The seed for the album came about with the opening track and first single ‘The Sparrow, The Thrush & The Nightingale’, a laidback, upbeat melody with an instantly recognisable whistled refrain disguising an allegorical tale about greed. Deciding to enlist the services of respected folk singer Jim Causley to add juxtaposing vigour to the seething, bilious lyrics, Rotheray hit upon the idea of expanding the metaphor to write an entire album with birds as its loose notional concept, and calling upon some of the UK’s finest folk singer-songwriters to flesh out the music he had written. The result is fourteen superbly crafted songs that touch on some sensitive subjects with subtlety and grace – although Rotheray is quick to point out “all
pigeons described … are entirely fictitious, and any resemblance to chaffinches, living or dead, is entirely coincidental!”
In a career that has taken him from forming The Beautiful South with Paul Heaton in the late 1980s to his critically-acclaimed acoustic side project Homespun, Dave Rotheray’s name has always been synonymous with music that mixes the melancholy with dry humour to great effect. On ‘The Life Of Birds’, Rotheray has succeeded in crafting an album where the emphasis is firmly on songwriting, with some of the best lyrics and most beautiful music of his career.
