This 'mini rock opera' as it seems to have become, started out as an instrumental, which I wrote for a good friend who had just suffered a tragic loss, that of his only son. My good friend Mark Bennett had listened to the instrumental and been very affected by the sentiment expressed and asked me if I would consider revisiting the track again, which I readily agreed to. His initial idea was to pen just a couple of lines of lyrics and approach mutual friend Marianne Holland aka StarGrace, to possibly do some vocals. I'd collaborated with Marianne on several projects before and very much enjoyed working with her and I really love her vocal style and admire her incredible range, so she was a natural choice for this track.
From this initial idea from Mark and several e-mails of further ideas for this track from Mark, I had the idea to put together The Great War Centenary Suite, now complete ... it seems very fitting that the same track that started it all should be the one to complete the project it gave birth to in the first place.
Mark initially did a guide vocal, in quite high register, for Marianne to get a clearer picture of what he had in mind and he sent that to Marianne and it was not his intention to sing on the final track. Marianne sent me 3 different first takes with backing vocals and I pieced together an arrangement from them along with Mark's guide vocal which I liked a lot. Marianne also played an electric bass guitar part and kindly also sent me a synth violin part to use as I wished and the resultant mix is what you hear here ...

Original Instrumentation: Korg Kronos synth, Mellotron Tape Violins & Drums & Percussions
Roland Jupiter 50 synth 'Trumpeteer'
Fender Strat electric guitar improvisations

Here also is Marks perspective:
"When Graham asked me if we could perhaps write a suite of music/songs to commemorate the centenary of WW1 I was keen that we should also have something from a woman's perspective. The premise for this song is the promise made by a young couple to each other. The woman grows older and perhaps never finds love whilst the soldier remains always a boy in her memory and forever her love is mixed with grief. So great was the human cost to a generation that an estimated 2 million British women were robbed of the chance of finding a partner, marrying and having children. Marianne (Stargrace) was an obvious choice to sing this part as she has so much passion in her delivery and makes this tiny fragment of a lyric, so full of meaning."

Thanks so much for listening :))