20 years later - reinventing a (Cinema love) song

At the turn of the millennium I was finishing my PhD in Nottingham. During that time I was in a band (the Sunflowers) and we had a lot of fun writing songs, playing local gigs and recording a couple of albums.

I played rhythm guitar in the band and very occasionally sang (badly, it has to be said). I also wrote quite a lot of songs. One of my songs which I was really pleased with was called ‘Cinema Love Song’ and it was released on our second album (‘Heliotherapy’).

The genesis of this song was formed from my observations of people in the cafe of the Broadway cinema in Nottingham This gave rise to the content of the opening verse as well as the title of the song. After the opening, the lyrics revert to my standard song-writing theme of the time (self-pitying loneliness). The song was probably written in 1999 or 2000. Here is the original recording (note this is not me singing):

Fast-forward 20 or so years and I found myself - for some unknown reason - dreaming about the song on New Years Eve 2022. I woke up and realised that I was unable to remember the lyrics to the later verses. This troubled me greatly…though I don’t know why I expect to have immediate recall of song lyrics that I wrote several decades ago!

I immediately played the original on my phone and then spent the rest of the day trying to work out how to play the song (I have long since lost any record of the chords or lyrics).

It took me a couple of days to finally work out all the chords and - on a whim - I decided to have a go at re-recording the song in a LoFi style (because that’s what all the kids are listening to, right?).

So here are two versions of the song recorded over 20 years after the original. One with (badly sung) lyrics and one as an instrumental.

Enjoy (or not as the case may be)! I’ve provided download links for my two new versions. Maybe this will be the start of a reinvention of other 20-year old songs?