Darren Hayman: No sleep till Upper Slaughter
In these times of remembrance a heart touching contemporary story with a Glastonburyesque spin. This article about the latest musical initiative of an indie star tells us:
Nevertheless, Darren Hayman, whose gig it is, seems unfazed. His current musical project is called Thankful Villages, its name and inspiration taken from the term coined by writer Arthur Mee for those villages in Britain where all those who served in the first world war returned home alive: one of them was Maplebeck, making it a fitting launch venue.
Thankful Villages may well be Hayman’s most ambitious project yet. After reading Mee’s book series The King’s England, he came up with the idea of visiting all 54 villages and writing a song or a piece of music “either born there, or affected by my visit there”, as well as making a short film and a watercolour painting in each. “I liked the sound of the phrase ‘Thankful Villages’ and it appealed to ideas I have about randomness in music, about setting myself tasks. I thought the paintings and the films sort of proved that I was actually doing it,” he laughs. “I felt I could have just said I’d gone to 54 villages and written a song. So, in the first few, there’s quite a lot of footage of me with a guitar and a microphone.”