne Australia. We were joined my the marvellous Earl Pollard. We'll always miss his great drumming, as sadly he’s no longer with us.

    It was another person passing over that gave me the motivation to write these lyrics. His death had a profound effect on me. Not long after I found myself out on the road by myself. I was a bit thin, struggling a bit really.

    Hanging on in there was the only choice to make. But sometimes it’s a rough road, isn’t. There’s a line in the song ‘standing on my own two feet’. It’s about surviving then, hanging in there against the odds, perhaps. The lyrics came quite quickly, as they tend to.

    When it came to writing the song with Paul on guitar, the song pretty much came in one take - definitely one fast burst of continuous creativity.

    I include the demo, which was recorded immediately after we wrote it, so basically we wrote it then recorded it in no time. Great fun, when you’ve got two minds, two artists working together, communicating without speaking, trusting each other, it really is gold.

    Towards the end of this episode, I decided to compare the two different versions of the song. It’s fascinating , vocal phrasing. Groups of words seem to really dictate the rhythmical aspect of a phrase, for sure…

    I hope you enjoy hearing how this song came about. It was good fun, finding these old demos and bringing this episode together.

    If you do find someone to write with, and it goes well, hang on to that relationship. Paul and I have just about wrapped up what will be our 6th folk rock album.

    You can find 'Song For August' on our album (appropriately named) Lost In Time ( the recording session was in 2012, I think (18 years after we wrote the song!) The album is currently only on Bandcamp. www.petepascoe.bandcamp.com.

    The whole album was recorded and mixed in two studio sessions, somewhat crazily, but that’s all the time we had.

    I still have the masters for this album, I think it’s nearly time to revisit some of the recordings and make a few changes here and there - just a few.

    So with songs, I think it’s really important not to be afraid to discard parts, even whole versions of songs as we did in this case. I’m wondering whether I just plain forgot I wrote the song on the piano piano fist. Regardless, I’m glad it was forgotten. There’s something about the song Paul and I wrote, the number one thing would be feeling, there’s lots of that here…see what you think,

    Here we go, Song For August.

    • 31 min
    Only Love Is Real

    Only Love Is Real

    Episode #198:  Only Love Is Real   (Song starts at 4:29)

    This one, Song #660, popped up in amongst a dozen or so songs I had a sing and play through, earlier today. I thought ‘Aha!’ this would be a good one to have a look at for the podcast.

    It’s a seemingly simple song. A ‘big day’ was the topic of my blog this week. And it was a big day, the day I took the hand of the person who turned out to be my wife…

    'When you took my hand, helped me to understand

    Worked out how I felt, The turning of the wheel, Only love is real '

    At the time it felt momentous. Ii felt like everything that had seemed so important, everything that had a hold on me, just sort of fell away.

    'When you caught my eye, we gave this dance a try…'

    I’ve been thinking a lot and reading a lot through the years. The title of this song is also about how: before the Big Bang, all the way through since, underlying all, is love.

    We perceive only a fraction of whats going on. And that’s just fine. I think it’s good to keep your feet on the ground, have fun and enjoy yourself along the way.

    I tell my piano students, having a laugh is a not a bad idea when we make a mistake - it keeps the door of creativity open, keeps the energy flowing. We’d be a grumpy old lot otherwise, wouldn’t we?

    The great thing about a song is: it goes on. It comes through, on the ether (love) and as a song writer, you do your best to interpret and represent what is coming through, to the best of your ability. Then you arrange and record it and send it out into the world.

    On this podcast you get the experience of listening to a song for the first time. I love doing that, I’m a real album person. The first thing I used to do was turn the album cover over and read the lyrics, while listening to the songs. I get lost in a song that way.

    Sure you can have background music on, why not? But I’m talking about listening closely, here. It’s so good for us. I’m always doing it..

    I’m also a painter. I enjoy painting in my studio and also I particularly like to paint 'en plein air' ( French for on the spot out in nature).

    I get lost in the scene when I’m painting. I lose the sense of self. The separation to nature is no longer there and I’m part of the scene.

    It happens when I go fly fishing on a river. And it happens when I write a song,

    It can also happen when you hold the hand of someone …you realise the potential of what may be ahead, it can be a transformational moment And love is what can be expressed.

    In this song, the lyrics are reflective, looking back, acknowledging how good it is, how amazing it is.

    There is also the bridge….a chance for another view point, in this case it’s an acknowledgement that there may be a listener (in the future, perhaps) who isn’t exactly on top of the world and is not in love with someone, not in a relationship. So there’s a line there that basically is saying: ‘hang on… things will improve..The new dawn will come’.

    This is the way I roll. I like to offer help - there’s an uplifting aspect to my lyrics and I’m very happy about that. And apparently my piano playing does the same thing, so I’m happy about that too.

    I also happen to like talking, particularly ‘off the cuff’ - there’s no script & I have no idea what I’m about to say as I record these 30 minute episodes.

    A bit of humour keeps it real. And only love is real.

    Here we go. I hope you enjoy this episode…

    • 31 min
    Let Her Know

    Let Her Know

    Episode #197:   Let Her Know    (Song starts at 5:19)

    Song #156, Let Her Know, was composed in 1990. Back then, I was starting to think that’s a reasonable amount of songs.

    The demo on this episode was recorded a decade later. And here we are in 2024. Wow. 34 years later, I find myself with 800 songs. It was fun, as always, listening to the demo, playing parts of 'Let Her Know', talking about where it came from, how it came together, what inspired the song.

    What inspired the song were a series of episodes that obviously happened years ago. But the thing about art is: in brings memories to the surface, very strongly - so strongly, it feels like yesterday.

    The arts are a means to exercise the grey matter, there’s no doubt about that! But more than that, it really gives us an opportunity to explore more of ourselves than is perhaps immediately apparent. You can go deep within, rediscovering old memories.

    Each song is a complete surprise to me during the composing process. As you wade in and make a start, so much happens. You establish the mood. In no time, a band is playing in my mind - perhaps an orchestra, backing vocals, everything including the kitchen sink. That amazes me.

    And yet it all comes down to the honest feeling, the feeling that caused me to pick up a pen and write an A4 page of lyrics.

    Then the morning comes, when the mood hits me, I remember the words. I grab a coffee and a pen and take a seat at the piano.

    For me it’s like a performance, writing a song, I’m in my skin, in the room with the piano of course, but part of me has gone somewhere else - many places: I’m on stage in an imagined future, I’m back in time, recalling those strong feelings, how the events unfolded. It’s like a start stop movie, for me.

    It has the effect of making you feel really alive, your mind goes over and over a scene, replaying what happened, and you provide the sound track to the movie in your head.

    At least, that’s how it is for me. It’s the most natural process for me. It’s a total joy, there’s no struggle, no frustration, and for that I feel incredibly grateful.

    Let her know is about a young fellow struggling with something: he’s met someone that’s hit him right between the eyes. Should he let her know? What would happen? How would that feel? What subsequent events would that set in motion?

    Putting big feelings like this into music is a great move. It gets it off your shoulders and it might turn out to be exactly what someone needs to hear somewhere down the track - even 34 years later!

    I have a seascape exhibition on presently (I’m also an artist). Outcomes will be what they’ll be… will I sell the paintings? I don’t know. I hope so!

    But what counts for me at least is: each painting is an expression of joy. It wasn’t a fight to get the paint to flow, to mix the right colours - the colours I could see in my mind (like the sounds I hear).

    It’s so like the songwriting process.

    I hope you enjoy this weeks episode, recording them is a real pleasure  each week - an online performance of spoken word and music, with plenty of humour and entertainment.

    I’m glad I took the time to write some words down and then added a music accompaniment as I winged the melody. Back in 1990. It's such a great feeling, and it’s also incredibly good fun and endlessly fascination to be exploring the creative process of songwriting here on this podcast.

    Here we go again:  Let Her Know. Enjoy!

    • 30 min
    Home Straight

    Home Straight

    Episode #196: Home Straight  (Song starts at  2:40)

    This episode’s song would be a ‘protest song’ about the way we are not looking after the world & how out of touch with nature we have become.

    Every now and then a song like this sneaks up on me. When it happens, I just go with the flow. It’s a great way to let off some steam. It’s also a very creative & effective way of dealing with some big feelings.

    The trick is, it doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s a great place to put anger, the arts - because we can harness all that sometimes explosive energy and release it very quickly, rather than doing something pointless and destructive like booting a washing basket or something, you end up creating a piece of art.

    The handy thing is, the resulting piece of art/music can then be a very positive thing to have brought into the world. It might be song with legs - a song that might resonate with others who’ve felt the same big feelings about a certain issue.

    In this case, what inspired me to put pen to paper initially was this: those of you that have been following my podcast know that I get out in nature to reset. Particularly, I find being by the water does it for me.

    Yes, I’m a fisherman, but a successful trip out for me might be 2 caught and released wee ones. It’s really about observing nature. More than that, I’ve discovered it’s about being connected to the bigger picture. A feeling of connectedness and optimism and energy are often the things I return home with - the catch - hey, maybe that’s an idea for a song.

    That’s how creativity works. Once you makes a start, you’re in the flow and one creative idea leads to another.

    Anyway back to what inspired this song, I looked up from my favourite fishing spot to see what appeared to be an oil rig of some description in the Port Phillip Bay (here in Melbourne, Australia). Alarm bells. But then it turns out apparently it was just ‘resting there’, hmm…

    That got me on to thinking about all the ways we are not doing great things to this beautiful world we live in.

    All the lyrics just came through my pen, a strong meter helped. It gave me the momentum & helped with the flow, the phrasing. In no time at all I’d filled 2 A4 pages with verses and choruses.

    When it came to writing the music a couple of days later, it was the feeling that came through the words that reignited the energy, the passion to get the job done.

    The melody and chords and song structure all came with a rush, very naturally. I had to force myself to stop and jot down my ideas then carry on, back in the flow.

    The result is: song #628 fits me like a glove. In terms of the vocal range, the style ( the words are very ‘me’), the melody has natural highs and lows, the chords and the bass line all make sense.

    I think that’s the best sort of song: the most ‘natural’. You can chip away and construct from bits and pieces , but quite often, the end result can be a song that sounds a little contrived. In my experience, these songs can be frustrating to record, as the energy doesn’t seem to flow.

    It’s an endlessly fascinating process to be talking about each week.

    I’ve just been away camping at the beach for a week. It was bliss, just letting the somewhat unseasonable sort of changeable weather roll around me (and ‘through’ me, it seemed, eg: the night I tried 2 casts in a howling 70km wind that got up from nowhere).

    I include a couple of minutes of chat, which I recorded back home at my local beach the other night. On the spur of the moment, I added some piano music as I listened back to it.

    I find it very relaxing to listen to these podcast episodes. I have a Seascape exhibition opening shortly, so I’ve been up til 3am painting. I like to review my work, so as I painted, I listened to 3 randomly selected podcast episodes in a row: Crossroads, In The Scheme Of Things and I wish. I found them to be interesting,

    • 31 min
    White Angels

    White Angels

    Episode #195: White Angels  (Song starts at 5:51)



    On this episode we are looking at the 2nd song I wrote after I arrived in Melbourne in 1997. I'd already written 385 songs in New Zealand before this one. I came to Melbourne as it was a rite of passage, of sorts, for kiwi songwriters to jump the ditch.

    I was here to set up camp, to be here for some time, to continue on - or perhaps more accurately start again - on my creative path. I needed to find some more band players, and I really wanted to get cracking again, here, in a new country.

    Songwriting is something has pretty much always ticked along for me. In 1997 once I’d settled in to life in the city, I picked up a newspaper and there was a headline that really hit me between the eyes: 17 young people had overdosed in 3/4 hour in Melbourne's cbd.

    It struck me what an awful time that must have been for those involved - the young people themselves, their families, the ambulance drivers.

    A scene unfolded in my minds eye and I didn’t shut it down. It became a movie. This in turn inspired the lyrics. Improvising music to words (or while watching images) is something that I find comes to easily to me. I think it’s because all the emotion is already there.

    I’ve always had the ability to ‘roll a film’ in my mind. I think we all do, don’t we? (I draw cartoon animals. So if I think of say, a llama playing saxophone, there he is, moving around, eyes shut wailing away..hmm, maybe I shouldn’t mention that publicly.)

    Anyway, as I read the newspaper article, a really strong feeling took hold of me and the words streamed off my pen.

    When it came time for the music, a gospel sounding riff came through my finger tips on the piano keys. It set up the first verse and there I was: well underway, again, with another song.

    Over the intervening years, I think I was perhaps a little bit hard on myself, in terms of whether I thought this song was good enough to release.

    Us artists can be too tough on ourselves. Sometimes nothing we’ve produced ever seems good enough, which is strange, really.

    Pieces of art & songs, are all like stepping stones along the way for the artist. I think: if the art or music is of a certain standard (it ‘passes the muster’), put it out there and move on.

    That’s what I’ve been doing with this podcast - and my blog: 195 weeks of sharing what I’m up to, some of the how to. I'm looking to share and help people along the way. Encouraging people along a creative path is the idea.

    Because it can’t help to be a healing path. You learn about yourself - like the line in white angels: 'the past clears, the path clears and today is much less blurred.'

    As I’ve recorded these episodes, I’ve realised even more just how powerful it is to write a song. A song brings back so many memories. It's got be good for your brain to be used like that. The very same song is going to have different connotations, bring to mind different memories, for different people. That’s powerful.

    The listener has an emotional response and again, this can also be a healing thing. So feels really, really good to be a songwriter.

    It’s nice to be sharing some of my processes here on this podcast. In this case, I’ve rediscovered a sort of a gospel ballad. I’m so pleased I wrote it - and I’m pleased that I recorded the demo back in 2000. I have played this song in restaurants as a piano solo piece, but I’ve never sung it live.

    I hope you enjoy another song and chat, here we go,

    More here: Lyrics, links to music and art www.petepascoe.wordpress.com

    • 32 min

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