Daryl Runswick's
One More Day page

Will One More Day's day finally come, one day? The LP, issued in 1980, did not prove popular at the time: Cleo was trying something new but found her fans wanting more of the same. The hoped-for new audience didn't materialise either. We were all disappointed: the idea of a 'concept' album of Kerry Lee Crabbe/Daryl Runswick songs seemed good then, and the more I listen to it today, the more convinced I become we were onto something. We just didn't take the public along with us. Perhaps now, or sometime in the future, people will see what we were on about.

Meanwhile One More Day is out of print: a CD was issued in the '90s but is now only available second hand – but at prices which surely make it a cult item. I don't own the recordings, so I can't put them up on this site – except one (at the bottom of this page) which was cut from the final running order. The rest of the audio here consists of original demos of me singing some of the songs: these were used by Cleo for learning purposes before she recorded them herself.

All The Skinny Schoolgirls  

Tomboy             

First Love, Half Light      

Goodbye Friend   

Over The Moon    

Hey Son      

We Shouldn't Miss Like This  

We Shouldn't Miss Like This   
Sung by Cleo

Early in 1979 I was on tour in Australia and New Zealand playing bass with Cleo and John. The writing of the songs for One More Day had already begun in England, but now in a quite exciting development Kerry and I continued to collaborate from opposite ends of the world. Lyrics would arrive in Sydney or Adelaide or wherever I was, sent hot off the press from Kerry in London by a thing called ‘telex’ – a precursor of the (now equally old fashioned) fax. The printouts would be handed to me on endless coils of paper – a heady moment – then after we played the next concert on the tour I would be allowed to stay behind at the hall, or go back the following morning, and on the full sized concert grand (often still in place centre stage in a cavernous, empty hall) I’d hammer away, singing along, until a new song emerged. This was glamorous, high octane song production and Kerry and I were prompted to some of our most sustained creativity.

All this went on for several weeks: then when we finally got to Melbourne I was woken very early one Sunday morning, put in a taxi and sent alone through the deserted city streets to Armstrong Recording Studios, which they opened specially for me and I laid down demos – voice (my voice) and piano. In the 4 hours given me I put down 13 piano tracks, then added 13 vocals, then supervised the mix. The seven best are here.

Many of these songs are of course in the wrong gender for me to sing, being written specifically for a woman and a woman's experience. Others work equally well sung by a man.

You can find other songs from One More Day, sung by me or in one case Julie Covington, elsewhere on this site. The Year Is Gone (sung by Julie) can be found on Songs Vol 3. Move is on Songs Vol 1, as is another song which has a strange history. Settling Down on One More Day originally had a completely different lyric and was called First Time Around. You can find it in this earlier form on Songs Vol 1.

Of the demos here All The Skinny Schoolgirls in my version has extra lyrics which didn't make it onto the album. First Love, Half Light has an early version of the tune, which was revised before Cleo sang it, and extra lyrics. Over The Moon has an earlier version of the tune than the one Cleo sings.

Hey Son was offered to Cleo but didn't end up on the album. In fact it had been written some years earlier to celebrate the birth of my own son Tristan in 1975.

We Shouldn't Miss Like This didn't end up on the album either (except as a fragmentary melody link between songs) but Cleo did record it. I offer it here both in my demo and her version, which would undoubtedly have been honed further had it been included in the record. My version, in the fadeout section at the end, has possibly the highest note ever sung by me, an A-flat above the treble stave.