Carus talks Caravan

Having been around the country in support of his latest release Caravan, Carus Thompson has stopped in with Sound Republic to tell us a bit about the album in this track-by-track rundown.

1. Red Sky
This features my friend Seth Lakeman on Violin and Tenor Guitar. Seth's a huge contemporary folk star in the UK. He signed to Relentless Records after getting nominated for a Mercury Prize - the most critically acclaimed music prize in the UK. His album "Kitty Jay" was up against the likes of Coldplay and Keane - except his was recorded in his brother kitchen and only cost three hundred quid. We recorded this in a day in a studio in Plymouth.

2. You Can't Find Me
This is a song all about life on the road and this thing that I been doing for so long. It was a massive year of touring last year, and I tried to be honest with the desperation that comes through in the lyric. I've been working at this for so long and it's always hand to mouth. In the song I am rationalising all this sacrifice and time away from my wife. It's easier to justify being away when you're making the "big bucks", which I'm not, but I do feel I can make it work. I don't want to be rich or anything I just want to be able to provide my fair share and to be able to justify all this time away. "We can make this, I can make this". Recorded in a day at Altantis Studios in Melbourne with my Australian band.

3. Fifteen
Tells the tragic story of the shooting of fifteen year old Tyler Cassidy by Victorian Police. The way they spread, and are still spreading their version of events through the Melbourne media was disgusting, I wanted to write a song that just presented the events, exactly as they happened as I believe the truth is horrible enough and says it all. I rewrote this song about four or five times, in three different versions, from three different perspectives - in the end settling on the mothers. I had to be very careful as I had to think that his mother might one day hear the song and I didn't' want to cause any more pain, though of course it would still hurt. Hence I thought just present the facts, exactly as they happened and let that be enough. The lyrics are all constructed from newspaper reports.

4. Imperfect Circle
This is my younger brother Christian Thompson's song and he sings it in harmony with me. Christian did a tour of Europe with me two years ago and we played this song as part of our set and people loved it! Christian has yet to do an album of his own and I thought that this is just such a fantastic song it deserved to be on a record with good production. So I thought I'd just take matters into my own hands and put it down. One of my favourites.

5. You Made Me
Had a lot of success in Germany with radio play and wanted to write a song for people who's English is not so great. Wanted a really simple lyric that cut straight through. So in a way this song was written for the European market. But there's something really good about stripping back your lyric and making it understandable on a simpler level. Essentially all the greatest pop songs work like this. 

6. Caravan
This is a co-write with my good friend (and damn good songwriter) Yanto Shortis. I went round to his house in West Footscray with some scraps of song and he had this lying around. He'd written the first verse and the chorus and I was like - let me get my grubby mitts on that! I feel this song is the closest he and I have come to nailing that Paul Kelly style of songwriting, where the story is all there within the song. It has a beginning, middle and end - with some lovely imagery and allusion. Very proud of this one - feels like a much more mature style of writing.

7. Inland Sea
Love the romantic notion of the fool-hardy early colonial expeditions for the imagined Great Inland Sea, Charles Sturt and John Oxly being two of the biggest believers. Thought it was a great metaphor for love. Sometimes you walk through the desert chasing a dream and you find it, sometimes you just find more desert!

8. Bright Star
A song about the Australian Olympian Peter Norman. He ran the 200 metres at the 1968 Mexico Olympics in 20 seconds flat, coming second. He was part of the incredibly famous and historic "black power salute" demonstration in support of Human Rights and in Australia he was torn to pieces for it. I think it's just a story of a real Australian hero who stood up and followed his conscience at a very difficult time in history. You wonder how much things have really changed when Indigenous life expectancy is still so low. 

9. Beauty Is Your Way
A love song for my wife. To be direct and honest can sometimes be the hardest thing with songwriting. People can easily pick songs likes this to pieces and say its a bit schmalzy, but I think if it's performed with honesty and real feeling you can't really knock it. If it's the truth who cares what people say anyway. 

10. I Believe In Love
A bar room country rocker. Sent the mix to Greg Arnold and he wrote back simply "this track makes me want to drink beer". Caravan is an intense album and I believe that with records like that its good to give the listener the odd break so they can refocus their mind on listening again. I Believe In Love and Inland Sea both fulfil these rolls but I think they're still good songs int their own rights.

11. Headstrong
Co-wrote this song with Greg Arnold. Its a song about two characters, two friends who had a dream in their youth but one of the characters fell off the wagon so to speak. They remember jumping off "Suicide Rock"  when everything was full of promise. Suicide Rock is a cliff just near my family home in North Fremantle, West Oz. Every kid from the suburb jumps off it as a right of passage. Greg jumped off it when we were on tour and he loved the idea of getting it into the song. One of the characters is of course me in a way, and the other character is a mix of certain people I've known in my journey. But like all good storytelling, its only bit and pieces… sort of.

12. Whistleblower
Started as a song about Julian Assange. Couldn't believe that people were seriously wondering how when someone embarrasses the States so much that he can still be walking around, not assasinnated yet.  Then when I thought about it I agreed, and isn't that a shit indictment of where our world is now? That someone like Julian Assange has to worry about getting knocked off. Like him or hate him he does have a right to not be shot! Whistleblowing - I think its something that is becoming more and more important in this modern world.

12. Luke's Song
A song written about about a fan who passed away. Met his whole family at a gig and their story just touched me. The song talks about how things can change "in the blink of an eye". A big part of the human condition is making it through tragedy and I wanted to try and get that across in this song.