BUCHANAN Street busker Caitlin Agnew is ‘in shock’ because songs she wrote in her bedroom will appear on the soundtrack of a new movie.
The 19-year-old was stunned when her compositions I Wanna and Don’t Want to Go Home were given the thumbs up by the film’s awardwinning star Timothy Spall.
Now millions of cinema-goers will hear her music when The Last Bus opens on Friday (August 27).
It is the story of an old man travelling from John O’ Groats to Land’s End carrying the ashes of his late wife in a suitcase, using only local buses. The movie was shot on location in Glasgow, Ayrshire, Helensburgh and Lanarkshire.
Caitlin said: “When I heard Timothy Spall liked my songs and they wanted to use them in the film I was in shock. It was like seeing my life flash before my eyes.”
Caitlin, of Uddingston, says her big break came after a chance meeting between her grandfather Jim Agnew and the film’s director Gillies MacKinnon.
Jim worked as a vehicle wrangler on the movie, organising all the transport, from vintage buses to luxury coaches.
Caitlin said: “It’s amazing how things work out. My grandad got chatting to the director, and when he told me he’d sent him on a couple of my songs I honestly thought he was winding me up.”
Gillies was so impressed with Caitlin’s work he decided others had to hear it too.
“Jim said, I’ve got a granddaughter and she records songs,” he explains.
“She was only 16 at the time and he asked me if I’d listen to them, so I said okay.
“ I just loved them. The emotion really embraced the soul of the film. I brought Tim into the cutting room about half way through the cut – he’s an executive on the film –and he loved them too.
“Of course that influences me a lot because, as the person who walks in the shoes of the character, he’s really emotionally tuned in.”
Caitlin started writing aged 15 while still at school. She is about to enrol on a Music Business course at college but is self-taught, sings, plays ukulele, guitar and keyboards.
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She said: “I just want to sing and write songs. My idols are people like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift as they are quite similar to my style. I use music as a way to express how I feel and just being able to get it out there and help other people that feel the same way, gives me a sense of hope.
“These songs just appear from nowhere, they are quite natural. They just kind of happen.”
Caitlin’s new album Through the Night will be released on Spotify and Apple Music shortly
For more information on Caitlin see @MusicAgnew on Twitter.
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