COUNTRIES & CROWNS

As remembered by Zesty Dreams. More or less.

It was our first proper song together. All four of us, sitting around, throwing ideas about, arguing over lyrics and generally making far more noise than was strictly necessary. We'd written bits and pieces before, but this was the first time we really felt like a band.

The whole thing actually started with Bingo. We were talking about what we'd do if we could just pack everything in and disappear for a while. You know, leave all the nonsense behind and go somewhere nobody could bother us.

And Bingo, who'd been unusually quiet, suddenly said, "To be honest, it's always been a bit of a dream for me and my son to get a boat and just sail away."

Well, we all went quiet for a moment. Which, if you know Bingo, is not something that happens very often.

There was something rather lovely about it. The idea of simply sailing away from all the fighting, the expectations and the people telling you what you ought to be doing with your life. And somehow that turned into a song about war, conscientious objection and the absurdity of expecting ordinary people to go off and kill one another because somebody in a uniform tells them to.

Our hero wasn't having any of it. He'd much rather find himself a riverboat and sail downstream, away from all those countries & crowns. We thought that was a perfectly reasonable position to take.

Musically, though, it was rather cheerful. Somewhere between sunshine pop and Bucks Fizz having a particularly good afternoon. Lovely harmonies, jangling guitars and a chorus you could sing after two listens.

Which is probably why somebody had the bright idea of entering it for Eurovision.

Jack says it was Joe. Joe says it was Jack. Frankie says they're both idiots.

She might have a point.

Anyway, we thought it was brilliant. We were already discussing costumes, lighting and whether we could afford one of those enormous wind machines. Joe reckoned we needed more sequins. Frankie wanted to know why we needed sequins at all.

Then the letter arrived.

Apparently, there were a couple of problems.

First, the song was four minutes and fifteen seconds long. Eurovision has a three-minute limit. Well, nobody had mentioned that when we were writing it. And anyway, which minute were we supposed to take out? They were all important.

Then Bingo came out with what we thought was a perfectly reasonable question.

"How are we ever going to achieve world peace if we've got to fit it into three minutes? Not bloody three!"

We thought he had a point.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only problem. It seems the suggestion that sailing downstream on a riverboat might be preferable to marching off to war wasn't quite the message the organisers were looking for.

Something about political content and the spirit of international harmony.

International harmony!

We'd written a song about not killing one another. How much more harmonious did they want us to be?

We were all trying to make sense of it when Bingo announced he had a theory.

"It's Brexit, isn't it?"

Nobody had the heart to tell him.

Jack wanted to appeal. Joe suggested adding more sequins and a key change. Frankie pointed out that neither of those things was likely to make the song any shorter or less political.

Joe hung on to the idea like a pit bull until Frankie finally lost it and told him that no amount of costume changes would soften the anti-war message.

Naturally, we ignored her.

In the end, nothing worked. No appeal, no wind machine, no Eurovision. Not even the opportunity to receive nul points from Iceland, which Jack reckoned was practically guaranteed.

So we did what any sensible band would do. We gave ourselves a massive group hug and got on with making music.

And we didn't shorten the song.

Not by a second.

Keep the Faith!

ZESTY FOREVER!