Is the outro of David Grays album White Ladder, released on 27th November 1998. I was born 6 days later and the album rung out through my childhood, and summers spent on the South West coast. I decided to return to Devon and take it for all it’s seasons in January of this year.

A hobby that ripened in the early days of my arrival, and has since somewhat subsided, was making rounds of local charity shops. Given the seasonal second-home nature of the town I now live, January provided slim pickings (but I was persistent). In contrast to that of East London, I noted a sluggishness to the stock rotation and a drastic increase in the Per Una to non-Per Una ratio.

Following a recent knee jerk deletion of Spotify and need for a car in this neck of the woods – reflective noise discs have gratefully rolled into my life. I have found solace in the CD section of charity shops, along with joy in my raspy throat as I drive home and movement in my feet as they explore new corners of a track and the kitchen. I have dicerned the best second-hand stores for CD’s, to be those in aid of animals – especially and funnily donkeys. They tend to reside in unassuming locations and are less savvy on price (CD’s that is). It is from said archetype that I salvaged a ripped copy of White Ladder, sandwiched repugnantly between Take That and Celine Dion.

For the price of 50p, the way the cover art had been printed out and cut wonkily, along with similarly-crafted CD spine and track list – there was no doubt in my mind that I would be leaving without this plastic box of goodness. But with a £2 minimum spend and a now honed frugal approach to charity shopping, I appologetically tucked him back behind Celine and moved at an appropriate pace to the nearest cash machine.

David Gray produced this album in his Stoke Newington bedroom, a stones throw from my prior home for almost 3 years. You can especially hear the DIY nature of his production in the track Babylon, where there is the audible sound of a car driving past. David talks of the imagry in this album being “what my life was like – a young person in London, going out all the time and getting a little bit lost”. He talks of how the album was “speaking to myself. I was in my late 20s, had lost my youthful momentum and was looking at myself.”.

This album has been fleshed out to me with the the experience of early-adulthood. Having grown up with it’s folky clubby simmerings in the backdrop, it holds a voice likened to that of an older family member, that I have now reached the age to hold conversation with. These layers of shared experience call to me and I have been climbing the lengths of this album for the past week – I am yet unable to bore.

The final track, the title of this post, is 9 minutes long. Leaving you with the longing calls to delay an inevitable end, with fading whisps of “We were born before the wind. Who were we to understand?”. A friend who I recently said goodbye to, texted me after to say “I feel like my goodbyes are always a bit climatic for the experiences we share”. My dyslexic brain read this as ‘anti-climatic‘ instead of ‘climatic‘ and was mildly confused. Our affectionate farewells always felt like a solacing gossamer to me. Now reading back I understand and wonder what elements they felt we were weathering.

With any uprooting and untethering, like a seedling we experience some level of transplant shock and require a short dormancy period before we can re-establish ourselves in new ground. But I think my probation is almost over and I am excited to start my tenure here.

I have found anchorage in the writings of Patrick Laurie, a renaissance with brit-pop, on phone calls to loved ones and the seeking out new ones. I find comfort in conversations overheard or engaged with over shop countertops or across pavements. Feeling proud of the markings on my hands and the new ways I am learning to use them. Old friends and family are due to visit in the weeks ahead, as the weather warms. I intend to consolidate my abundant stock before I wave in the next new thing.