A Coming Of Age Track By Track Pt 8 of 12

8. Ain’t Nothin’ Like A Shame (To Bring It All Back Home)

Party Time! Or not, whichever way you look at it. It’s a happy song with nasty words. The very simple premise is about when someone does you wrong, you can hide it away when you’re not in contact with that person, but as soon as you see them, all the pain, the fear and the anger comes flooding back. I won’t be being any more specific.

I think it started off as a bit of a Gram Parsons style country ballad but burst into life when Mr Atkins added the Paul Simon marching drum beat. Also if I remember rightly, Ivors twangy guitar line was a rough tryout for a bass line at first before realizing that it was brilliant just the way it was. My rhythm guitar part was put through an old Roland Space Echo at my friend Andy Jones’ (of Lord Large) studio for the authentic Ska/Dub whack.

We recorded the horns too in the same studio (on the same day as ‘Love3’ and ‘Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere’. I properly blagged that one and only turned up to the studio with a vague idea in my head. In the end I wrote the part on the spot which was pretty terrifying but it turned out to be the best horn part on the album (probably because it’s nice and simple).

Frankly it’s a weird song. It’s a bit ska, a little bit country, a bit Stax, a bit doo-wop, a bit Talking Heads, add some Scott Joplin, The Clash, sneak a bit of The Ronettes in there too. It’s the closest we’ve come to a ‘groove’ so for me it’s quite a step forward for us musically.

I did record a smashing glass sound effect for the ‘sound of breaking glass, breaking in my chest’ line. But after umm-ing and ahh-ing, fate decreed it wasn’t going when I manged to delete it, just before going to New York for the final mix sessions. I’m still finding shards in our studio though.

My defining memory of this track is when Art did a full gospel call and answer vocal track for this. That’s him at the end of the song ‘wa hoo hoo hoo’ ing. In the end it felt a bit gimmicky so we left all but the end bit out, but maybe we’ll do an alternate version one day with the full Terry treatment “Don’t be ALONE. Don’t Be ALONE girl. It’s ALL-RIIIGHT’. I was on the control room floor crying with laughter.

I imagine it would work really well on summers afternoon but seeing as sunshine has been hard to find lately (at least in the UK) but I hope it makes the listener feel happy…or really angry like I was when I wrote it!

Ain’t Nothing Like A Shame (To Bring It All Back Home) by Ruffa Lane Records