Not everything I say is true. This is not to say I’m a liar merely that much of what I write is pure imagination. Sometimes ‘inspired by real events’ as they say in the movies, but rarely, if ever, the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I look for stories everywhere. In what I read, what I see and what I hear. I notice the smallest details about people and things. Sometimes, I swear, I even feel what others feel. Weird as that might sound it’s true.

I study strangers in crowded places and make up stories about them. I catch snatches of conversations and create my own backstory and endings. I absorb the world then regurgitate it in a form designed to engage and entertain.

You could say I never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Because, in my view, a good story is all there ever is. I know for sure a life without stories to tell would be boring indeed.

One afternoon as I arrived at my third floor beachside apartment in Coogee, Sydney, my eyes fell upon all the dings and dents in the wall at the top of the stairs and I got to thinking about the stories they might tell.

Then, just as I walked into the apartment, my phone rang: It was a friend calling to say she couldn’t come for coffee because her mother had fallen over.

These two things were enough to get me started on a song that is basically a series of purely imaginary stories, appropriately entitled, All There Ever Is.

Incidentally, while the opening chords I used in my original demo were E and Amaj7, my genius mate, Bruce Lynch, came up with a unique open tuning and played what you hear. Weeks later he asked me what tuning he had used.

— I have no bloody idea!’ I said and I don’t.

I wish I did, though, because his chord inversions are terrific.

Enjoy.