We’ve made no secret about of love of Matt Marr’s music. His songs are like stories, like the sort of book you just don’t want to put down. He draws from his own life experiences, chews on them for as long as it takes, and then tells the tale whichever way suits. One of our aims through bh one and Honey Be Records is to get as many people as humanly possible to hear Matt’s music – as he says below the thought of actually making any money is almost farcical – but ‘I Still Love You Dear’ is just one of the many songs that Matt has written which just works, deeply, beautifully…

Matt Marr on ‘I Still Love You Dear’…

Unfortunately I only make a pittance from music and even that is a generous estimate. I don’t make music to make money, but doing gigs, recording, printing cds and making people aware that I even exist all takes the demon that is money. So I own a taxi and that pays the bills and makes it possible for me to record and release music…just about. The taxi has been my saviour as a songwriter, hours and hours to read, listen to music, write and meet some of the craziest fuckers this town has to offer. ‘I Still Love You Dear’ came about after a girl I presumed to be a ‘lady of the night’ got into my taxi and began what, at least in her tone, was a seemingly normal conversation. “Been busy?” “what time you out ‘til?” etc. Then the weird turn in conversation came when she told me she’d lost a stone in a week. Not sure how to respond I just said something like “oh really… great” and then she said quite plainly and proudly, “yeah, just from doing speed and not really eating.” I expect the not eating was more than likely down to spending any money she did actually ‘earn’ on speed instead of food, rather than a conscious effort to cut down on calories! I doubt she’d even originally gone on a diet. But as any devoted weight watcher will tell you – prostitution, speed, insomnia and starvation is a sure fire way to lose those extra vital pounds!

She seemed like a nice girl underneath all the madness though, almost harmless compared to some I’ve met and I couldn’t help imagining what her life up till then had been like. How she might have a mum somewhere worried to death about her. The first verse comes directly from that night, the second verse is personally reflective. The third is again imagined and the fourth autobiographical. This take was only meant to be a demo, the vocal and fingerpicking are far from perfect, but I felt the mood and feel of the song were exactly as I wanted. I also originally intended to add more instruments to it but after listening to it back I felt adding to it would only eventually take away from the original sentiment. I’ve never really been into perfection, when recording its got to be about the feel of the overall take. Mistakes are just mistakes – we all make them.

Matt Marr – ‘I Still Love You Dear’

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.