Manana the story of a song of tomorrow today in the Canary Islands

Mañana means tomorrow or morning in Spanish and "Hasta mañana" is a way of saying goodbye. With the laid back Canary Islands lifestyle on Tenerife the word mañana can also often mean putting something off until another time, and people who live on the island, especially if they are ex-pats used to faster life may find it very frustrating to find how long it takes to get some simple action done.

With these things in mind my alter-ego the Bard of Ely came up with a song, which represented a big change of style, but also the hope of a future hit in the world of pop music if only locally in the Canary Islands.

The problem was though that the song has lived up to its name and has taken a lot longer to be recorded than it should have done. Here is the story of Mañana and how it got very much mañanaed!

Well, it was obvious that the first thing needed was to get some publicity for Mañana , and with this in mind the lyrics were sent in to The Paper, which was a Tenerife free newspaper. The lyrics were printed on the poetry page.

Bard of Ely had the idea for the song to reflect its subject matter and to be in some sort of laid back jazz or easy listening style of music. Ideally he wanted a band to back him and to rehearse and record it but rehearsals and studio recordings can cost a lot of money he didn't have. Getting a band together is a problem in itself.

A friend called Alan offered to record Mañana as a spoken word piece that multi-instrumentalist Ed Drury, with whom Bard of Ely had worked before, could add some backing music and the song ended up on a CD release on the Artist Launch website entitled Not The Same , which featured the Bard's poetry and Ed's musical backings.

That was in 2006, and whilst it wasn't what was really wanted it was nevertheless a bit more exposure for the song's lyrics. Sadly though, the Artist Launch website packed up and changed hands so that was the end of that release.

In 2007, a new friend of the Bard's called Simon came up with an idea. He introduced Bard of Ely to DJ Stefaan who worked in the dance club scene here in Tenerife after having done likewise in Ibiza. The plan was for Stefaan to use the melody and to create an electronic dance score for Mañana .

It was hoped that the finished product would end up getting played at Tramps nightclub and picked up on by some of the famous DJs who appear there. It was hoped that this would be its key to success. Things were looking up!

Unfortunately, DJ Stefaan had to get new studio equipment and had ordered this from the UK. In the meantime he composed the backing track.

Stefaan and Simon both thought the song would stand a much better commercial chance if it had a girl singer on it, and Bard of Ely agreed and said he was happy to take a back seat in the interests of making a success of his song.

Hollie Bourne, who is a well known cabaret singer and radio presenter on Tenerife was approached and she agreed to be the singer.

Just as it was all coming together everything went pear-shaped because Stefaan's relationship broke down and he ended up so upset he went back to Ibiza. Mañana was on hold again.

Fast forward all the way to early September, 2010, when Bard of Ely had made a brief visit back to Cardiff in Wales to see his family. It was then that he got the chance of doing some recording at Sean Donovan's studio.

Three songs were recorded - Mañana , Thoughts of You and This Is Our Planet . Getting back to Tenerife, the Bard put them on various websites including Reverb Nation and Soundclick as well as sending mp3s of the songs to Alan Craw who runs DMMG Records and who had released the album Welsh Wizard by Bard of Ely.

Alan was so impressed with the songs that he has offered to release them as an EP on his label but first he is adding some instrumentation and a remix of Mañana .

Anna Rodriguez, who is a well known jazz-singer on Tenerife has said of Mañana :

"it's really good, even my daughter liked it (and she's got good taste)."

Mañana is finally going to be getting somewhere and hopefully will eventually become the pop hit it was intended to be!

Mañana means the morning, tomorrow or another day,

On Tenerife it's often said and commonly means delay,

Mañana means not now, in other words it's coming late,

Mañana is an ideal word if you want to procrastinate.

Mañana, I'll see you mañana,

Mañana, hasta mañana.

Mañana means tomorrow and goodbye until then,

We're waiting for mañana, it´ll come but who knows when?

Mañana allows a life laid back where nothing much gets done,

Mañana is the way here in this island in the sun.

Mañana, I'll see you mañana,

Mañana, hasta mañana.