Brian Protheroe: Still Walking, Still Writing, Still Saying What Needs To Be Said

We have been having some brilliant conversations on The Third Half recently.

Brian Protheroe is in his 80s. He has released four albums in the last four years. He calls himself lazy. I genuinely do not think he knows what lazy means. And he is one of the most quietly remarkable people I have had on the show.

1. The Song That Refused To Age

Pinball was written in 1974 in a bedsit in Central London. No money. No work. Recently heartbroken. A pinball machine in the pub around the corner.

He calls it a diary entry. Every line actually happened. Except possibly the bit about the cat eating bread.

Fifty years later Paul Weller put it on his covers album. Morrissey has been a fan for decades. Noel Gallagher too. Not a bad fanbase for a song written on a bad week in a small room.

Brian heard the Weller version and was not immediately sure. He went for a walk. Listened again. It grew on him. Very Brian.

The song has outlasted almost everything around it and it is still finding new listeners every day.

2. He Wrote Mad Dog Because Screaming At The Telly Was Not Working Anymore

Brian does not think artists have a duty to challenge power.

But sometimes you just cannot help yourself.

He tried to write a Trump song during the first term. Left it unfinished. Was not happy with it. Then the second term came and the feelings came back louder and the song just came out.

Mad Dog. Something digging up the White House lawn. His guitarist Julian helped him make it as aggressive as it needed to be.

He did not write it to say something important. He wrote it because he had nowhere else to put it. Sometimes that is all a song needs to be.

3. Belonging Is Not A Place. It Is The Feeling Of Being Exactly Who You Are.

Brian has had three or four moments on stage where everything went quiet and he thought this is exactly where I am supposed to be.

Playing Hamlet. Finishing a song he loves. Sitting at the piano every morning with Mozart and Chopin.

He wrote a whole song about it for Still Walking. And when he explained what belonging means to him it was one of the most straightforward and honest things anyone has said on this show.

Belonging is where you are. Who you are. Its the centre of what is inside you.

Not bad for a man who also played Macbeth twice and once met Paul Simon at a folk club in London.

The full conversation is warm, funny, a little melancholy in the best way, and completely unhurried. Worth an hour of your time.

Watch the full episode here: https://www.thethirdhalf.uk/p/on-the-turntable-brian-protheroe

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