Environmentally themed: creating the music for Down to Earth

Songwriter Ian Clark composed music for TV and radio programmes through the 1970s and 1980s. Here, he describes one memorable job.

In the summer of 1972 I was singing and writing with musician Christopher Rowe and together we had recently produced two albums of songs about the city. We were working for Radio and TV in Hull in various capacities, from presenting BBC Radio Humberside’s weekly Roundabout Folk programme to writing and singing on BBC TV’s Look North.

I was at home for lunch one Thursday when I received a telephone call from a BBC producer I had met a couple of weeks previously when he was working in Hull. He told me he needed a signature tune for a new BBC TV programme featuring environmental issues, called Down to Earth. He wanted to commission me and Chris Rowe to write it, and he needed it by the following Monday: “About 45 seconds long, with hope in the words and threat in the music”. He explained he planned to use shots of a young woman walking through a cornfield with the high corn alternately obscuring and revealing her to the camera.

Not the most explicit of briefs but it certainly left scope for invention so I said we’d do what we could and let him have the recordings on tape by a railway courier service on Sunday. (No emails and digital recordings in 1972!)

I explained the brief to Chris and, as always, we worked separately to give maximum chance of a result. We produced three versions each, recorded them on tape, with guitar and banjo backings and sent them off from Hull Paragon station on Sunday afternoon.

Monday morning told us that British Rail had gone on strike but hoping we’d beaten the problem I waited for the producer’s call. He rang to tell us the parcel had not arrived and suggested I sing them down the phone. My wife Wendy held the handset and fended off our two children with her feet while I attempted the six signature pieces. “Hang on”, he said, “I’ll put you on speaker. Now the whole gallery at the Television Centre is listening – can you do them again?”

Feeling distinctly uncomfortable, not at all sure of the tunes or the words and totally under-rehearsed, I did them again. He didn't sound overwhelmed and frankly neither was I. In fact I was beginning to regret having accepted the commission. The producer commented that none of the six seemed to fit with the girl in the cornfield. “Haven’t you anything on that?,” he asked. I told him I’d got two lines:

Life – deafened by the rush of speed

Life – drowned by the roars of greed

“That’s it!” he said. “Finish that and I’ll fly up to Leeds next Saturday to record it at the BBC sound studios.” I was astonished.

I duly produced the rest, together with a suitable tune:

Life – deafened by the rush of speed

Life – drowned by the roars of greed

Let’s harmonise the sound

See clearly what the choice is.

Computerised or living voices.

Now’s the time to make a stand,

For a new and better land.

Come down to Earth. 

During a concert in York that Friday night, I unfortunately lost my voice. We met the producer in Leeds on Saturday and BBC Leeds’s local, vocal expert pharmacist brought it back to some degree but the recording was not one of our best. The song was eventually recorded again using a London folk group and the programme went out as planned.

Down to Earth was critical of some of the firms it featured. I remember the first programme was well received by the audience but caused a considerable reaction. 

The story gives a real taste of what broadcasting was like back then and the buzz of working at this zany speed. A touch near the edge, but great memories!

The broadcast version of the Down to Earth theme tune, "Life", was performed by folk singer Marian Segal backed by the Derek Price Group. Down to Earth ran from 17 June to 23 August 1972 on BBC One.