Making the Record

Taking it into the studio was one of the most enjoyable recording experiences I’ve had. The song had an energy to it — a cheekiness, a warmth — and that came through in the session. We released it under the alias Nigellarox, which in hindsight I wish we hadn’t. It should have gone out under my own name. But there we are. You live and learn.

The response was genuinely lovely. London Live TV picked it up. BBC airplay followed. The song was recognised as a semi-finalist in the International Songwriting Competition and made the Great American Song Contest honours list. People seemed to get what it was — affectionate, fun, very English — and respond to it accordingly.

The Nigella Situation

Now. The part of this story that I tell with equal measures of amusement and mild mortification.

Of course I hoped Nigella would hear it. Of course I did. The PR team worked very hard — genuinely, admirably hard — to get it in front of her. And it just didn’t happen. The single campaign came and went, and Nigella Lawson remained, as far as we could tell, entirely unaware that a man in Surrey had written a song about her on a ukulele in ten minutes.

Eventually — by which point the campaign was long finished and the moment had rather passed — I managed to get a copy directly to Nigella herself. This cost me two of her cookbooks, which my wife was absolutely delighted about, being a considerable fan.

Nigella was very gracious. She accepted the copy. She was polite and kind in the way that well-raised people are when presented with something unexpected.

But I have to be honest with you — and I did say this was going to be the full account — I really felt that she wasn’t best pleased.

And you know what? Fair enough. I’d probably feel the same.

What The Song Actually Means to Me

Here’s the thing, though. Beyond the chart positions and the airplay and the slightly awkward Nigella encounter — this song matters to me more than almost anything else I’ve written. Because it came out of nowhere, at a time when I had genuinely stopped believing I had anything left to say musically, and it reminded me that I did.

It brought me out of some dark days. It got me back in the studio. It put me back in gear at a point when I was very close to putting the whole thing down permanently. For that reason alone, I will always have a very particular affection for ‘Nigella’ — whatever Nigella herself may think of it.

And if she ever happens to read this — hello. The cookbooks are being put to excellent use.

Much love,
Simon x

It’s Not What I Thought It Was

When I was younger — much younger, back in the New York days — I wanted to write songs that would make me famous. I’m not embarrassed to admit that. Most young musicians want the same thing, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably being slightly revisionist about their own history. Fame felt like the point. Success felt like the validation.

Time has a very effective way of sorting that out.

What I understand now, which I absolutely did not understand then, is that the writing itself is the point. Getting an idea out of your head and watching it become a song — a real, finished, produced song that didn’t exist before you sat down that afternoon — is one of the most satisfying things I have ever done. And I’ve built stadiums. So that’s saying something.

Songs as Catharsis

I think it’s so important to reflect thoughts and feelings in music. Even more so to tell someone something you want them to know — and why — be it in a poem or, in my case, by writing them a song.

I am, unashamedly, an incurable romantic. Life really is too short not to tell someone how you feel about them at any given moment. And sometimes the feelings are too big, or too complicated, or too tender to just say out loud over the kitchen table. A song gives them a shape. A melody gives them somewhere to land.

I’ve written songs in ten minutes — ‘Nigella’ being the most famous example — and I’ve written songs that have taken years to finish because I couldn’t find the right way to say the thing I needed to say. Both feel equally valid. The time it takes has nothing to do with the value of the result.

When it all comes together…

Here’s the thing that keeps me going more than anything else. More than chart positions — and I’ve had a few. More than radio plays — and I’ve had those too. More than the applause at a live show, which I love deeply and will never take for granted.

It’s the message. The email, or the comment, or the person who comes up after a gig and says — quietly, sometimes a little awkwardly, in the way people do when they’re saying something that actually matters to them — “that song. That one. That was about me.”

Because that’s the whole point, isn’t it. You write something in a room by yourself, about something you felt, and somehow it finds its way to a stranger who felt the same thing. That connection — across time, across distance, between two people who may never meet — is why songs exist. It’s why I write them. And every single time it happens, it still surprises me.

I hope it always does.

The 3am Phone Call

Roy Sakuma is, for those who don’t know, something of a legend in the ukulele world. Hawaiian-born, deeply respected, a man who has dedicated his life to the instrument and to the culture around it. He runs the Starbucks Ukulele Festival of Hawaii — one of the most significant ukulele events in the world.

I sent him a home demo of a Beach Boys cover. At what was probably an unreasonable hour. And waited.

The phone rang at 3am. It was Roy. He’d heard it. He liked it. And — here’s the part I still find difficult to fully believe — he invited me to Honolulu to perform at the festival.

I said yes before he’d finished the sentence.

What I Was Expecting

I want to be very clear about my expectations going into this, because it matters to the story. I thought I was going to something along the lines of a very enthusiastic village fete. A lovely occasion, no doubt — Hawaiian sunshine, nice people, a small stage, a friendly crowd. I packed accordingly. I prepared accordingly. Which is to say: not very much at all.

What I arrived at was something else entirely.

What I Actually Got

The Starbucks Ukulele Festival of Hawaii is not a village fete. It is a major event — think Hyde Park on a beautiful day — with thousands of people, a proper production, and a bill that, that particular year, was headlined by Jack Johnson. That Jack Johnson. The one with the albums and the worldwide following and the very good songs.

I stood on that stage in glorious Hawaiian sunshine, looked to my right, and the Pacific Ocean was just a few yards away. I looked out at the crowd and thought — with a clarity that I can still feel now — I am not remotely prepared for this.

And I wasn’t. The performance, the media schedule that followed, the attention from so many extraordinarily lovely people over what turned into a surreal week in Honolulu — I was winging it, start to finish. I savour a great deal of that memory. I regret a degree more. But I will treasure it always, and I would not swap a moment of it.

What It Gave Me

It gave me Songs From A Small Guitar — my debut album, named as a nod to that Pacific adventure whilst being true to who I am musically. It gave me the confidence to take my songwriting seriously again after years of construction sites and near-misses. It gave me friendships I still value. And it started a chain of events — radio, TV, the BBC, the UK tour — that I could never have seen coming from a school charity event in South London.

All because of a ukulele, a Beach Boys song, and a very ill-advised late-night email.

I genuinely love how that works.

Why Now

People sometimes ask why I keep going. Why, at a stage in life when most people are winding down, I’m winding up. And the answer is simple, really: I love it. I love writing. I love recording. I love the idea that somewhere out there, someone is going to hear one of these songs for the first time and feel something they weren’t expecting to feel.

That connection — between a song and a stranger — is the whole point. It always has been. I just needed a little time to remember it.

More news on the album very soon. Thank you, as always, for being here.