The Great Northern Songbook - 9. Freewheel

'Freewheel' by Duke Special is a song that has evolved over the years, adapting to each part of the writer's career. It works with just the voice and the piano, but it's in good company with the Ulster Orchestra. The perfect accessory is an audience that's emotionally involved, in tune with the singer, with the sentiments and the swooning chorus.

The idea for 'Freewheel' may have developed from a rather messy night out, but it is also the result of a lifetime in music. Duke Special is of course Peter Wilson, who has lived in Downpatrick, Lisburn and Belfast and several other parts of the north. His father's job may have resulted in those moves, but music was the constant. Peter had three sisters who sang and played and therefore learning the piano was non-negotiable. So too were the family performances in church and in community centres and suchlike.

So the melodies of those old hymns and Irish airs were part of the ambience. It would always be around, even though young Peter was devouring the Beatles and John Lennon or getting anxious about the notion of Satanic messages in rock and roll. He would shake off this aversion to make dance music within the worship community. And when he eventually heard Rufus Wainwright, getting creative with show tunes and parlour ballads, then Peter realized that the piano was actually an instrument that could be adventurous and credible.

This development was taking place around the millennium year, just as 'Freewheel' was making its first appearance. Peter was in a band called Booley House, which was amended to plain old Booley. This name was credited to the song when it first appeared on a compilation CD to promote the local music week, Belfest, in 2001.

By then, Booley had been replaced by Benzine Headset, a name that came from two random words in the dictionary. They released an album in 2001 called 'Garcon Pamplemousse', involving Peter, Dave McCullough, Ian McMillan and Jonny Mitchell. This outing of the song was a basically rock instrumentation, and its real potential was some way into the future. The lyric had begun a while before, after Dave McCullough's stag party in east Belfast in 2000. Whiskey had been taken and Bon Jovi songs had been sung. Then in the early hours, Peter walked along the Beersbridge Road, once frequented by the young Van Morrison. The Wilson boy was doing his own moondance that night, watching the lunar light reflecting off the puddles, and he felt extremely elated.

This wasn't an easy experience to put into a recording, and so when he became Duke Special, he revisited the song on his first EP, 'Lucky Me'. This 2003 version was then assembled on a compilation, 'Adventures In Gramophone'.

But still the vision persisted and his musical and producer friend Paul Wilkinson believed that 'Freewheel' could get even more expansive. So it featured again on the major label release, 'Songs From The Deep Forest' in 2006, majestic and with ever-reaching strings.

Duke Special explains that the song is about not wanting to grow stagnant, to keep growing. It took a few tries, but 'Freewheel' has now found its full expression, a certified urban hymn. Now it can do justice to the moonstruck moment that the writer felt on the wet streets of Belfast and in the very centre of his soul.