I was a teenager, walking through the art department at my school in the East End of Glasgow, when I heard the news about Dunblane. I never know how things affect me at the time they’re happening. I call myself emotionally slow, because it takes me time to be able to put a name on the emotions I’m feeling, or to realise how much something has shocked me. But I remember that moment – of the person telling me about a shooting at a primary school – so clearly, even now.
It shouldn’t be hard to talk about how you’re feeling, but for some reason it is. That’s why I’m so impressed with the families in the new documentary Return to Dunblane with Lorraine Kelly. I don’t know how they were able to describe their experiences and emotions so well. One father recalls sitting down with a police officer and as soon as he heard him say “I’m sorry to tell you …”, he says everything transformed into a dream.
I was asked to write the music for the documentary’s soundtrack. It was a difficult thing to compose for. Even if you soundtrack a movie based on a true story, it’s someone else’s version of the events. But this story was being told by the actual people involved. It’s extreme TV – extreme emotions, extreme everything.
I’d written about tragedy before with my band Glasvegas. Flowers and Football Tops from our debut album is about a child who was murdered and how that might feel for the parents. I thought back to it when I was writing this music. It’s a familiar ground that you’re walking on. It reminded me to tread carefully with what I was doing.
I had a Zoom call with Lorraine – who covered the tragedy at the time – to discuss the new documentary. She put me at ease straight away and was very welcoming – I think it’s these qualities that earned her the trust of the people she interviewed. The thing that struck me was when she was describing the press conference after the shooting happened. She said it was a room full of journalists, a place full of chaos. But when the police began reading out of the names of the children who died [16 children and a teacher lost their lives in the massacre] the room became silent. She said the sound of that silence stuck with her.
Shortly after that conversation, I was sitting in the living room with my fiancee, Molly, and she had a glass of wine; she was playing with the wine glass on this wee flimsy table we had and the sounds were making it shake. It sounded like a tremble, a shiver, in the silence. I thought the soundtrack should be based around that.
Writing the music was a new experience because, with Glasvegas, you can self destruct if you want – it’s up to you, because it’s your thing. But when you’re part of a much bigger thing you can’t do that. Your job is to move someone else’s story along. I’ve been obsessed with soundtracks since I was a kid – I was always more interested in them than the movies: Bill Conti’s Karate Kid soundtrack; Jack Nitzsche’s music for Stand By Me; and then the one that really blew my mind was Philadelphia by Howard Shore.
People think you can take the music this way or that way, but I think they underestimate how often the music leads you. I’ve tried before to influence things but the music will say “no, this is the way we’re going” and that’s how it was with this. Once I have the start of a melody, I can’t stop thinking about it until it’s resolved. Sometimes, the melodies never resolve, but the best ones always do. Until they do, it’s like you’re going mad – I think about them when I’m trying to sleep or talking to somebody. But that’s just artists I guess. We’re a wee bit mad.
With Glasvegas, people are just waiting until I’m happy, then they say “quick, record it before he changes his mind!” But with this I needed someone else’s approval, which was a new experience. The feedback for my first composition was: “Can you make it more dramatic?” I didn’t really know what that meant, so I took it as licence to really push things. I sent back another version on the night of the deadline and was told “This is too dramatic”. But we got there, eventually.
I’d definitely like to pursue doing more soundtrack work. Other people are better at describing how they feel, but perhaps that’s why they don’t need to make music. Now that I think about it, maybe this is how I express my emotions best.
James Allan was speaking to Tim Jonze.
Return to Dunblane with Lorraine Kelly airs at 9pm on 11 March on ITV.
