The Official Biography of Paul Robert Thomas
Born, raised, abused and misused in poverty whilst surrounded by the affluent, Paul has always seemed to be the one on the outside looking in – “I stopped asking why and I learnt that it’s just the way it goes”.
As Paul writes in his gospel song Years of Plenty “To enjoy the good times, you’ve had to have suffered pain. To walk in the sunshine, you’ve had to have walked in the rain”.
Growing up in the hope filled ‘Love is all there is’ drug induced stupor of the 60’s that promised so much but in the end delivered nothing but pain and broken glass – “The only good to come out of those times was the music” – ‘I’m so glad those crazy days didn’t last’, as Paul writes in his song Camden Town. Paul soaked up the sounds and words of the songs he heard all around him like a sponge.
Paul’s first introduction to live music was when as a 10 year old he sat open mouthed as the legendary gypsy guitarist Manitas De Plata stood opposite, a few feet from Paul on the stage at London’s Royal Albert Hall playing and smiling and looking directly at Paul as he played. Paul then discovered the music of the late Buddy Holly, progressing to The Beatles, later to find Bob Dylan – “Dylan was like the father I never had, he taught me so much and still is”.
You can watch a short introductory film about Paul HERE.
Later, through Dylan’s works he would find the new worlds of the great poets and the Bible as well as the old folk and gospel songs that were the cornerstones upon which Rock and Roll was born and flourished. On modern day music Paul says – “If a composer or lyricist today has no knowledge of, and doesn’t draw upon, tradition then he ain’t worth the pen he writes with, nor is his music”.
Outside of Paul’s bedroom window was the world’s busiest rail train junction at the approach to Euston Station, at the front was one of the main highways out of north London, down the road was the Regents Canal winding it’s way from the River Thames west across the English countryside – “All those people constantly on the move going somewhere or other just made me feel like hanging on to that solid ground I was on,” and it wasn’t until he was 21 that Paul decided that it was time to let go and move on – “Well, to tell you the truth, I had just about had enough of the same repetitive routine and loneliness and emptiness day after day.” Paul sums up his depressive teen years in his ‘The Grils’ song ‘The Darkest Days‘ – “Yeah, I lied in the arms of Mary/for a while I followed the Son/I believed in Santa Claus and Fairies/until the darkness won”. Paul would soon spread his wings to get away from England to reach the Promised Land – “I knew nothing about this place, only I remember hearing about a couple of big wars where they had survived against all odds, I guess winning when they were the underdog kind of appealed to me”.
Earlier, while working in his teens selling hot dogs outside of the famous The Roundhouse concert & theatre venue, Paul had met and spoken with the legendary Andy Warhol that you can read about HERE. You can listen to the song about Paul’s meeting with Andy Warhol HERE.
Paul on his hot dog stall outside The Roundhouse
Whilst serving as a volunteer on a northern kibbutz, Kibbutz Hagoshrim, Paul met his wife to be who was serving as a soldier protecting the kibbutz from attack. After Paul had converted, they got married in Tel Aviv, Paul returned with his bride to London where Paul fulfilled his life-times ambition and joined the London police force – “I grew up surrounded by police. The flats next to our house were occupied by police families and I played with many of their children”.
Paul proved to be an outstanding police officer gaining awards for bravery for disarming a man brandishing a loaded gun, for professionalism in achieving a record number of 164 arrests in one year, and also for his suggestions on how to improve the police service – “Yeah, I worked hard and achieved good results but I was becoming more and more resented and shunned by my fellow officers who seemed to want an easy life and were just looking forward to their pensions, sad really”.
Paul was subjected to a sustained campaign of racial abuse from his colleagues, the very ones who were supposed to uphold not break the law. The abuse grew in its severity and frequency whilst senior officers did nothing to stop it until Paul could take no more – “One day I decided that enough was enough” and he initiated proceedings to take the Metropolitan Police Force to court for their racial abuse of him, no small task one would say in taking on the might of the Metropolitan Police Force, a they are a part of the British government funded by the Home Office! You can read about Paul’s life in the police and about his court case against the police HERE.
“It took 3 years for the case to come to court. Whenever there were dates for the court hearing to be heard, they would ask for a postponement as well as try other things too. It went on and on like this and it was all designed to try to break my resolve, but although they came close to breaking me, in the end I stood up to them and beat them and showed them for what they really were”!
Paul won his court case and decided there was no place for him in the police force that he had proven in court to be racist and so after 14 years of dedication he left the police force and then in 1996 emigrated with his family to Israel.
It was during the 3 years of waiting for his court case to be heard that Paul started to write song lyrics – “I had written poetry in my teens, in fact I used to give folders of my romantic poems to those girlfriends I had on the kibbutz”. In 1996 Paul had made contact with a German composer, Stefan Pauleit from near Kiel who was looking for a lyricist and together they formed a song collaboration they called The Grils.
After Paul had initially started his My Space music site he was contacted by many more composers looking for good song lyrics and a few years ago he opened his own music web site at www.paullyrics.com and the result has been many great songs and albums created from Paul’s lyrics by talented artists.
Paul has risen above all the adversity he has faced – “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, although his lingering heartache remains the abuse his daughter suffered as a 6 year old when she was sexually abused by a neighbour while living in Wembley, just outside of London. His daughter only started to recall what she had suffered upon entering her teens and while living in Israel, which caused her to twice attempt suicide and led her to suffer from the eating disorder bulimia, for which she was locked away in a secure hospital-eating-disorder unit for one solid year. They made an official complaint to the London Metropolitan Police Force and were forced to rely upon the police’s investigations which resulted in Paul and his daughter flying to London in January 2008 to try to identify her abuser from police photo’s – “How could someone who was 6 years old at the time of the abuse be expected to pick out a photo of her abuser when the photo wasn’t of him from then, from the time of the abuse, but was a recent photo of the abuser some 15 years later, it just didn’t make sense and lo and behold she didn’t pick him out and subsequently the police didn’t proceed with the case and he got off scot-free”!
Paul’s Blues personal song called You Hurt My Baby with lyrics by Paul and music by Beige Fish was written about his daughter and you can watch the video HERE.
Paul, whose late mother lived in Swiss Cottage in North London, a stone’s throw from Paul McCartney’s St. John’s Wood home, worked at the Consular department at the Royal Thai Embassy near Tel-Aviv after arriving with his family in Israel – “Funnily enough, my most creative time for writing seems to be on the bus on the way to work in the mornings”! Paul is happy to collaborate with any proficient composer or singer/songwriter willing to put his words to any style of music with the aim of releasing the songs on an album or as downloads so that both parties benefit equally. Paul has been working for a number of years with singer songwriter, composer and actor, Paul Odiase who now lives outside of Bern in Switzerland but who actually lived only a couple of miles from Paul’s North London home, unknown to both of them at the time, in Islington near Camden Town. Their song-writing partnership is known as Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s), as both their first names are ‘Paul’, and they have created overy 400 songs and 21 great albums to date, you can listen to all of Paul’s albums HERE.
Paul’s latest songwriting successes include many songs licensed for use in TV, radio and advertisements in the USA as well as a song called Christmas Time With You with lyrics by Paul and with music composed & performed by Michigan’s singer/songwriter Angela Predhomme. The song opens the USA’s Hallmark TV Channel’s new 2018 Christmas movie called Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane starring Alicia Witt and Colin Ferguson and millions of viewers in the USA and abroad watched the film over Christmas 2018 and 2019. You can listen to and find out all about the song HERE.
As a result of the song opening the Hallmark Movie Channel’s Christmas film, Paul was contacted by Sir Cliff Richard’s P.A. who invited Paul to write and submit songs for Sir Cliff’s then upcoming 2020 tour and album. Paul went to work with a number of worldwide artists from Canada, Germany, Switzerland and in The UK creating songs but alas the songs were not accepted as the 2020 Tour was cancelled due to the Corona-virus with no expectations as to when the tour would take place, and so Paul included a number of the songs that he co-wrote for Sir Cliff Richard with other selected international artists on ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) album BELIEF released by the USA’s Studio City’s Unlimited Sounds in conjunction with Paul’s own label, Swiss Cottage Recordz.
Paul’s three children all got married in Israel and he has been blessed with four beautiful granddaughters and three beautiful grandsons, with hopefully many more on the way! Two of Paul’s granddaughters appear on the cover of Paul’s album BELIEF!
One of Paul’s recent projects is called Dylan Found and is a project of ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) in conjunction with Untold Dylan and the bob-dylan.org.uk site.
Their aim is to create songs from the part-lyrics of Bob Dylan that have never been made into songs before. As they add new songs they will also try to provide a history of those lyrics, some of which are unfinished lyrics but which have been finished by them so that song(s) can be made from them. Their aim is to make the album available for free-download via the Untold Dylan site when the project will be complete. Paul is currently trying to establish the authenticity of the alleged Dylan lyrics and has contacted Dylan’s team, including his manager and lawyer but with no response. A song about one of Paul’s few musical heroes’ is by ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) with their song, Our Prodigal Son that charts the musical journey of Bob Dylan from then to now that you can listen to HERE.
Paul has a varied selection of musicians he looks up to and when he was 10 years old Paul’s Mother took him to the Royal Albert Hall in London, where he sat with mouth wide open in amazement as the gypsy guitarist Manitas De Plata stood opposite to Paul a few feet from him on the stage playing and looking and smiling at Paul almost for the entire concert as if there were no other people present in the audience! Dylan would later recall that he watched Manitas De Plata play all through the night at a gypsy festival in the south of France in the early 70’s, after which he wrote his hit song One More Cup of Coffee.
Paul’s first 45′ record given to him by his late part-time Dj uncle was Buddy Holly’s Raining in My Heart and Peggy Sue, as well as music cassettes of Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra. Paul counts David Bowie as well as Bob Dylan as major influences on him, as he does Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendix and the music of The Beatles and T-Rex!
Paul’s ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) latest and 21st album is a triple album of 20 new original and 10 classic songs of theirs called Now & Then that you can listen to HERE and they are working on their next album, The Chelsea Hotel that will be about the famous celebrities that have stayed in the hotel over the years that you can listen to HERE.
In the early 2000’s, Paul was diagnosed with a debilitating spinal nerve condition called Polyneuropathy that was later recategorized as being Spinal Stenosis that causes numbness and a total loss of feeling in his feet, a growing numbness in his legs up to his knees, and pain in the lower and upper back and is incurable albeit for a dangerous spinal operation. It is caused by damage caused to nerves trapped by the spine’s vertebrae and consequential damage to those nerves. Paul had been lifting weights repetitively in the gym when he felt a burning sensation and a weakness in his right upper arm and he thought that he had just pulled a muscle, but the symptoms grew more severe until he lost all sensation in both of his feet which both became numb with constant pins and needles and continues to this day. A traffic accident while serving in the police years earlier could well have contributed to Paul’s condition, when Paul’s stationary police car was hit in the rear by a drunk driver’s car travelling at an estimated 40 mph, and although placed in a neck collar for 2 weeks after the accident, Paul rushed back to work when perhaps more damage had been caused by the accident than had been realized. Paul is determined to lead as normal a life as is possible. After 26 years working as the visa officer, Paul retired from working at the Royal Thai Embassy in Israel upon reaching the pensionable age of 67 on 2/2/2023.
Paul on his 67th birthday
***************************************************The Thomas Family 22/04/2022, my late Mother is in the front row with the pink top and sunglasses*******************************************************
Paul had flown into London for the last remaining hours of his Mother’s life as she was dying of cancer and was hospitalized at the St. Pancras Hospital in London. Paul arrived with his son, Golan and eldest daughter, Sharon on Tuesday 18/10/22 (on Paul’s 43rd wedding anniversary) having been advised the previous day by the hospital doctor treating his Mother to come as soon as possible. They arrived in time to see each other and to exchange a few final words and sadly she passed away the next day on Wednesday 19/10/22. Her remains were cremated on Friday morning 21/10/22 and at the funeral ceremony where two of Paul’s late Mother’s favourite songs were played, ‘On Days Like These‘, by Matt Monroe (also buried there) and ‘Human‘ by Rag ‘n’ Bone Man. Paul arranged for her ashes to be scattered in the flower beds at Golders Green Crematorium on Monday 24/10/22 where Paul recited a poem he had written for his late Mother, inspired by the Matt Monroe song, On Days Like These appears on Paul’s recent ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) album that you can listen to song HERE and also watch the video promo HERE.
As Paul’s daughter, Sharon was saying some final last words over her late grandmother’s ashes that had just been scattered, Sharon said ‘If you can just give me a sign that you’re here with us’ and as she said those words the phone she was holding suddenly buzzed in response. Afterwards I checked the phone and there were no calls or messages recorded for that time and we believe that it was a confirmation from my late Mother that she was with us – you can watch it happen HERE and draw your own conclusions! Paul and his children then flew home to Israel the next day.
On 26 August 2024, Paul and his song writing partner, Paul Odiase, known as ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) released their most ambitious album to date called, The Chelsea Hotel#1 that you can listen to on the album’s web-page HERE, and also watch the music promo videos made for each song. The album features songs about many of the celebrities that have stayed at, or who have a strong connection with the iconic New York hotel including, Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Andy Warhol, Jim Morrison, David Bowie and Brian Jones! The follow-up album The Chelsea Hotel#2 is nearing completion and will also be released soon.
Paul believes in and prays for world peace and is reflected in his recent song Holy Land Shuffle, the video promo of which you can watch HERE
The Thomas family 23 August 2024
Paul, as always, looks to the future with hope and great expectations – ‘The best is always yet to come” and for sure he still has many great song lyrics in him waiting to be revealed when the time is deemed to be right – “It’s all about timing, everything that happens has to do with timing…………”!
You can read about some of the more unusual things that Paul has done in his life HERE.
You can listen to the autobiographical song, All I Ask that Paul wrote for Sir Cliff Richard HERE
You can read the full and no-holds-barred full bio, ‘Just A Chalk Farm Lad‘ of Paul HERE
Watch Paul from 27/11/20 talking about writing song lyrics HERE
updated 14 June 2024
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