Well, it’s been a while coming but here is the last installment of my guide to ‘A Coming of Age’, our second long-player.
The closing track, ’Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere’ (to be said in the style of Bob Dylan) took some careful attention to get right but I always felt it was very important to the feel of the album. It’s a song in three parts: there’s the Sam Cooke ‘Bring It On Home To Me’ style opening with saucy Stax horns, the Edif Piaf / Scott Walker/ Gainsbourg over the top middle section where the key shifts quite dramatically, and finally the psychedelic-weirdo-wig-out end section.
Lyrically I suppose it’s an acceptance of outsider status and as ever, I really love a jaunty song with painful words, so the second verse is completely nihilistic. “Without you I’m nothing, alone I can’t win, without you I would probably do myself in”. It makes me laugh when I hear the desperation in there and it’s a fine line between melancholy and maudlin parody but one I hope I don’t cross too often. I think these sort of feelings need to be treated with a little humour, otherwise it just gets too dense and well, impenetrable. Even though this record is, overall, lyrically dark, it does end with a line of hope too.
The end section only existed as an idea until we hit Lynchmob Studios. For a while it was really difficult to convey what I imagined. I wanted a hint of the orchestral crescendo at the end of The Beatles ‘A Day In The Life’ but without the crescendo, Quite difficult to describe and to do in practise. It’s hard to keep movement in over a minute of rolling thunder menace, certainly the longest Lucky Soul have ever gone without having any vocals over the top, I think we recorded about 2 and half minutes of it, so there was some heavy editing needed. Ivor and I had a whale of a time down in The Dairy, Brixton just letting the delay pedals loose. It was really nice to just let go and see what happens for once as most of our stuff is so meticulously planned and heavily demoed.
When I was writing the strings it all got a bit intense listening to this unease over and over and over again, late at night with the headphones on. At one dark moment I ripped the headphones off and threw them out the door, convinced it was sending me mad. On reflection I realise that it was getting as powerful as I wanted it to, but I recommend that you not listen to it for 24 hours in a row!
The voice you can at hear at the end is a 1938 recording of a woman called Lucy Bigalow talking to (I think) the East India Broadcasting Corporation about The Theramin, a hand movement affected, electronic, oscillating instrument made famous in The Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations’. She is imagining hundreds of Theramin players, each one “like a dancer making patterns on the stage”. I had to find a place for it and it’s a nod to The Smiths ‘Rubber Ring’. Oh if I got halfway there…
One reason I like this track is that it has almost everyone who played on the record on it and was recorded in every studio we used (see previous posts). A nice way to finish. It’s maybe the least obvious thing we’ve done and opened up a lot of avenues to explore. I think it ends with a big “to be continued” cliff hanger sign. What happens next? Well wait and see but rest assured you won’t have to wait three years this time.
I hope you enjoy the album, I’m not gonna lie and say it was easy to make, it took a lot of stamina and stubbornness to get it done, but I know we tried our best and came back with the warm, rounded, album we set out to make. We’ve received some lovely messages from you telling us how our music has got you through break-ups, exams, long journeys etc. and it’s amazing to know we can have that effect. That’s what we wanted when we started out. Thanks for sticking with us.
I wanted something really romantic but upbeat on the album. Of course it’s still very angsty, as is our way but pretty uplifting too. For a long time this song was only known as ‘Ahhhhhhhh” with no lyrics for the chorus, just a ‘ahhh-ahhh-ah-ahhh’ which eventually morphed into the words “Our Heart” and gave the song a much better sense of place.
It started with another descending piano line, although this one was more from a Brian Wilson production (The Honeys’ ‘He’s a Doll’) than the other Bobbie Gentry stalkers on the album. There’s some really subtle rhythmic differences on each line in the verse – one of those things that you’d probably never notice, but was quite important to keep the song moving along.
Lyrically it centers around the line “I exist, but that’s it, without you”. It’s kind of paraphrasing Scott Walker in his amazing documentary, 30th Century Man, where a French journalist asked what he’d been doing in an eleven year gap between albums. Scott replies “I’ve existed. That’s it” which I though was brilliantly vague whilst absolutely nailing the point at the same time.
The last forty seconds are probably my favourite bit on the album. Sometimes there’s a massive gulf between what goes on in my head and what ends up as the finished piece but this was exactly as I imagined it. The end section is edited together from about three minutes of improvisation by the boys so it has a lovely non-linear feel, spiraling away into the distance in a similar way to ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’ by The Smiths, lots of interwoven guitar lines and clattering drum fills. In fact when I was mastering, the engineer said “He’s playing lead drums there” which is about right.
The Stockholm Strings are in fine form here as ever, particularly on the instrumental break where I wanted a ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ crossed with Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ dancing strings feel. You should hear them naked; stunning.
For me, the end of this song is the embodiment of the feeling you get when you’re first in love, those early days when your heart’s about pounding its way out of your chest and nothing can touch you. Total certainty and uncertainty at the same, thrilling time.
nb. Blog written coming back from Leicester, after a fun gig and with an angry belly from cheap pizza.
I think we all ended up really liking this one even though it nearly didn’t make it on the album. It was neck and neck with ‘Cryin’ In The Morning’ all the way, but won out in the back of the van coming back from a festival in Wales. Again it just felt more natural and kept up the intensity of the rest of the record.
There’s all sorts of stuff on this one. About 5 or 6 guitars including one through a spinning Leslie speaker, a mandolin. an electric flute thing, The Stockholm Strings again, piano, drums and bass of course and plenty of percussion but oddly not that much in the way of vocals.
Melodically it’s inspired by The Smiths ‘Stretch Out And Wait’ and an old Irish ballad called ‘Galway Shawl’ which is a really beautiful, aching song and something I used to hear a fair bit in the pubs of Glasgow.
It’s about the curse! Well that’s a bit strong, it’s another ‘Coming of Age’ style song and in a round about way about being a writer, and the weird conclusions you come to when people love a song of yours that is about a particularly painful subject for you, or to realise that what you’re best at is communicating feelings of sadness and isolation for other people to enjoy. It’s an odd concept and I’m very happy to be in this position but it’s weird feeling sometimes.
Of course the rest of the song is just about sadness and isolation! and being worn down by it. I wanted to make it a little like the old William Blake poems of an ancient fire and brimstone England. In fact the title I think sounds like an old hymn book and my favourite line is ‘Where angels collide, in danger I dwell’ and I haven’t got much more to say on the matter, apart from I wish it was a real flute instead of an electric one
We did all of Ivors guitars here on a blazing hot weekend in May. We were slightly mis informed about which studio we were going to be in, and ended up having to have some fairly dramatically long wires coming down the corridor for from the amp to Ivor. Anyway we made some good progress on the first day before listening to it the following morning and completely scrapping pretty much everything bar Love3 and starting it all again. Luckily Ivor is extremely quick on the recording front and we powered through the second day, getting almost everything down. By far the most fun of the weekend was doing the Psychedelic closer the album with every effect pedal urned to stun, but I particularly liked being in Brixton as it only took me ten minutes to ride my bike home.
5. 2Bit Recordings, Deptford
This is my mate Andy Jones’ (of Lord Large and Big Babies fame) place where we recorded all of my guitars, Stephen Large’s manic organ and the three piece horn section for ‘Love3′, ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Like a Shame..’ and ‘Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere’.
Andy is an amazing person and a fount of musical knowledge. tell him the record you like and he’ll be able to list all the equipment used on said record, where to get hold of the equipment and find some supreme musicians to help you play it. Honestly he knows everyone.
He has a fantastic little studio in Deptford too with loads of old gear (old valve pre-amps, space echoes, effects pedals etc.) and on his suggestion, we hired in a 1950’s Selmer Zodiac guitar amp which has crocodile effect skin a Knight Rider-esque glowing tube pulsating across the top of it. Apart from it’s looks it also sounds amazing and was the perfect vintage accompaniment to Misty, my old Gretsch Nashville.
Part 3 of studio list (yes there’s more!) continues in the nest installment
I haven’t got much to say about this one really apart from it’s a breezy West Coast number that’s in keeping with the ‘Coming of Age’/ loss of innocence theme. When you’re young things seem simple but you hit a point (for me about 17) when you start to question everything and things go a little mad. This can be equally confusing and liberating and brings a whole host of exciting and troublesome experiences. Throw a bit of ambition into the mix and that’s when the halcyon days of childhood end and ‘trouble begins’.
Ivor spent an obscene amount of money a new pedal specifically for the solo on this one (and quite right too) and the organ that Art plays was bought for twenty quid from a rough estate in Oxted.
It’s a fun song and a brief bit of sunshine (all be it with the usual inherent LS miserablism) and got it’s place on the album as some light relief before the next onslaught.
So because I’ve not got a great deal of insight on this one, I thought I’d give a little rundown on the many studios where we recorded this album.
I think in a previous incarnation this was owned by Pink Floyd and has been a mainstream studio for a long time with many famous artists passing through it’s doors and some complete unknowns such as yours truly, for our first two singles. We recorded the basic rhythm tracks and most of the guitars for ‘Woah Billy!’ ‘White Russian Doll’ ‘Up in Flames’ ‘Upon Hilly Fields’ and ‘That’s Where Trouble Begins’ here. This was also the place where Rusty’s bass amp went up in flames. It was the first session and the last thing we did before breaking up for Christmas in 2008. We were ably assisted by our old friend ‘Dead Pan’ Kris Mclaren whose idea it was to do the gritty second drum kit overdub in the breakdown of ‘WRD’ and not mine as previously stated.
Amazing, wonderful magical studio with microphones so unique that they are built with metal fashioned before 1940 so as not be contaminated by H-bomb radiation. Set by a river frozen enough for folks to race cars on it and one of the most tranquil places I’ve ever been. We recorded all the strings for the album over two sessions here in the safe hands of Johan ’Poolman’ Kronlund also known as El Diablo, one of the most considered gentleman you will ever meet and producer of Ruffa Lane artistes Montt Mardié and Napoleon. Some people say the silences between his words are painful but I get along with that just fine. While I was there, the owner of the studio popped in to tell us he’d just bought a castle which gives you an idea of the quality of the studio.
The Stockholm Strings are some of the most lovely people I have ever met and extremely talented to boot. Listening to the strings go down on ‘A Coming Of Age’ and ‘Warm Water’ in particular was an experience I will cherish forever and I got to push faders on the desk they mixed Britney Spears ‘Toxic’ on.
I think we were the first through the door here as producer Brendan Lynch (Paul Weller, Primal Scream) had just taken the over the place and installed his amazing ‘60s Neve mixing desk inside. We did the bass and drum tracks for every song here (re-recording the rhythm tracks that we’d done at Brittania Row as we’d got a better sound). It was a fairly frantic two days at Lynch Mob, but well worth it. It’s a cool place that has a 1970’s atmosphere about it and overlooks a cemetery. We got an insight into what makes a great producer when Brendan came in to listen to a run through of ‘Woah Billy!’ B-side ‘Why Can’t Everyone Be Nice For a Change’ which was proving really troublesome. He listened for a bit, said ‘Sounds really nice, maybe turn the hi-hat down a little’. We did one more take and nailed it there and then in his presence. Engineering on this one was Mancunian Dan Hulme who’s done some sterling work with The Coral and Candie Payne and is thoroughly good company even if he did make us go snare drum hunting for three hours.
The studio run down will continue in the next instalment, maybe not today, possibly tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life.
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!
This is a sad song with sad beginnings. I started writing it on my Grandmothers piano when I went to keep her company just after my auntie had lost her battle with cancer. I think I finished it at four in the morning at Soulsville SE5, slightly the worse for wear on a really miserable New Years Eve shivering and snivelling in gloves.
It’s not really about death, just general feelings of loss and abandonment.
I wanted to capture that feeling of when you’re feeling down and things get on top of you to an almost surreal level and you have a shower and it feels like you’re in there for ever, you just drift away. Either that or when you totally submerge yourself in the bath and you can only hear your own thoughts.
So feelings of distance, dislocation, disenchantment and all those other happy emotions. I wanted the guitars to sound like waves lapping, and the strings to sound like clouds gathering, but the whole thing to have a sunset quality.
This one owes a big debt to my hero, Burt Bacharch, and Q magazine said already that it’s “the best song Carole King never wrote”. Which I suppose is a polite way of a saying it’s a big Carole King rip-off, which is probably true! Tapestry is the Carole King album to get if you like things like this, very warm and beautiful, melancholic but still uplifting, like being in a log cabin on an evening at the end of the summer.
I don’t want you to think I sit around the mixing desk blubbing all the time, but the tears were rolling again when Ali sang it and my my chest was bursting when the strings went down but like I say, it’s a sad song.
There’s a great bit I found at end of the recording which has the rhythm section sounding like two old timers, “That was the one.” “Yep, that was the one for me” “Yep.” “Yep.”It feels like it’s been around for a long time though. We get criticised for not sounding modern enough, but the way I see it, I’d rather be unfashionable now and still be listened to for a long time, than this weeks darlings that no one wants to hear about come next week. We’re in it for the long run and the big prize.
I don’t know how often we’ll play it live, but we did it at the album launch and you could hear a pin drop.
Warm water, how can you turn to me and say “It’s over”?
I’ve been a bit lax in your track-by-tracks over the last couple of days. The tour took a bit of a manic turn in Manchester, one of those nights where you can sense something might kick off at any moment. I won’t go into detail but no soundcheck, an indifferent crowd, off-their-face lunatics (including second guitarist for a well known Manchester band) getting into the dressing room and harassing Ali (eventually being forcibly ejected by The Primitives burly drummer) all made for a unenjoyable night. It happens.
We high-tailed it over to Yorkshire as quick as we could, stopping only for some questioning by a bored copper, who we feared was going to ask for a full search of the van until I pulled out my best accent. “Is this your van?” “No, we’re hiring it.” “Do you have any documentation to prove that?” “Errrr….no” “Where are you going?” “We’ve just played a gig in Manchester and now we’re off to stay with me family” “Oh you’re in a band are you? Are you any good?” “Grand” I said.” “Have a safe journey then sir.”
York was much better, almost a hometown gig for me, although it got off to bad start when my guitar strap snapped on the first chord of ‘Woah Billy!’. I tried playing on one leg for a bit, then settled for kneeling on the floor, which I was just about getting away with, until Ali thought my mike stand had fallen down and unhelpfully put it back up, leaving me stranded. A quick change and all was cool though.
So… ‘A Coming of Age’
Usually in this band Ivor is the Riffmeister General but I’ve had the riff for this since the proto-Lucky Soul days in Glasgow although I could never find a suitable song to fit it in.
It contains a discordant sounding flat 5 chord or ‘The Devil’s Interval’ as it better known. It was banned by the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages for basically sounding a bit evil amongst other more technical/nonsensical things.You’ll probably know it best from Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ and also the start of ‘The Simpsons’ theme tune. It’s a great chord to use if you want something to sound really dark.
We tried it with me and Ivor playing the riff at the same time but it just kept sounding like Black Sabbath, so it’s just me and a couple of pedals.
Apart from the obvious James Bond/John Barry reference points, for me this is wall to wall Scott Walker, particular the Scott 4 album and a little bit of his ultra dark meat slapping side. Probably the song ‘The Seventh Seal’, which deals with a knight playing chess with death, was the biggest influence and also his classic ‘The Old Man’s Back Again (Dedicated To The Neo-Stalinist Regime)’ which has my favourite bass line of all time. If you haven’t heard much Scott Walker then you have many treats ahead of you, and although he maybe a bit dark for some, his fatalist humour does it for me. If you were a fan of The Last Shadow Puppets album, it’s fair to say you will like (and recognize) Scott 4.
As well as Scott, this song is haunted by the ghost of Serge Gainsbourg and his pièce de résistance ‘Histoire De Melody Nelson’. This is an album you must own, if only because it probably doesn’t sound like anything else you have. Rubbery funk bass lines, moody arrangements and dark choral backing mixed with cantankerous narration en Français, all combine to make something very cinematic but also intimate in such a way that the listener can feel voyeuristic at times.
Anyway enough with the classics and back to us, which is why we’re here. I’m really proud of the strings on this one, the best arrangement I’ve done I think and the way they play off Stephen Large’s manic hammond organ. It’s all very intense.
The title refers to a loss of innocence or a rude awakening rather than the triumphant statement of the the album title when taken out of context. This theme of innocence lost runs right through the album. I’m an optimistic and excitable person with very high hopes and that can lead to a lot of anticlimaxes and I guess that most of the lyrics for this record were written in a period of change and inactivity after the full-on excitement of ‘The Great Unwanted’. Inactivity breeds self doubt, at least for me, I’m only truly happy when I’m being creative.
I think were still battling through the lyrics to this right up to the deadline and we really struggled as to whether the line ‘And where fools rush in, well I run hell for leather -too late to make it better, too late’ fitted. Now when I listen back I can’t hear anything wrong, in fact it’s my favourite line. The amount of times that happens over a record is astounding. At the time you can get really wrapped up in minute detail but with a bit of perspective it’s all fine.
I hope you like the song, I honestly don’t think many bands would have the ambition to try and pull something like this off these days.
Hilly Fields is a small oasis of calm in between Brockley, Greenwich and Lewisham in South London. It’s one of those places that’s great to watch the sun go down, in this case over the Crystal Palace. Sometimes you just need to sit on hill and think about stuff.
I was listening to a lot of Neil Young’s ‘After The Gold Rush’ when I wrote this. He’s got an amazing way of saying nothing and everything at the same time. Totally loading insignificant words with the listeners hopes and fears. It’s an amazing and difficult skill.
So a bit of Neil Young and a bit of ‘Dirty Old Town’ By the Pogues and a sizeable chunk of ‘Wichita Lineman’.
The first line “Ride a blue eyed horse” came from a photo that Ali took of a friends horse – a horse with blue eyes. And a horse with blue eyes is pretty freaky thing let me tell you. It’s like the horse can see into your very soul and know’s every bad decision you’ve ever made. All the other lines are romantic wistful notions really.
The only real anecdote I’ve go about this song, apart from every member of the band getting the chords wrong every time we practice, is when we recorded the vocals. Ali sang it through just a few times. By the third go she said “that was a bit boring wasn’t it? Shall we try something else?” I was in-front of the computer with tears streaming down my face. It was a performance of complete subtlety and tenderness and it really got to me. It’s a wonderful moment when someone can sing a song that you’ve written and transcend it so completely. And when the tears come, it’s time to stop and realise you’ve got something good.
I’m really happy with it. It’s a romantic song, laced with pain and loss…But without getting too maudlin here’s what the band have to say about it after a night out in Nottingham
Art says: Every country, every culture has a Hilly Fields. This song’s poetic vision is beyond one man’’s experiences. It translates into any raised ground that is not made of concrete…. Actually, there was this girl…
Ivor: I used to live near there. The End.
Rust:Don’t Fear the Country.
Paul: It got the best response at the album launch from all the songs we did. It’s a timeless song.
I’m writing this one in the back of the van (Get in the back of the van!) coming back from our first date supporting The Primitives. Tonight’s gig was, I kid you not ,on a boat in a canal in Bristol. The gentle rocking was good and we resisted the temptation to do Bontempi covers of ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ and ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ but I think we went down very well anyway.
So onto today’s album preview.
Love³ or Love3 or Love, Love, Love is damn good fun for starters. It’s based around a descending piano line that I ripped off was influenced by Bobbie Gentry’s ‘I Wouldn’t Be Surprised’ (amazing singer, amazing song). This descending piano theme appears several times across the album and in the B side to ‘WRD’, ‘Cryin’ in The Morning’. I think it’s good to have a theme, as it helps gel things together however subtle it may be.
This track seems quite breezy but it was a real pain to get right. First we had a bit of an ongoing problem with the bass which Russell solved in a eureka moment on Denmark street in London.”Quick come in here” he said dragging me into Wunjo’s guitar shop (admittedly I didn’t take much convincing). I was surprised though,when he asked to try out a bass and proceeded to play the whole song, note perfect with the perfect funky bass line that the song was crying out for. Ivor’s guitar part was originally a kind of ska-chop which never sat right until he started absent-mindedly playing Jean Knight’s Mr Big Stuff in rehearsal.
Let’s not talk about the vocals. Alright, lets. 230 takes. Two Hundred and Thirty Takes!!! Yes, there were tears shed, yes, there were walkouts, yes, the were objects thrown. Nailed it in the end though. It has to be right. You can imagine just how tired I was saying “It has to be right 230 times” and all Ali had to do was sing it and it’s only 2 minutes long! I’m only joking, sometimes they just take a fair bit of feeling through and it is a really hard song to sing. In the end we went for pretending to be Dolly Parton to get the feel right.
The lyrics on this make me laugh. I was going for an old spiritual/gospel feeling, then the ‘I got love tattooed across one hand and mo’ love on the other’ line came into my head and after that, I tried to fit in as many puns in as I could. I’m dead pleased that I managed to fit the word ‘ennui’ into it and my favourite line is ‘I’m not superstitious but I’ll curse you if you leave’.
Basically it’s an old school ‘take your hands off my man’ style jealousy number. And not just happy clappy, you naughty, naughty NME writer.
Oh, and Dan the engineer called it ‘country Jacksons’, which just about sums it up.
I am the Resurection by The Stone Roses, Pounding by Doves, Keep on Running by The Spencer Davis Group, Be My Baby by Vanessa Paradis. Snare, Snare, Snare-Kick, Snare-Kick. Every band should have a song with this rhythm and I wanted one for a long, long time. It just makes you want to jump up and down, it’s instantly danceable.
This one started with a few Johnny Marr major seventh chords on the guitar and the Earl Van Dyke piano riff came swiftly after. It probably sounds very Motown on first listen, especially with the multi layered Temptations backing vocals but to me it’s Dexy’s Midnight Runners all the way.
This was one of those tracks in rehearsal that went “Paul can you play this drum beat, Russell here’s the chords play something on top of that, the piano starts up, in comes Ivor and away we go. It really didn’t change much from there on in. I think it was the first or second song we wrote for this album and for me, it could easily be on ‘The Great Unwanted’, it’s a transitional one.
I aimed for a smooth Phillie soul feel with the strings and there’s a few shiny Rhodes keyboards in there but quite consciously didn’t put the horns in to avoid pastiche. Whether that worked or not, I’m not sure, it still sounds pretty 6T’s but it’s all good fun anyhow. It’s not far off the magic 3 minute mark and it’s very poppy lyrically with the usual miserable overtones. It’s really stomping live.
I think this was Art’s first recording for lucky soul. Art came to tune Barbara, my rattly old piano and we hit it off instantly talking about The Staple Singers and Glen Campbell. He has his own band- Art Terry and The Fairies and his music is a wonderful half way point between Curtis Mayfield and Van Dyke Parks. Needless to say he’s an amazing piano player and is almost unbearably cool, and we hope this rubs off on us a little. You can quite often find him entertaining in The Gladstone in Borough which is one of the best little pubs in London.
Oh my I nearly forgot the best thing about this song! When we were in Britannia Row recording this, I think on the 3rd take, Russell’s (I’m gonna call him Rusty from now on) bass amp caught fire. Literally went up in flames! How weird is that? It was a beautiful vintage Fender head as well, such a shame. I had a bit of a wobbly Brian Wilson moment, having only very recently been criticised by our Japanese label for my depressing lyrics, thinking that I’d cursed the entire band with this song. I stopped short of making everyone wear fire helmets though and thought twice before asking if we could bring a horse in the studio for the song ‘Upon Hilly Fields’ which you will find out in a couple of episodes time but for now..
What you gonna do when it all goes up in flames? When your luck’s gone running and your dream’s gone sour and you’ve only got yourself to blame?
