Fanzines and Webpages: Song for Ewe: 'Will I Love Again?' by Ivor Game

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I do like an Alternate Universe story - whether it's Nazi's winning the war, the Space Race carrying on to Mars,or Buddy Holly not dying, its all good - and seeing Ivor Game play live makes me feel like I'm in one.

I put on a monthly night called 'Totally Acoustic', where acts play, well, Totally Acoustically, with no amps or microphones. Occasionally people I don't know get in touch to ask if they can play, and usually they're bloody awful (i.e. folk music) but sometimes I get an email from someone who sounds really good, and one of those was Ivor.

I booked him and, come the evening of the gig, he rolled up looking like he'd just come from work (which he had), sat quietly while other acts were on, then stepped up and, in a very humble, quiet way, blew my tiny mind.

He wasn't aggressive, or loud, or avant garde, he was just beautiful. He played a string of small, delicate songs that sounded like, in a kinder, better, universe, they were much loved hits that we'd all grown up singing. It felt like it might if you shifted a few dimensions to the left and fell into an Earth where Paul McCartney had had a cold on the day of the Woolton Village Fete back in 1957 and was now in a pub decades later just strumming some of the tunes he'd written since he'd retired from teaching.

This one was recorded last month at Totally Acoustic, having been written a couple of weeks beforehand. Ivor emailed it to me yesterday as he'd just put it up on Soundcloud. Sometimes it's good for the only version of a song to exist to be the live one,he said. Nina Simone has one or two of these. That's where the similarity ends of course.

I wouldn't know about that, but I think it's lovely - I particularly like the way that the car alarm outside seems to fall into time with the tune during the first verse!

Ivor's very much available online and on Youtube, but I'd recommend seeing if you can find him playing live somewhere - it'll be like travelling to another universe.

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