Sometimes (fairly often), I write songs and other music that are a gift for other people. They haven’t asked me for them. I don’t get paid for them. I just write them. Sometimes the songs have a life beyond that initial composing, sometimes they remain a one-off. Here are twelve of the best of them:

Little Bo-Peep, 1995
When I did my year of teacher training in 1995, I was sent down to Owaka in Otago, New Zealand to work at the Catlins Area School. I loved it so very much, and met such excellent friends. It’s a farming community and while I was there it was the tailing season on the sheep farms. I wrote this song for my friend Glenda Landreth, who was the music teacher at the school, as a thank-you gift when I left, and the “Catlins Cammeos” (renamed temporarily in my honour), which was the high school choir, sang it several times. It’s since been performed by a few other choirs in New Zealand and the UK.

I’d Like A Zebra For My Birthday, 2001
I wrote this one for Jamie’s birthday in 2001. I also wrote a few other zebra songs for the occasion, a zebra-themed story, and made African food for our family meal with his Mum and sister. There was also a length of zebra fake fur, some cushions, and a glove puppet. We still have all these things, and the songs have been used by me in several primary schools at that time and since. One of the most popular, and most sung (even by people I don’t know) has been “I’d Like A Zebra For My Birthday”. It’s a gentle round with a backing track if you’d like it. I heard of one class who used it as their regular birthday song instead of Happy Birthday To You. Top zebra.

I’m Seventy, 2008
I wrote this song as a 70th birthday gift for my father-in-law, Ron. Jamie was heading back to Australia from England as a surprise guest at Ron’s birthday party. He sang the song to him with a backing track that we’d made beforehand. The lyrics are all from a letter Ron sent out to everyone beforehand, exhorting us not to spend lots of money on him but to do something surprising to celebrate his big day instead. Ten years later, family gathered again in County Wexford for his 80th birthday, and that’s when this video was made using pictures from both birthdays.

A Song To Celebrate Eighty Years, 2018
Later in 2018, we went off to Australia to celebrate my mother-in-law Gaynor’s birthday. We gathered in a variety of cottagey cabins in Olinda in The Dandenongs with several other relatives and dear friends, and two days before her birthday I decided to write a song as an extra birthday gift. We didn’t have any instruments or a computer to help me, so I based it on the chord sequence of The Lamb, which I knew from memory and knew would work. We bought card and coloured pens to write out the lyrics and tune. There was the clunky piano you see in the pictures and hear on the recording, but I couldn’t play that until the day because it was in Gaynor and Colin’s cabin. The next day the three of us (me, Jamie, Gaynor) sang the chorus as a round, and I recorded that as well, so when I edited this video together, I plonked that on the end!

Lullaby Of Robert Landreth, 2010
My wonderful friends in the Catlins in New Zealand, Glenda and Chris Landreth and their extended family gathered together in 2010 to mark the 150th anniversary since their ancestor, Robert Landreth, first arrived in Otago, New Zealand from the Borders in Scotland. The song was performed on that occasion by Matthew Landreth with his cousin Rebekah accompanying. There’s now a version for choir, and this video of that version, features photographs by Glenda of places connected with Robert Landreth’s history in Otago. You can read more about this song here!

Salsa Salsa, 2010
On July 19th 2010, my pal Sarah put a random post on Facebook. I gave a random reply. We continued for a few minutes, then I used our exchange of nonsense to write a song, which I’ve since used lots of times with a variety of choirs – youngsters and grown-ups. The exchange is to the right (with a postscript from Sarah’s pal Paul. The song is below! I gave the song to Sarah. It works as a round. There are optional repeating motifs that you could use as an ostinato pattern. It’s tricky to know when to breathe, but not beyond the realms of possibility. It’s great as a warm-up, or a short, jolly item in a concert.

Mountain Stars, 2013
My Great Auntie Vera was a poet. She had four poems published in a book and for her birthday in 2013, I set one of them to music for her – voice and piano. My friend Janet and I recorded it for her, and I gave her a score and the recording on the day. Here’s a bit of it. I think I should make a video, but for now, there’s just a bit. Great Auntie Vera was very happy with her gift, I think.
“I dwelt amid the quiet mist-filled vales. Contented. Passive. Still.
Sure of each day, each moment still the same.
Sure of my work, my rank, my home, my name
Sure of each call, each star, each routine claim. Passive…”

Earthbound, 2020
I was commissioned to write a song by my pal Ann for her husband Greg, during the 2020 lockdown. I needed a ruse to talk to him about his career as a pilot. This song was that ruse. I wrote it for The Bridge Singers using their memories of flight, asking Greg for his memories too so I could combine them with those of the choir – his son is in the choir, so it was perfectly believable – memories of flight from a pilot – perfect. It was a gift for the choir because none of us were flying anywhere at the time – it was a good way of remembering happier times. I guess we might sing it one day!
If you want to read more about the other song I wrote using Greg’s memories, click here!

An Hour Before The Dawn, 2021
Also during the lockdowns, I wrote this for my pals Julie and Shirley after walks we’d taken along Ross Sands, observing and listening to the seals, the castles, the islands, the birds. I managed to get it finished in time for Julie’s birthday in 2021. Jamie and I made this recording and video and I gave them the score on the day. It’s a bit bluesy, and a bit laid back. I made a choir arrangement, which we started learning in 2023, but ran out of time.

Update 2025: This year, four of us (Rebekah, me, Jamie and Connor) sang it as a surprise for Shirley’s birthday. It went down well. This snippet shows you that!

Venus Bench, 2022
This is a short sunrise song composed on November 1st 2022 as a single line tune. This arrangement on the video was made exactly one year later. One day in 2020, I sat at one end of this bench chatting with my pal Connor, who sat at the other end (because it was the days of not meeting up with people who were not in your bubble) about a song I was writing for his Mum about his Dad. There was drizzle, a bat and Venus. A bat at sunrise on Nov 1st 2022 reminded me of that chat. It was Connor’s birthday, so I wrote the song in a day, and Jamie and I delivered the score to his house in the early evening.

Three Churchyards, 2023
Prior to The Bridge Singers’ St. David’s Day concert on March 1st 2023, I asked my Welsh pal Gwyn if he had any stories or poems I could set to music to include in the concert. He did have stories. I started writing the song. It was clear that the choir had enough to learn without me imposing a brand new song on them, so I postponed the composing until later in the year. This was the result, and I managed to finish it, Jamie and I recorded it, and I made this video for Gwyn in time for a New Year’s gift. You can read more about the song here.

Buffalo Stories, 2024
In early 2024. my mother-in-law, Gaynor told me that she would be going to the 70th Reunion commemorations of the descendants of John William and Susanna Adams, who arrived in South Australia in December 1836 aboard HMS Buffalo. I said I’d compose a song about the journey of HMS Buffalo, and I’d make a recording and video as a gift for the occasion. The song is a combined shanty and lullaby. The shanty parts tell of the animals, smells and noises on the deck and all the minor and major irritations of the long journey. The lullaby parts imagine Susanna calming her children, who were with them on the ship, with real and made-up stories! You can read more about this song here!