Complicated Shadows Read Online Free PDF

visitor to Merseyside, to see his son, naturally, but also to visit his own mother in Birkenhead, and
to play the odd gig at British Legions and similar venues.
    On occasion, Declan would join the band and play a little guitar, once venturing as far afield as Blackpool. It afforded him a low-key but tempting taste of the professional musician’s
life.
    Liverpool would be Declan’s home for over two years. In late August 1970, he started at Campion School in Salisbury Street, Everton, a lay Catholic school previously known as St Francis
Xavier Bi-Lateral School and still often referred to in Liverpool as SFX. He entered the sixth form to sit his A-Levels, and found the atmosphere entirely different from his experiences in the
capital.
    ‘It was very much two years behind London,’ he later recalled. ‘I’d gone to school in Hounslow, and you had to like Tamla and reggae otherwise you were dead. But then I
went [to Liverpool] and you didn’t dare say you liked Tamla, you had to like Deep Purple or something.’ 22
    Ross was going through a psychedelic phase in his early forties, growing his hair long and reading Herman Hesse. Perhaps in sympathy, Declan adopted the Grateful Dead as his personal group.
‘Nobody else liked them and you had to have a group that you liked,’ he remembered. ‘I used to sit at home going, “Please make me like the Grateful
Dead!”.’ 23 He eventually talked himself into it.
    Declan made little effort to integrate socially, and as a result had few friends, mainly by choice rather than design. A stubbornly independent youngster, he began to devour books and
newspapers, forming the rather idealistic socialconsciousness typical of many intelligent teenagers. He also drew increasingly close to his immediate family: his mother in
Liverpool, his father in London, and his grandmother in Birkenhead. 8 He was a frequent visitor to her house, and the area made a permanent imprint on his
brain, providing the geographical location for many of his songs: the shipyards of Cammell Laird in ‘Shipbuilding’; the ‘sedated homes’ of ‘Little Palaces’; the
departing émigré of ‘Last Boat Leaving’; and the enduringly affectionate tribute of ‘Veronica’ are but four examples of dozens of lyrical snapshots which have
their emotional heart in the tight terraced streets and docks around his grandmother’s house in Conway Street.
    Football and music were the twin cornerstones. Aside from going along to watch Liverpool play on the odd Saturday, Declan busied himself by making tentative forays into the less-than-happening
local music scene. The Merseybeat boom had long gone, the demise of The Beatles a symbolic sign that times had changed. Now it was heavy rock and folk music. However, the more progressive,
intuitive folk culture which Declan had tentatively dipped a toe into in London was made of much grimmer stuff up north, and he was floundering in his attempts to find a foothold in a music scene
which was all but moribund. ‘I found a scene dominated by Jacqui & Birdie and sub-Spinners people and it was like running into a brick wall,’ he said. ‘It was
horrendous.’ 24 The clubs wanted folk music of the most traditional kind: Ralph McTell’s ‘Streets Of London’, Ewan
MacColl’s ‘Dirty Old Town’, the usual crowd-pleasers. There was little appetite for original songs and it was a harsh, unforgiving atmosphere for anyone who wanted to play
contemporary music or try something individual.
    Aware of Declan’s frustration, Ross tried to help his son by introducing him to a rock band/art collective called The Medium Theatre, who also ran a poetry magazine called
Medium.
Well, it
was
the early ’70s. Ross had some vague Liverpool links with members of the band and had alsodonated something along the lines of £10 to the
magazine to help with publishing costs. The members of the group were slightly older than Declan, and his father hoped that they might help the