Things to Do in Hastings in the Rain
I’ve always been fascinated by the Hastings community and the links that bind so many people together down here. Via one of those links I received “a song of grey seas and universal truths,” delivered, “as the new year exits its incubator and breathes hesitantly to life”. It’s about Hastings, but not by someone who lives here.
John Moore describes himself as a singer, songwriter, artist, musician, poet and writer. He’s a former member of The Jesus and Mary Chain, the acclaimed alternative rock band from the eighties and nineties, and more recently of Black Box Recorder. He lives in London but is connected to Hastings via a school friend who lives here now, and a mother who lived here many years ago – and also the first family visit in 1066 with the Normans. He only made it to Hastings in person in 2019 when he played at the Printworks.
John Moore at the Printworks
CREDIT: Dave Wares
John says: “Things To Do In Hastings In The Rain began on a leaden afternoon in 2020 in the garden of my mother’s childhood home, in Hastings, on a hill above the town, and like the title says, ‘in the rain’ – very much in the rain.”
He continues the story: “During a brief plague respite, I made it out of London and headed for the coast to find the old house. My eighty-four-year-old mother was able to see it for the first time in seventy years via the miracle of FaceTime. It had hardly changed at all. She gave us a guided tour, her face and voice back at the spot my grand-father sat in the garden beneath his pale green blanket, one I still use today; along the path to the bus stop which took her to school each day; to the upstairs room where they and all the neighbours watched the Coronation; revisited in a sci-fi dream.
“This spy hole through time brought it all back to her and showed it all to me – a strange and moving experience, amplified by the darkness, both real and imagined; days long gone, and the feeling that, perhaps, the answers to the bigger questions of existence might soon be answered – not to mention the Great British weather – which was chucking it down!”
And about the song, he adds: “It’s also about courage, redemption, cold-water swimming, and those f**ing rocks!!!”
• Things To Do In Hastings In The Rain was released on 14 January, a ‘seasonal instalment’ from the forthcoming album All’s Well That Ends Well https://ffm.to/v55wprx Also available on YouTube https://youtu.be/azR4frisBeM.
Visit John Moore’s website at www.johnmooremusic.com
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