Songs Of The Week 2025: Take 4

Neil Morton 

FEATURED SONG OF THE WEEK

Strung Out On The Line: Jon Wilks (featuring Ellie Gowers)

We are hoping Jon Wilks’ collaboration with fellow folk singer Ellie Gowers for his latest single, Strung Out On The Line, has a longer lifespan than just this track. Our Song Of The Week at herecomesthesong.com has left us politely pleading for more.

On his website Wilks describes the twists and turns of the song’s journey, his blog generously writing my blog for me. Some songs can fall into place quickly, and the great ones among them never give that impression. This joint composition, about ‘the lingering pull of what’s gone’, has taken its time – but it has been worth every painstaking moment.

‘I’d had the guitar part and melody for months – something a bit Nick Drake-ish, all hanging chords and uncertainty – and while I liked the atmosphere, it never quite became a song. A few lines floated through, but nothing that stuck. Still, it kept nagging at me.’

Wilks’ guitar part, its Drake-ish warmth and bright invention, tickles the senses first. Enter the influence of Gowers and her exquisite harmonies. She and Wilks had always intended to write together, and the Midlands-born guitarist is grateful the alliance happened. Their vocal chemistry is immediately evident.

‘At the end of 2024, I sent the idea to Ellie and she replied almost immediately saying it gave her ideas straight away, which was encouraging. We set a date for the spring.

‘In March, on one of the first properly sunny days of the year, I drove up from Hampshire to Birmingham and spent the day in Ellie’s garden near Edgbaston Cricket Ground. We sat outside with guitars, tea and notebooks. I’m not a particularly focused writer – I tend to meander – but Ellie was the opposite. Within half an hour she had the first verse and chorus pretty much nailed.’

I heard that you’d settled down

How do you leave this town?

As for me, I’m still here

Chasing down the memories through the years

I chased you down a dusky lane

Until you hopped the garden gate

Where the old river flows

That’s where I ran out of road

There’s no rhyme or reason

For the wanting of the days gone by

Turning through the seasons

We’re just memories of memories in time

Patterns fade and I’m strung out on the line

‘That set the tone. I brought in some old lyrics about memories of memories, which came from a conversation I’d had with Jim Moray a year or so earlier – about how we don’t really remember events themselves, we just remember the last time we told ourselves a story about them. From there, nostalgia crept in. With Ellie’s careful ear guiding the shape, the song started writing itself. By the evening it was done.

‘We recorded the basic track a few weeks later, in April, at a small Stirchley studio owned by Laurence Hunt, who also played drums on the track. It was me, Ellie, Laurence and Jon Nice all squeezed in, tracking guitars, percussion and vocals. My vocals were re-recorded later, and Jon added keys from his home studio once he’d had time to live with the song. Ellie was there again, tuning in to all the subtleties, hearing things I hadn’t. The arrangement came alive in her hands.

‘Laurence picked up on a samba-like rhythm hiding under the surface. We took a lunch break and listened to The Obvious Child by Paul Simon, then Laurence got to work bringing that flavour to the track – not too overt, just a lilt to carry it along. The sumptuous final mix was handled by Albert Hansell at Wildgoose Studios in May.’

The track, along with lively lead single Could You Be The One?, will appear on Wilks’ fifth solo album Needless Alley, produced by Joe Sartin (son of Jon’s late great friend Paul Sartin) and due for release in October. Strung Out On The Line will be the only track featuring Gowers but her stamp seeps through like a stick of seaside rock.

Both artists have been applauded on this website, Wilks for his wonderful ode to Soho, Greek Street (written in one sitting, unlike our Song Of The Week this time) and Gowers for the delightful Woman Of The Waterways and environmental wake-up call Waking Up To Stone from her impressive Dwelling By The Weir album.

Wilks, lauded for his fingerstyle guitar prowess and admirable interpretations of traditional music like his guru Martin Carthy, appears just as comfortable in a contemporary setting. He is quick to acknowledge the role of Gowers, his ‘quiet constant guide’ who became central to the album’s making.

‘After I released Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost, she pushed me –gently but persistently – to write more original material. I wasn’t sure I had a whole album in me, but she seemed to think otherwise. I sent her so much of this album during the writing phase. In that sense, she became something of a mentor. I’m not sure it would’ve come together without her.’

Some tribute, some song. It may have been in gestation for a while but we took only an instant to like it. ’We’re just memories of memories in time.’

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