Painting Rainbows Out Of Tears

The second anthology of rediscovered material from the vaults of Paul Murphy. Includes the full 'Kurt Suite' works, a multi-angle view of the tragic demise and loss of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

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In April 2023, a cache of some 200 long-lost poems, song lyrics and prose works were discovered during an itemisation of the effects of singer-songwriter/performance artist Paul Murphy.

Working against a heartless clock - his Palsy Motor Neurological Disorder had by now entered late-stage - Paul made a valiant attempt to anthologise as many of the works as possible whilst still able.

The first volume - Shadows Behind Soft Words Of Love - became an online hit, due in large part to Paul's ASMR-like recitals of the works therein, and that volume has now been followed by this further stunning collection of works, Painting Rainbows Out Of Tears. Astonishingly, this book contains material from yet another rediscovered file, bringing the quantity of unearthed songs in what has become known online as 'The Basement Files' (a reference to Bob Dylan's legendary long-unreleased Basement Tapes recordings), to over 300.

Mainly dating from two intense composing sessions, in December 1994 and August 1995, the pieces here are some of the darkest, most despair-confronting works in Paul's extensive catalogue. The 1994 material contains the long-alluded to 'Kurt Suite', a set of harrowing pieces pertaining to, on, and around Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, initiated by the singer's soul-scourging performance on the then-just-released MTV Unplugged album. Performed only once in its entirety, at a poetry festival in Glastonbury in 1995, this set of songs is now presented here including the 'closure' piece, 'May You Sleep With No More Nightmares', from the August 1995 sessions.

Alongside these works are more of Paul's direct-eye observations dealing with the scarred underside of society, love, parental relationships, injustice, racism, misogyny, and inequality, all detailed with the author's majestic turn of phrase, control of syntax and alliteration, and emotive penmanship

In addition to the works, there are photographs of some of the original handwritten papers, plus, thanks to his lifelong habit of annotating all his lyrics when and where written, a composition/creation log.

There is also an original essay from Paul, That Was A Long Year, plus a song-by-song discussion on the works and some fascinating backgrounds on their creation.

As a coda to the book, Paul - prolific as ever - actually wrote 3 new songs the day the manuscript was due to be sent for copyright. Rather leave them aside, and as 2 of them focussed on the Philip Schofield media furore, including online bullying and harassment, Paul included them here, seeing more than a few similarities "between the piranha frenzy that took Kurt down and what's going on here [with Mr Schofield] ... they don't like to kick a man when he's down, they like to kick a man to death when he's down." Paradoxically, the third new song, 'My Love', is one of the gentlest ballads of Paul's career, the original demo garnering thousands of online views.