22 June 2006
Can you win the World Cup by only ever beating folk 1-0?
It was Dave's birthday over the weekend. He had a party, and we all went along. It's weird, isn't it, when you see people from the office in a social environment.
Arrive to discover that Matt has had a remarkable incident of Creativity over the weekend. He'd written a new song, which had unusually come with the words attached, and then, since he was a fountain of words, he had been able to finish off Garden of Love which had just been one line for about a year. I was impressed, and also guilty because I still had to crack the chorus for the song that-isn't-called-All-right -and-is-just-waiting-for-words-for-the-chorus-before-it-can-have-its-real-name.
This was well-timed because we're now at the bottom of the List On The Door, where there are songs that have no demo as a starting point. It was assumed that when we got here we'd have a much better idea of what kind of album it was, and therefore which way to take them. It's sort of true, too. I still don't really know what kind of album it is, but we know we don't need any more high-tech songs.
So we got to do a bit of old-fashioned Arranging. Matt recorded a guide piano and guide vocal, which felt luxurious, having worked with half-sung demos so much. It was lovely to start with the tune already there and start shading in the background.
We had spent a bit of time on Garden of Love during the rehearsals, which had featured a strident guitar riff, rather reminiscent of the Thames Television theme.
Now, having the lyrics to respond to, that was obviously not going to work. The best thing about that version was Alonza's languid bassline and Dave's brushed kit, so we decided to start with that idea and see what occurred.
We listened to a few songs as references, one of which was It's Raining Today by Scott Walker, which has a clashy chord held by a violin section all the way through. It has almost no relationship to the rest of the harmony, but it gives the song a shimmering tension. I suggested we borrow it, so Matt plays in a suitably clustered chord on the pretend mellotron.
Dave goes in and does his brushy drum part, and then we start looking for interesting Dave sounds to add. Dave's time as David the Violinist had a helpful side effect, which is that he likes to bow everything he can. Cymbals, bells, pretend saws. If it's resonant, he'll bow it. We used this technique on Another Little Hole with the vibraphone, so we thought we'd get him to do it on the glockenspiel, which is fast becoming the defining sound of the record. It sounds quite a lot like a harmonica. I wonder what it's like if he bows it tremalandoit's when the bow is vibrated very fast, though usually on strings. I was first aware of it on Heard it through the Grapevine, which I think is one of the all-time best pop song string parts..
It sounds a little bit like someone drawing something very fast with chalk, and also like someone pushing a trolley with a squeaky wheel, but when you put four different notes together it goes in with the mellotron part in a very gratifying way.
