// Letters to YVYNYL // 

Toby. - Hazy Sunday

 / Who doesn’t love hazy, lazy Sundays? This song should hit that spot just right. I like the story Toby Corton sent me about his friend that inspired him to start diving deeper into music. To learn the craft and to figure out what songwriting meant to his distant friendship.

Hi Mark,

My names Toby, and I’m a musician from London. I’ve just recently released a track called “Hazy Sunday,” it’s a snapshot of my university memories.

I recently (well I say recently but it was last July and it seems as if someone has press fast forward on life) graduated from University in Nottingham, England, the home of the legendary Robin Hood! It was four of the best years, made some lifelong friends and memories. It was also here that my I refund my passion for making and performing music, when I was coerced by a crazy guy, Abdulla from Bahrain, who I met on my course, to get back into singing and writing. He was and still is the biggest Jimi Hendrix fan I’ve ever met and I was quite taken back by his obsession with music. To be honest with you, when I first encountered him in one of my lectures I thought to myself “who the f**k is this guy?” and “why doesn’t he shut up?” He ended up being one of the greatest friends I’ve made, I took him to his first music festival!

When we spoke briefly, I let it slip that I sang and that I wrote music (although I hadn’t really done much of it for a few years) and then that was it, he pestered me until I gave in and had a jam with him. It was fun! It made me realise how much I missed all of the music stuff I did whilst at high school. I started to write more and more, we jammed more, we made recordings in his bedroom and played some gigs. We argued, well more disagreed, but we’d always make up. We come from very different places musically, geographically and demographically and the vision I had developed for the music I wanted to make differed from his sometimes.

We entered a competition to play Fred Perry’s Dot to Dot festival in Nottingham, we won and it spurred me on to continue music once I graduated from University. When I moved back to London sadly Abdulla had to go back to Bahrain. Lines on a piece of paper decide where we can call home, and there was no way he was getting a Visa to reside in the UK, for I hear they are bloody hard to come by. I continued writing, reflecting back upon my time in Nottingham, and so “Hazy Sunday” was born.

My flat (apartment if you’re American) was the cosy retreat after a long weekend of partying. Sunday would arrive and sprawled out in my 2 person flat would be all of my friends. We’d try not to leave the flat all day, smoking, watching Disney films or David Attenborough documentaries and eating food. If we ventured out it would be 2 minutes to the shop to maybe buy some cheap Prosecco (hair of the dog), and for a group of people who normally took pride in their appearance, we dressed liked slobs. “Hazy Sunday” is what is says on the tin I suppose, its a reminiscing of those Sundays spent with my friends.

I’m gonna be releasing more stuff soon and just made a DIY music video in my bedroom with my friend on my family’s old tape camcorder, so I look forward to sharing that with people. Getting back into music has also made me realise my enjoyment of creative pursuits!

So I suppose I owe a thanks to habibi Abdulla for reigniting the flame! It seems I’ve wrote an essay; didn’t realise I had that much to say HA!

All the best,

Toby 

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