Tell Me Now

Tell Me Now is on the Found My Way album – released 2019.

Listen

Tell Me Now is on Spotify.

Tell Me Now lyrics

If you’re looking for shelter, somewhere it can’t be found,
You may have reached a place, that no-one else is thinking of.

If you need to drop your bags, lighten up your load.
You can do it right here, right now, come in out of the road

So tell me now, if there’s anything
I can do for you, at this point in time
So tell me now what you need from me,
To make your day, make you feel OK, to hear you say, I do

If you’re looking for an ally, someone to call your own,
Have you tried my open arms? It could be just what you need.

Sunrise opens out in your eyes, leaves a yearning feeling in my mind
Something I’ve known for years, it’s hard to capture your dreams.

Your life has been so hard, but now you’re here with me,
Now you have the freedom, to be just who you want to be.

Copyright 2019 Graham Armfield

Watch

Currently I don’t have any videos of me playing this song live.

Tell Me Now song history

Tell Me Now started as a collection of some interesting guitar chords pulled together whilst on a holiday in France. I’d wanted to make sure I didn’t get stuck in the same chord progressions everyone else was using.

Lyrically the song is obviously a kind of love song, but the lyrics also have their roots in the situation that can play out for refugees from warfare or poverty. Whilst on holiday in France there was a lot about refugees in the news, and also the welcome (or otherwise) they were receiving from countries that they arrived in.

So this sense gave the song a slightly mournful edge.

Around the time I was finishing this song I was also working with string player Joanna Lawrence on a violin part for If You Could Only See. It felt that a string part could enhance the mood of the song.

But the violin was too high in tone for Tell Me Now, so I think it was Joanna who suggested that she could play the viola on it instead. The tone and the range of the viola sounded perfect for the mood of the song, so I wrote the viola parts and presented them to Joanna.

When recording the viola in the studio it turned out that I’d made a mistake with the possible range of the instrument and a couple of notes in the bridge weren’t playable. So Joanna played these notes an octave above what I’d written, and Neal and I cheated with the recording software to drop them back down again.

I think the viola really adds to the feel of the verses and bridge. It is present in the choruses too, but it’s a lot harder to hear.

Anyway I hope you like the song. It’s a tricky one to play live so doesn’t get played much…