The Girl In The Green Jumper

A couple of years ago, a friend wrote a book about her stormy marriage to a brilliant but troubled artist. I read the book and although I’ve known her for many years, I learned things about their lives that she had never talked about before. It was a compelling love story of obsession, passion, sadness and hurt. It inspired me to pick up my guitar for the first time in years and try to tell that fascinating story in a few verses of song.

In a nutshell: It’s 1959 and a young girl, Renske, travels from her home in The Hague to start a new life in London. She falls in love with Cyril Mann, a talented but penniless artist. She is 19 - he is 45! Their next two decades together are filled with beautiful creativity, struggle and much heartbreak as she rescues, supports and unconditionally loves this flawed genius. Renske always promised Cyril that she would never stop fighting for him to be recognised as the great artist he was. She kept that promise during their troubled time together and for all the years since his death, culminating in this fascinating and poignant book. After all the years of turbulence and heartache, Renske eventually found love again. And it is now agreed by many, that Cyril Mann was one of the most important, but unsung, figurative painters of his time.

So, like most of my songs, it started with just me and the old guitar recording The Girl In The Green Jumper in my back room studio. It was then spruced up a bit and woven together with a beautiful string arrangement by Gareth Davies. We also added an evocative video of some of Cyril’s paintings and photos.

Although written and recorded two years ago, I’ve been persuaded to launch The Girl In The Green Jumper into the fast running streams of the ether to see if and where she travels. Release date is Monday 3rd August.