Born in Liverpool in August 1962, Lee Mavers is the epitome of the enigmatic songwriter. A true perfectionist, whose quest to make the complete album has consumed his entire music career since he started out as bassist in Liverpool band Neuklon. Almost tragically, Mavers’ recorded output remains at one album -_and he describes that as sounding “shit”. Dubbed by biographer Matthew Macefield as “The JD Salinger Of Pop”, little has been heard from the reclusive songwriter in recent years, and he’s now said to be living a quiet family life in a Liverpool suburb. The occasional live performance and interview over the past three decades have offered hope that more music will come from a writer Noel Gallagher once admitted to fearing, but other than a series of bootlegs, alternative takes and live sessions, nothing has materialised.
A simple opening salvo, which centres on only three chords and falls just shy of the two-minute mark. It evidences Mavers’ adroit and evocative storytelling, his acoustic guitar playing typically crisp and confident. Whether or not it’s autobiographical we don’t know, but it’s a tremendous piece of writing regardless and feels a prescient description of Mavers’ unfulfilled talents: “If you want, I’ll sell you a life story/ About a man who’s at loggerheads with his past all the time/ He’s alive and living in purgatory/ All he’s doing is rooming up in hotels and scooping up lots of wine”. The version from Liz Kershaw’s show on the 2016 BBC In Session compilation eclipses the album take.