 By 1994, Jones had written over 400 songs and gained a publishing contract with Chrysalis Music.However, he was unable to gain a recording contract, and formed a plan to self-finance the release of a series of albums featuring his home demos, limited to 1,000 copies of each, under the name Baby Bird.The first of these was "I Was Born a Man", released in August 1995 and positively received by the NME.