THINGS FOUND IN BOOKS
MUSICIANS FIND INSPIRATION AT CULZEAN CASTLE’S BOOKSHOP
Gill Sherry
If you’ve ever visited Culzean Castle, you’ll no doubt be familiar with its second-hand bookshop. Situated in the new stable block, the bookshop not only offers thousands of quality second-hand books for sale, it also has comfortable sofas from which to make your selection.
The charitable company, Friends of Culzean, has ran the book shop for over ten years and relies entirely on donated books to keep the shelves stocked.
In addition to the vast selection of books, reading area, and refreshments, there is also a display titled ‘Things Found in Books’ which includes items such as photographs, dried flowers, receipts and postcards. As a writer, I couldn’t help but wonder about the stories behind those items. And it seems I wasn’t the only one to find inspiration from the display.
English singer-songwriter, Boo Hewerdine, and Scottish musician, Yvonne Lyon, have released a new album inspired by the emotional impact of discovering things found in books from Culzean Castle’s bookshop. The album, Things Found in Books, is due to be released on 28th March.
Boo, who now lives and works in Glasgow told me: “It’s great because as a songwriter, to not write about yourself is a real treat. To take something that’s given to you and work with it, that was really special.”
Yvonne first saw the display seven years ago after being told about it by her friend.
“I’m taking the credit,” she laughed. “During Covid, the idea had been percolating and I thought, I’d love to collaborate with someone, who could I collaborate with? Yes, definitely Boo, he would be up for this, it would be right up his street!”
And she was right.
The two musicians go way back and had actually worked together before.
“About ten years ago, Yvonne asked me to send her some lyrics that she could turn into a song. It was ‘The Girl on the Flying Trapeze’ and it was a smash!”
Once on board with the new project, the two of them began to study the items left behind by Ayrshire’s readers.
“We took lots of photographs and worked remotely during Covid,” Yvonne told me, “sending the photographs back and forward, deciding which ones were reaching out to us and connecting with us.”
Boo added: “Some of the songs we wrote ourselves and some we wrote together. It was great because there’s a song called ‘Montpellier’… I had some lyrics, and Yvonne came up with a fantastic B part to it.”
‘Montpellier’ came about as the result of a postcard, a photograph of which is included in the book which incorporates the album.
“It was Yvonne’s idea to turn it into a book. All the good ideas are Yvonne’s!”
So, as well as the beautiful, poignant lyrics, the stories are told visually in the form of images and prose. What a fabulous idea!
When writing the songs, did they feel a sense of responsibility towards the original owners of the items?
“I did,” Yvonne admitted, “and I do now, because I think, wow, we’ve actually published this and there could be people out there who maybe buy the album, listen to the songs, look at the book, and say, ‘That photograph is my gran!’ Because it’s Ayrshire based, it’s a lot of local memorabilia.”
She showed me an old black and white photograph of an elderly couple. It’s an image that really captured Yvonne’s imagination.
“This was the last song that we wrote together, ‘Marion and Sydney’. They just reminded me of my gran and grandpa. I never met my grandpa, but I’d heard lots of stories about him. So I just went on this train of thought about my grandparents and what my dad had told me. And Boo in his magical conjuring sort of way, took that photograph and made it into the song.”
The item which really caught Boo’s imagination was an old packet of cigarettes.
“Why would you keep that?” he’d asked himself. “We thought it was left there because it reminded someone of their grandfather. The whole nature of the song is the thing that they’ve used to remind themselves of a relative and maybe had a part in them not being well towards the end of their life. So even the most benign object has real resonance beyond the simple fact of its existence.”
“These are very personal things,” added Yvonne, “and for me, that’s something I didn’t expect. These are fragments of other people’s lives… complete strangers. But in us entering into little moments of their lives, which is a real privilege, we actually mined quite a lot of personal things for treasure.
“Each song is an alchemy of somebody’s life, but we’ve brought our imagination to it and then we’ve brought ourselves to it, and that’s what really resonates with an audience when you sing to them.”
“Even when you’re given something else, you always end up in the songs as part of the miraculous process,” Boo added.
Another item to inspire a song was a Post-it note written by a child about a cabbage butterfly. Yvonne told me: “This wee Post-it… it took me on a journey through the books that I loved as a child. It was the simplest wee thing. Everything grew from a little item into something more.”
Having listened to the album and heard how Yvonne and Boo were inspired to write the songs, I would love nothing more than to hear them sing live. And I’m luck! They are celebrating the launch of the album at Culzean’s bookshop on Sunday 30th March from 3pm till 5pm.
“It will be really nice to launch it in the actual room where it all started,” said Boo. “It’s a free gig, we just encourage people to buy the book/album.”
“We wanted to make it something that people could hold and touch and feel,” Yvonne explained. “It’s a proper book, and Boo speaks very well about taking these little facts and adding imagination to them. And in this digital age we just felt that this project needed something a bit special for people to actually buy it.
“We’re encouraging people to bring their pre-loved books and gift them to the bookshop, and maybe buy some while they’re there. The people at the bookshop have been brilliant. When we went to visit, they were so lovely. The volunteers just loved the fact that we had seen the notice board. They’ve been a big support, and I think launching the album there is going to be amazing.”
The pair have plans to play in numerous bookshops and art centres later in the year.
“We’re really looking forward to that,” Boo said. “It’s such a different experience, it’s wonderful. You really get people’s attention in a different way.”
The album itself should certainly grab plenty of attention. I was hooked from the very first track. It really is beautiful.
“That was Boo, he’s good at that… beautiful and poignant with very few words. That’s the other thing, we’ve not used a lot of lyrics in this album. The lyrics actually reflect the fragments, but they can say so much.”
The first single, ‘The Things You Find in Books’ was released on 14th March (with a very special film made by Melanie Sims), and the album will be available from Friday 28th March. And don’t forget, if you’d like a signed copy, Boo and Yvonne will be performing at Culzean’s bookshop on Sunday 30th March – the perfect Mother’s Day treat!
