Morning all! Taking a pump there but I think you're a morning person. This is Happy Place and today we're dialing up another contributor to Happy Place the album. It's the creator of the podcast Gabbour Adam Martin.

Adam and I have collaborated before but as you'll hear we've never met. It's so weird!

So this was a great opportunity to catch up on one of the oddest moments in our lives writing a song together that would be performed by Dame Helen Mirren. Let's get going.

Adam this is so lovely to talk to you. I mean it's so weird considering we've been emailing for ages and we've never met because we started our friendship during a global pandemic.

I like the old fashioned nature to it of getting to know one another professionally via correspondence and emails. There's something rather refreshing about it. I think we tried to speak once via phone and we both missed each other and we've gone back to it and I rather like that actually. I have to say.

I'm going to post you a letter next. I'm all about the letter. I want to resurrect letter writing. It's one of my absolute passions.

It is the best. There's nothing better than get a letter in the post especially at the moment where everything's so bleak to receive a letter that's not a bill is such a joy.

So look let's just to fill in the audience here. So I discovered your podcast Gabbour via my podcast producer who's like I've heard his podcast I think it's up your street. It obviously was totally up my street. I listened to the episode of Woman's Work and wept for about three hours.

It was just the most glorious thing and we've worked together in a couple of ways over the last 12 months. The most recent being our song.

It feels so surreal. About six months ago I walked into the kitchen with the kids and I have a slight cake bush obsession as you'll know from this from this work. She saved my life at university in the way that kind of music music does.

Very powerful meant a lot to me in the song always makes me cry as well. I mean we're joking about Gabbour and my Gabbour voice which is a sort of a wrong joke in the house. So I have to talk very slowly and quietly like this.

Okay, who is this guy? And Jared my son asked me said daddy you know what do you want to do and I said in a years time I'm going to be walking on the pyramid stage at Glastonbury. There's going to be an 80 piece orchestra a 30 piece choir and behind a curtain that will be pulled up for a big reveal will be Kate Bush a piano.

Wow, no, that's never going to happen and obviously because of Covid that's the only reason that hasn't happened yet. Sure this opportunity and the opportunity to write a song for. I mean I can't I can't tell you it was like I think I squealed for the rest of the day when I got your message to begin with.

And then I went into a slight kind of case of panic mode of a collaborating with somebody which I haven't really done before and being a Virgo as you'll know we're inherent control freaks and sometimes it's quite difficult to go okay.

And then I spent about three weeks walking around in a circle gazing at the sky which is why do professionally anyway until the idea sort of came together. I'm working with you on this has been such a joy those emails you sent me with those ideas and using sunscreen as kind of the kickoff point to look at something that kind of represented the strange times in which we live.

But talk to the power of music as well was just wonderful and your idea and concept around body image and perception and celebrating our imperfections was the was the inspiration for it by a long shot honestly I'm so grateful for the opportunity truly.

Oh God well I'm so glad that you said yes because I'm thrilled with the outcome before we talk about some very exciting things that happened post writing the song let's have a little listen to it now here is.

The cute cosmic answer to our tweets and prayers can be best observed in that rarest of natural phenomena lock down kittens dancing amidst the first time summer rain.

Strip down finger falls kiss freckles.

Tender touch your nobly bones lick ferramones.

It's just a Dame Helen Mirren reading out the lyrics.

The weird thing was when I was directing her and she was in a studio in LA and it all sort of came together as you know quite kind of last minute and I didn't I hadn't thought about directing or anyway I thought I was just I'm just listening in on the call you know they're going to do all of that in LA and she turned around and went how do you want me to read it and I was like no no no and the ferramones word she she read it a couple of times and she sort of she sort of struggled with it and I had that terrible fan.

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