Part One:

Maths was never one of my strongest points, so a bit of artistic licence is required to provide clarity.

Two of our favourite young people had their first child a bit under a year ago. When they told us the child’s name, I felt the urge to write a song. I continue to write a lot these days, from works of fiction to music, which are of course works of fiction too, but I tend not to write about people I know — or even don’t know — apart from a song I composed for our dearly-departed dog, Poppy, in early 2025.

It was intended from the start to be a lively little number, not sombre, schmaltzy or the like. I kind of channelled Ian Hunter’s rollicking 1975 hit (yes, I’m that old) ‘Once Bitten Twice Shy’, and when it comes to rollicking rockers, they don’t come much rollickinger than that doozy. Anyway, I don’t feel my song is much like Hunter’s hit at all, but inspiration was all I needed.

I wrote and recorded it all in a bit of a hurry, because K and I had decided to flit across the creek to Adelaide and meet the brand new little human. Being one who has relished a deadline I got to work and finished the recording, mixed and mastered the song in time to catch the Spirit of Tasmania ferry to the mainland with a day or three to spare.

I presented the song to the happy couple when we visited them in the Barossa, which means I shared an mp4 with them. I had a CD but discovered they didn’t have a CD player. Sigh, young people of today …

I thought that was that until I decided to create a video clip of it, but felt that me singing the song without presenting the story would be … lacking. I mean it’s just crusty old me miming along to a song I’d previously recorded. Yes I know, musicians have done just that for decades.

Even with their permission I wouldn’t have felt comfortable revealing who mum, dad and the newborn are to YouTube and those who engage with Tiger Dreaming. Our friends’ anonymity to anyone outside their circle of family and friends was paramount, and the idea of creating AI characters to fill the void seemed to be a great option. But then dabbling with this emerging beast, generating AI video to support video of me singing the song might take a while because it’s technology I had to learn on the fly. And what an interesting experience that was!

I will share my thoughts on AI and my first-time dabbling with the process of creating AI videos in Part Two of ‘One and one make three’, coming soon.

With that said, I’m proud to present ‘One and One’.

Here’s a link to ‘Ordinary Lives’ if you haven’t already checked it out: