The Wombles songwriter recollects how a music about loss of life grew to become the theme to ‘Watership Down’ and a No 1 hit

In a profession spanning over 45 years, Mike Batt has had nice success as a songwriter, producer, performer, conductor and composer. After clocking up eight hit singles and 4 gold albums with The Wombles, he went on to put in writing a string of hits for the likes of Elkie Brooks, Cliff Richard, David Essex and Alvin Stardust, in addition to working with a number of the world’s main orchestras.

One in every of his most effectively–identified compositions – although far fewer individuals realise he wrote it – is Art Garfunkel’s worldwide No 1 single Vivid Eyes, which was used within the soundtrack of the 1978 British animated movie Watership Down. The story of a bunch of rabbits that danger their lives to discover a secure new dwelling grew to become an prompt basic, and Vivid Eyes was typically thought of the theme of the movie and the next TV sequence.

Greater than three a long time on, Mike thinks again to the conception of the music and, particularly, its lyric, which meant ruminating on the thriller of loss of life…

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Launched: 19 January 1979
Artist: Art Garfunkel
Label: Columbia
Songwriter: Mike Batt
Producer: Mike Batt
UK chart place: 1
US chart place: –
Misc: Vivid Eyes was the UK’s biggest-selling single of 1979

“House on the time was Surbiton. I had an enormous music room there, which had a snooker desk and a piano. I should’ve been having fun with the advantages of getting simply had just a few Wombles hits – there was an workplace with a secretary within the subsequent room. I had two rooms with pianos in, so if I wished to alter my temper I would go and play the large posh one, and if I obtained fed up with that, I’d go and play my humorous little upright in my work room, my ‘workhorse’ piano. In these days, I had babies and I by no means used to thoughts them working out and in of the place I was working. It by no means used to hassle me in any respect – the extra individuals in the home, the happier I was.

“Within the case of Vivid Eyes, I was requested by the movie director to put in writing a music about loss of life. It was so simple as that, and I got here away from the assembly pondering, ‘Bloody hell, how do you do this?’ How do you write about loss of life, with out it being mawkish, and even humorous? Then I began to muse on the thought of loss of life as a very powerful factor we take into consideration. What occurs afterwards? Will we die? Keep it up? Go round once more? Everybody thinks various things and so I made the music right into a query. That’s why it begins: ‘Is that this a sort of dream?/Floating out on the tide/Following the river of loss of life downstream/Is it a dream?’.

“After a number of days of wandering about the home with a furrowed forehead, I sat down and, fairly emotionally, wrote the music in about an hour. I was sitting on the piano and the lyrics and the tune got here just about on the identical time. Vivid Eyes simply got here to me as being an individual – it’s an animal within the movie, however they characterize individuals, so it’s nonetheless made in human phrases. While you see a lifeless individual, their eyes don’t do something: there’s nothing there. With a reside individual, there’s a sparkle, one thing behind the eyes. How can that all of the sudden go? That was the place I obtained, ‘How can a lightweight that burns so brightly, all of the sudden burn so pale?’

How I wrote ‘Vivid Eyes’ in Songwriting Magazine Winter 2015

“I at all times discover that, if I’m writing a music that’s going to maneuver individuals, I develop into moved myself when I’m writing it. You end up shedding the odd tear. I know that when I really feel like that, I’ve written one thing that shall be efficient and highly effective with different individuals.”

“Often I’ll write a refrain first – I’ll consider a topic and a title, then write the refrain and really feel my method again via the verse. Then the tough factor of writing the second verse. However with Vivid Eyes, ‘Is it a sort of dream?’ got here first as a result of that was the query. Then, rippling round an A-minor chord, it simply got here out and the ‘vivid eyes’ a part of it might’ve come after. The music’s which means is expressed within the verse and the wrapping of it right into a melodic, memorable, emotional message got here second – chronologically, I imply.

“When the producers got here to my home to listen to the music, they mentioned, ‘We find it irresistible, had you anybody in thoughts to sing it?’ And I mentioned, ‘I’d find it irresistible if Art Garfunkel may sing it, however after all that received’t occur, so right here’s an inventory of different individuals.’ Colin Blunstone of The Zombies was quantity two on the record, and I was quantity 10! However they only mentioned, ‘We’ll see if we will get him.’ So that they despatched my demo to Garfunkel via somebody senior at CBS and inside a day he’d mentioned sure… and inside every week he was sitting in my front room routining the music with me. It was nice.”

EXPERT OPINION by James Linderman
“Some songwriters threaten to bludgeon any intruder that interrupts their writing; some invite the entire household into the room. Know which one among these writers you’re, and inform your mates and relations accordingly.”

For extra details about Mike Batt and his various musical profession, go to madhouserag.com

Extra ‘How I wrote’ options