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Interpretations of "Can You Hear Me?" vary; Annie Haslam felt it was "about the city and people", while Jon Camp said that "It's about people hiding behind their social facades, I think ... people are never actually saying what they mean, never meaning what they say." Thatcher herself has declined to explain "Can You Hear Me?", preferring that each listener view it through their own individual understanding.
199:(keyboards), Michael Dunford (guitar), Jon Camp (bass guitar/vocals) and Terence Sullivan (drums). Dunford sent tapes of his compositions to her when it was inconvenient to play through his ideas in person and said that "she writes amazingly quickly... three days later I get these stunning lyrics back in the post!"
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and it had even darker words...so I tried to make it a little lighter." Thatcher said she "always regretted writing 'Sounds of the Sea' because I felt that it was such a personal thing...every time I heard it for the first five years I cringed and thought, oh my God, everyone can see into my brain."
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and became Betty Brown. The marriage ended in divorce in 1976. After that she lived as a lesbian, having four significant female partners at various times until her death. In the 1980s she changed her name back to
Newsinger, having found out her real birth name. Also her stepfather’s name Thatcher,
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to St. Ives, you have to walk...the sea's at one side of you and there's a train the other side...the trees looked like webs and the stars and the moon looked like mirrors." "I Think of You" conveys how "you can love everybody, in every way, even the unlovable." "Black Flame" relates to the
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John Tout described
Thatcher's lyrics as "reclusive, almost. They're not drawn from the normal sort of thing that people write about in a rock band", and Jon Camp opined, "What she's written has always been correct for the group. It fits very well with what we've tried to do musically."
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by
Michael Dunford's Renaissance, which featured singer Stephanie Adlington. These were written "during the painful period when a relationship was coming to an end... during which I was unable to speak, so I tried to put some of my feelings to song".
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335:"Carpet of the Sun" conveys Thatcher's "joy of being alive, and seeing the grass grow", and "Ashes Are Burning" relates "a near death experience." "Running Hard" tells of "a long dark cliff path, that if you miss the last bus from
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exam, she won a scholarship to a grammar school, where she refused to take part in any examinations. After two years excelling in
English and art, she transferred to a school that accepted difficult students.
361:. About "Ocean Gypsy" Thatcher "always thought the sun was the man and the moon was the woman...it's like they're lovers and they never really meet." "The Vultures Fly High" was "actually written for
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Her only
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141:, central London. She was taught to read newspapers at home, started conventional school at the age of eight, and became a fast and prolific reader. After passing the
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750:"Northern Lights - The Renaissance Fan Site: Renaissance Class Chops and Classical Cops - The Good Times (by Don Kossoff, 8-21 March 1977"
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During the 1970s, Thatcher wrote
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were her final contributions to the band, other than a few lyrics written several years later. She wrote the words to the
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on keyboards, Sullivan's wife
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After many personnel changes, the
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who would write songs around them, including "Love Is All" and "Past Orbits of Dust" from the album
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118:(16 February 1944 – 15 August 2011) was an English lyricist who wrote many of the lyrics for the
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Obituary: Betty's lyrics might have been 'reclusive' but they were heard by a global audience.
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which she had previously used, had gained negative political connotations by that time.
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Thatcher's friend Liz
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244:(1979). She wrote the lyrics to their 1978 UK top 10 hit single "
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track "Bonjour Swansong" as "a private goodbye to the group."
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In 1973, McCarty formed the group Shoot, whose only album,
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which was never released. She contributed lyrics to the
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She was a private person and lived most of her life in
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by Terence Sullivan's group Renaissant, which featured
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342:Vietnam War
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61:Westminster
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164:Keith Relf
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160:Yardbirds
156:Jane Relf
106:1969–2011
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67:, England
792:Obituary
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284:and the
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542:16 July
229:Novella
162:singer
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418:Nevada
150:Career
65:London
533:(PDF)
401:Notes
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302:Nikka
122:band
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733:2016
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.