Shadows Behind Soft Words Of Love

In April 2023, a cache of some 200 long-lost poems, song lyrics and prose works were discovered during an itemisation of the effects of singer-songwriter/performance artist Paul Murphy.

Working against a heartless clock - his Palsy Motor Neurological Disorder had by now entered late-stage - Paul made a heroic attempt to anthologise as many of the works as possible whilst still able. This is the first volume from what became known online as 'The Basement Files' (a reference to Bob Dylan's legendary long-unreleased Basement Tapes recordings).

Mainly dating from 1994-1996, the pieces here are some of the darkest, most personal works in Paul's extensive catalogue, dealing with the scarred underside of love, parental relationships, friendship and trust. In addition, there were several manuscripts that focus on topics always close to Paul's heart and pen, of wider societal injustices such as racism, misogyny, and inequality.

In addition to the works, are photographs of some of the original handwritten papers, plus, thanks to his lifelong habit of annotating all his lyrics when and where written, a composition/creation log. Amazingly, from this, it came to light that on one single day, 11 December 1995, Paul wrote 17 songs in an unbroken 12-hour session.

Lauded online, following Paul releasing several recital videos on his YouTube channel, these unseen works highlight their author's majestic turn of phrase, control of syntax and alliteration, and emotive penmanship, and are now, thankfully, available for all to share.

'.... there was no time, let alone physical cohesion, to go through all the hundreds of works, pick out which to include, to look at trope or format, etc. So, what you have here, are the opening entries in the first box file. By coincidence or fate, many of the pieces worked out somewhat thematically. That semi-theme might seem ... dark. You would not be wrong. Having typed that, you can juxtapose their script form here, with the recited - and in some cases, sung - form, on my YouTube channel, to gain a different contextualisation on them. But the one thing I would like you to bear in mind, should you yourself be in a place where there seems to be no light entering for whatever reason/s - I would grab, in a micro-millisecond, any one, any combination of, those days chronicled here, with both my paralysed arms. The worst day you will ever have... is the one you do not see.'
- Paul Murphy, taken from the essay Hiding Behind Your Own Shadow / Notes.