Trapped In The Head - Video Rehearsal

SHORTLY before my last show in Camden, I filmed a few songs that I was rehearsing. Today, The BoHo Scarecrow presents to you a song originally written in mid-2008.

I had written the words as part of the original burst of activity some time before, I think in late 2006, when I was in the middle of moving house from Camden to Shoreditch, whilst deciding that I had to follow up my mini-opera, Attack Of The Chevron Action Flasher, with a full blown meisterwerk that was called The Light Gate, and would be the biggest and brightest thing ever to emerge from rock n roll.

Such ambition. Such desperation.


Direct Link To Trapped In The Head Rehearsal From BoHo Broadcasting House



The music though came from a very different place. When I picked up a guitar and came up with the tune, I was feeling very inspired. In the midst of the first couple of months of a new transatlantic relationship with another musician who had made me come alive again as a writer. But despite being dizzyingly in love, I was becoming increasingly isolated. I had some quite terrifying physiological symptons manifesting, bits of the body going numb and all sorts of other maladies such as frequent, intense panic attacks.

My life was spent revolving around work, music and daily phone calls. It felt really quite wonderful, and I would have recitals of this warm, beautiful american acoustic folky music by my then girlfriend and her troupe most nights of the week down the telephone whilst she rehearsed. This was a salient, dream like period of time but I was very unwell in many respects, drinking heavily and on the verge of an inevitable breakdown that finally blew up and consumed me a few months later.

For some reason, the good period though flicked a switch in me and wrote the music for this song. It has changed since, I beefed it up a bit when recording it at the splendid studios at TVU in Ealing to break it up a little and give it more punch.

What became very interesting in terms of how The Light Gate project developed was that it was only during the breakdown, that I finally was given a label for what I had suspected was wrong, which was post traumatic stress disorder.

So, who is trapped in the head? The writer? Our fictional hero, Edward Sun? A dear friend of mine, another ex in fact, pointed to the writer the other day. I can understand what she was driving at, it could be true. It isn't really for me to clarify for you. You can guess! That's what rock demands of its audience. Use your own instinct and intellect to decide, if you can ofcourse be bothered.

But in the case of The Light Gate, it is about how we internalise our pain, our fear, our terror, frustration and confusion. We let all these things go on and on, until it becomes like a prison cell with a big red flashing warning light. You are going to die! You are in danger! You better scream, scream, scream and hope that someone out there will help.

It takes a lot of courage to scream.

All sounds rather heavy, doesn't it?! Well, that's just my take. I'll leave you to make up your minds on it. Writing takes us musicians to strange places. We write things of which we are not conscious of at the time. We find things in our own music and writing, that we didn't know were there. Putting this up for you today, with above description, with this highly personalised and auto-biographical context, feels similar to one of those dreams when you are inexplicably naked in front of your peers. This is easy for me. It is second nature. I'm cool with it. Seriously.


The whole of The Light Gate, is for me, some kind of therapy. A kind of emergence. It is liberating. I have played this and other songs of a similar context many, many times in public but I love, and I mean this sincerely, love the fact that it always seems to give me some kind of connection with a bit of me that would fester otherwise. It is the most tremendous blessing.

Looking forward to posting more content here for you very soon. God bless. Take care. Keep in touch to all those who keep in touch.

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow

Trapped In The Head

I heard you praying,
That you were dead,

You were complaining
You’d been easily led,
begged hungry,
As their lies were fed.
Bleeding, bleed until,
Your bile is bled.

How did you get trapped in the head?
Its like a prison cell,
And the lights turned red.
Now you’re trapped,
Trapped in the head.


You walked,
Walked the line,

Pretending that
All was fine,

But wasn’t it easy,
To swallow their wine,

Whilst getting crushed
By the goosestep of time.

How did you get trapped in the head?
Its like a prison cell,
And the lights turned red.
Now you’re trapped,
Trapped in the head.