Rules of Engagement #1

An engagement story, and why I’m here.

Firstly, why are we here?

A few years ago, because of my work in education, I decided to create a second Instagram account just for my music. This meant I had two: a ‘personal’ account, where I could post about family, friends and general life stuff, and a separate ‘music’ account for gigs, new songs, and releases — an account students could follow. The reasoning was sound at the time: keep the two things separate.

But over the years, I’ve found this setup increasingly frustrating. Rather than helping, it’s ended up stifling my creativity. My personal life and music naturally cross over — one always informs the other — and I often find myself unsure where to post things that don’t clearly fit either box. A photo of some flowers in the garden? A growing collection of canal boat artwork? They don’t really belong on either account. So I often don’t share them at all.

Honestly, I’m a bit fed up with it. I still want to share the things I make, or notice, or enjoy — so I’ve decided to try out this platform. I hope it’s a space where I can bring things together a bit more naturally. Plus, it leans into something else I’ve started to enjoy lately: writing stuff!

This first post is a perfect example of my personal and creative worlds overlapping. It’s about getting engaged — and about a song that came from that moment. I’ve decided to call this section of the blog Rules of Engagement, in the hope that I can keep sharing little things and maybe even engage a few of you along the way.

So here goes…

Rules of Engagement #1

Earlier in the year, I flew to Morocco with my girlfriend for a few January nights in Marrakech. I took a ring with me and, on our second night, popped the question — and now my girlfriend is my fiancée.

It was a great trip, filled with colour, sound, smells — a feast for the senses. Coupled with the nervousness and heightened emotion of proposing, it’s fair to say the trip was a bit of a whirlwind. I’m fairly confident in saying that Marrakech is the most culturally different place you can go to within a four-hour flight from the UK.

On reflection, I look back with fondness — but there were moments on the trip when I found it challenging. I struggled with the bartering process in the souks (I think I prefer a fixed price), and I didn’t love seeing how some of the animals were treated — we saw working donkeys in the medina and monkeys with chains around their necks. It was also hard not being able to get a drink anywhere (I think a beer might have helped with the general anxiety), and we had a near miss trying to cross a busy street full of mopeds and traffic.

That said, being there with Tasha, and getting engaged, made it all more than worth it. And there were loads of highlights too — hearing the call to prayer sweep across the city from our riad rooftop was something special, we learned how to cook a classic Moroccan tagine and we wandered through some beautiful gardens.

I’d brought a book with me: Let the Light Pour In by Lemn Sissay — a collection of his morning poems, all in a similar four-line format, what I now know to be a quatrain. Inspired, both Tasha and I decided to write a poem each day to try and capture the essence of the trip. As with many of my creative ideas, I didn’t totally follow through, but I did write a couple. The first one went:

Brentwood this morning,
Marrakech this afternoon,
However wet it might have been,
We’ll be dry again soon.

I used it as an Instagram caption for a few photos while we were away, and then kind of forgot about it. A few months later, I found myself needing some lyrics for a bit of music I’d been messing around with — and the poem provided the perfect starting point for a song about the proposal. I built on it with other lines inspired by the trip — listen out for references to the call to prayer and nearly getting run over.

Here’s the demo. It’s called “Marrakech.”

Thanks for reading and for listening. If you enjoyed this, feel free to share it with anyone you think might be interested — I’d love to engage a few more people as this little project gets going.

Until the next post, James.

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