TROUBLE
Words and Music by Elaine Lennon
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"A soul driven gem" - LONESOME HIGHWAY
“Trouble” has a little Rockabilly swagger and pout. Elaine raises the heat with a more Imelda May vocal that smolders over gritty guitar and Ian Sloan’s pedal steel. What sets Elaine apart is that she can be big voiced and bluesy or understated as the line dictates within the same song." - NORTHERN SKY
"A really strong bluesy vibe as well as a real swagger to it” - UK AMERICANA
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"In 'Trouble’ you can hear the interplay between piano and vocal, in this case for a lyric about being in trouble because “love was not in my plan”. - FOLKING.COM
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"Trouble has a slight gospel blues touch to it, a Nina Simone feel if you will...Lennon plays it live with vigour. The middle eight allows the band to swirl excellently. - BLABBER N' SMOKE
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"Lennon recalled some of the classic singer songwriters from the past with echoes of Nina Simone hovering around on the bluesy ‘Trouble‘" - AMERICANA UK
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With 'Trouble', the first single from the debut album, I wanted to bring to life a fresh, original song with a little bit of swagger. It didn't start out as 'bluesy' but at some point it took on it's own personality and once that happened there was no going back....sometimes its fun to just let the song lead you where it wants to go!
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I'm a massive RomCom fan and this to me is my 'addicted to love' song where temptation and desire always end up causing mischief and the main character usually puts up a kind of 'tongue n' cheek' knowingly feeble attempt at resistance.
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I always like to pull from personal experience when I write so on this one I had to dig deep as I'm very happily married and the only thing I have ever really cheated on has been a diet...so although I may be writing about love, if you replaced the word 'love' in the lyrics with 'chocolate' you will get a glimpse of what I was actually thinking about while writing this one! ;)
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From a musical perspective, this song has my favourite riff on the album and has it's own unique sound created by, among other things, Paul Savage recording Findlay Napier's epic acoustic guitar through a WEM Copicat to give it that characteristic analogue sound. There's some mean bass going on in the background too brought by the talented Euan Burton and Iain Sloan (AKA The Man of Pedal Steel) adds that little but of shine to the overall arrangement. I loved creating and performing the harmonies on this one too - it really was good fun and I wanted them to help bring a great dynamic to it overall.
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Can you spot Paul's little musical 'treat' in this song? In every song that Paul Savage records, he slips in a little musical 'treat' for your ears...that little 'blink and you miss it' moment where there's just a tiny little something special in there that you weren't expecting but just adds a little sparkle...can you spot it in this song? (It's like a musical 'Where's Wally?'!!) Clue?...it's in Verse 2...(good luck!) ;)
I love performing this song live. I first performed it in Dumfries, Scotland, in 2018 and have had the pleasure of performing it many times this year including alongside Grammy Winning Songwriter Michael Logen at Stirling's iconic Tolbooth, at the 25th Anniversary Millport Country Music Festival, the Glasgow Americana Festival and at Eric Paslay's 'Live in Glasgow' Album launch.
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I hope you enjoy listening to it as much I did writing and recording it!
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