0:09

We're listening to Nakedly Examined Music, a podcast

0:11

about songs and songwriters. My name is Mark

0:13

Linsenmeyer. My guest for episode 212 is

0:16

Graham Parker. His career started with a

0:18

bang in 1976 with Graham

0:20

Parker and the rumor, who put out five albums

0:23

by 1980, including perhaps

0:25

his commercial Apex Squeezing Out Sparks,

0:27

1979, you're right now

0:29

hearing Local Girls, a

0:31

popular track from that album. He

0:34

went solo in 1982, continuing his major label success

0:39

with a steady stream of albums all the way

0:41

through around 1996. By that point, he

0:45

was touring mostly as a completely

0:47

solo artist. I actually saw him

0:49

live around that point. In 2012,

0:51

Graham Parker and the rumor reunited

0:53

for two albums that has

0:55

morphed into Graham Parker and the Gold

0:57

Tops, a new similar soul

0:59

based band that has released another

1:01

two albums. We will be discussing

1:03

Lost Track of Time from the latest Graham

1:05

Parker and the Gold Tops album Last Chance

1:07

to Do the Twist, 2023. Then Going

1:10

There by Graham Parker and the

1:13

rumor from Mystery Glue 2015, the

1:16

second of the two reunion albums, then

1:18

She Wants So Many Things from Graham

1:20

Parker's Struck by Lightning, 1991. We'll conclude

1:22

by talking about

1:26

and listening to Between You and Me from

1:28

Graham Parker and the Rumors debut album Howlin

1:30

Wind in 1976. For

1:33

more information, please see Graham parker.net.

1:36

For more about this podcast,

1:38

see nakedlyexaminedmusic.com to support my

1:40

efforts and get my episode notes that

1:42

break down the songs, give

1:44

you the structures, the arrangements, in

1:46

this case, even many of the chords, and

1:49

we do that at

1:51

patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic. So

1:55

I'll play a little bit of local girls from

1:57

squeezing out Sparks 1980 to orient folks. Although

2:00

I was having trouble figuring out like,

2:02

what is your big single, the big

2:04

foundational song that everybody would know about?

2:06

You see more like a career arc,

2:08

you know, a lot of people know

2:10

about you, but I wasn't even really

2:12

sure. I noticed what Chamber Maid

2:14

was the first, you mentioned

2:17

it as in your book, The

2:19

Thylacines Lair. Your fictionalized version,

2:21

you have a song called Shaky Knees, which

2:23

I assume was your Chamber Maid, the

2:25

fictional equivalent of this was your early single or

2:27

no? Or is this? It's called

2:29

Kneetrembla, which is the terms of having sex

2:32

standing up. Yes, no, it's nothing to do with,

2:35

no, it's just a jokey title.

2:37

The Thylacines Lair is fiction, of

2:39

course, but based on a lot

2:42

of experience. Now, local girl, yeah,

2:44

well, I don't have hits, really.

2:46

I mean, a few minor ones.

2:48

I'm an album artist and that

2:51

kind of became clear to me when my

2:53

first single came out from Howlin' Wind, which

2:55

was actually Silly Thing. I remember

2:57

it being Silly Thing and I had a B-side that

3:00

wasn't on the album. And I

3:02

heard it on Radio 1, which was the

3:04

way you had to get played to have

3:07

hits in Britain. And I

3:09

heard it and I thought, for crying out loud, it sticks

3:11

out like a sore thumb or it

3:13

disappears like a sore thumb. It

3:15

sounds like Delta Blues. It

3:18

sounds like Rich and it's not. It's a really

3:20

catchy pop song, but I think me at the

3:22

combination, me in the rumor, made our songs sort

3:24

of unhittable in a way. And

3:26

I was like, yeah, well, I'm an album artist.

3:29

It's a whole story on every album. So I

3:31

just do what I do. There's

3:33

no choice. I write what I write and I record what

3:35

I record. But local girls

3:37

would be one of the most popular and a

3:40

lot of things from Squeezing Out Spots. Don't

3:42

Ask Me Questions is up there as well. When

3:44

a lot of people don't know who I am, they

3:46

hear that and they go, oh, I know this. I've

3:49

heard that quite a lot from people who've never

3:51

heard me and then they hear me play and

3:53

go, oh, yeah, I know that song. Everybody knows

3:55

that. So there's a few songs

3:58

that just got that kind of. amount

4:00

of people hearing at some point

4:02

or another throughout my career. Sure.

4:04

In America, I picked up on

4:06

you concurrently, retroactively in

4:09

the early 80s with the get

4:11

started, start a fire, and

4:13

some of the other lunatic fringe

4:16

songs like that. Of course, hearing

4:18

them in the album context. But in any

4:20

case, we want to get pretty quickly to, this

4:23

is 25 albums later from

4:25

when you started to the

4:27

new album. The song is

4:29

called Lost Track of Time that you had picked off

4:32

the album, Last Chance to Do the Twist. Do you want to say

4:34

a little about where you're at with this album before we hear it

4:36

in full and then we'll talk more? Well, Lost

4:38

Track of Time is interesting to me

4:40

like Sun Valley. I had those songs

4:43

a decade or more ago, but couldn't

4:46

quite pull the trigger on them. Sometimes happens

4:48

it. That rhythm can get

4:50

very stodgy, especially in my hands

4:52

because I tend to write two

4:54

verses. A song like Lost Track

4:56

of Time, it's going to get

4:58

ploddy if you do two verses.

5:01

I found different ways of arranging

5:03

that song and Sun Valley, which

5:05

I've recorded three albums since writing

5:07

those songs, but not completely finishing

5:09

them. What's interesting to me

5:11

about Lost Track of Time is the arrangement,

5:14

which I do one verse and I get out

5:16

of it while I'm winning and do a bridge.

5:19

The bridge is so very early in the

5:22

song. Yeah, that's right. It sounds like the

5:24

song is about five minutes long even then,

5:26

but that doesn't make it sludgy or draggy

5:29

because every bit is just in

5:31

the right place. I

5:33

found a few ways to unlock a few of

5:35

these songs that could have gone

5:37

by the wayside. Sometimes they do, they

5:40

just disappear. But I knew

5:42

there was something in that songs and

5:44

I love the big crunchy Keith Richard

5:46

chord opening to it. Really like that.

5:48

It's one of those songs that could

5:50

fit in with that area of music,

5:52

like a Stones big fat thing. It

5:56

worked. We nailed it in a few takes and off

5:58

we go. in.

8:08

Cat Slope

8:24

of fire in the air

8:26

still, It'll

8:29

be sure to wind. He's

8:34

like every old stupid thing now,

8:37

He's had it still in

8:39

my heart. He's

8:42

had the clock to stop, And

8:44

my brain's in love. I'm

8:47

sure he'll even get me.

8:52

He's like

8:55

every old

8:57

stupid thing now, He's

9:00

had it still in my heart. He's

9:05

had it still in my heart. He's

9:14

had it still in my heart.

9:18

He's had

9:20

it still in my heart, He's

9:25

had it still in

9:27

my heart. He's

9:35

had it still in my heart. Yes,

9:45

a very distinctive, I'm sure that riff has been used

9:47

somewhere before. In fact, when I was trying to play

9:49

along with it, it seemed like I'm just going to

9:51

E to A, but the

9:53

A is slurring up from, you know,

9:55

just playing sort of the bar chord version of A,

9:57

but slurring up, you know, so what are these natural...

10:00

things you find with your fingers. It's

10:02

just amazing that you had not stumbled on

10:04

this particular riff before. It's such a... I

10:07

have variations on it. There's a ton of

10:09

variations where you hammer off of the whatever

10:11

note it is. A with a... Blam

10:14

out, you know, that hammer off thing

10:16

that's very hammer on and off. So

10:18

Keith Richard, he likes... Basically,

10:20

you think of brown sugar or something,

10:22

you know, it's sort of embedded in

10:25

a lot of R&B and soul in

10:27

a way. I think Keith took it

10:29

and nailed it, you know, and we've

10:31

all stolen from Keith, if we're any

10:33

good anyway. I think my

10:35

engineer said, that's a bit like Hong Yee-Tongt women.

10:38

Well, it's a very slow down Hong Yee-Tongt women,

10:40

but it's got that. If you think of the

10:42

chords, the opening chords of Hong Yee-Tongt women, it's

10:44

got that pause to it where it kind of

10:46

hangs there. It's slow and lazy,

10:48

but intense at the same time, which

10:51

I do pretty damn well on an electric

10:53

guitar. And then moving for the verse into,

10:55

okay, it's been going EA, we're going to

10:57

move to C sharp minor, you know, to

11:00

kind of throw things, thread the needle. It's

11:02

not like exactly the relative minor, right? It's

11:04

not E to G sharp. It's not any

11:06

thought about is that again, just something you're

11:08

finding with your hands is the most comfortable

11:10

place, or did you have this melody in

11:12

your head sort of before you found... So,

11:14

there's a bridge section where I go to

11:16

the C sharp minor, and then there's

11:19

an A and a D and then an A

11:21

where you don't expect it. Once

11:23

I've thought, I guess, of not

11:25

doing another verse, wait till, you know, do

11:27

another verse later, but you know, it

11:29

just pops out at you. It's basically messing around on

11:31

the guitar. That's basically a

11:33

lot of what I do, sit

11:35

and mess around and hum bits

11:38

of melodies until something goes, hold

11:40

it, stop there. Okay, I love

11:42

again and elaborate. And next thing I

11:44

know, great, I'm on it. And now

11:46

I'm ready for a solo, which

11:49

went over the same, I don't

11:51

know what, different chords, all that. I can't

11:53

even remember. There's so many parts to the

11:55

song, but it all makes total sense. And

11:57

that just comes from a hard

11:59

graph. songwriting is hard to draft.

12:02

I remember an interesting story actually talking

12:04

about that. There was this guy

12:06

from the 70s, I don't know, someone who was

12:09

trying to write songs in bands, and

12:11

he lived above Jackson Brown's flat apartment,

12:14

wherever they were, you know, in the early

12:16

days. And so one day he wakes up

12:18

this guy, I remember reading this distinctly, and

12:21

he's hearing Jackson Brown tinkering around in the

12:23

morning, breakfast time kind of thing on the

12:25

piano, and he keeps working at it, he's

12:27

doing something. So this guy, instead of going

12:30

out to do anything, just lays it, gets

12:32

stoned and lays around all day. And Jackson

12:35

Brown, you know, does a certain amount on

12:37

this song, and then he goes out and

12:39

has some lunch, comes back, carries on again.

12:41

And it's still well into the evening when

12:43

Jackson Brown is now finishing the song. And

12:46

the guy said, well, I, you know, he

12:48

thought I can't be a songwriter. I mean,

12:50

there's some magic trick to it. And then

12:53

he thought, oh, maybe it's hard graft. It's

12:55

like, yeah, lights go off. Yeah, that's what

12:57

it is. It's hard graft. Some songs, you

12:59

know, when I'm working very hard on different

13:01

songs, one song might pop out from nowhere,

13:03

complete almost. But that's

13:05

being in that tunnel of creativity, you got

13:07

to be there to get there. It's

13:10

a work process. I call it a job, with

13:13

inspiration, of course. So that's interesting. But

13:15

you're referring to, I was thinking that

13:17

what is counted as the chorus. This

13:20

is what I thought the bridge was 117. That

13:38

comes right after the first verse, as

13:40

far as I remember, yes, instead of going

13:42

to another verse. Yeah, that would

13:45

have made it drag, you see, I think going

13:47

to another verse, which is a typical thing. And

13:49

then you go to a chorus, and then you

13:51

do a bridge. And then you come back to

13:53

a chorus or back to a verse. So I

13:55

was flipping things around. And it seemed to totally

13:57

save the song and bring it as something like

13:59

that. had to do. You introduce

14:01

the chorus before that bridge comes

14:03

out. And even the verse itself,

14:06

given that it's so slow, it's like a double

14:08

length. I said, they're thinking of you, blah, blah,

14:10

blah. So I walked down to the drinks machine.

14:12

So I mean, it is kind of like you

14:14

have two verses packed together. But still, the whole

14:16

thing is very concise. It is. Yeah,

14:18

I go to the chorus, which is only

14:21

a few bars, whatever, four bars, and then

14:23

into the bridge. And from

14:25

then on, I could mix things up. It

14:27

all felt very natural from then on. And I

14:29

found the keys to it, really. And

14:32

in the chorus, this answering electric guitar,

14:34

I just lost track of time. So

14:39

is that your riff or is that the lead guitarist in

14:41

the Gold Tops coming up with something or... That's

14:44

massive, Brett, for the solo, which I

14:46

played, the lead solo. I figured, okay.

14:49

That's been interesting that you've been with the rumor,

14:51

you have two lead guitarists and

14:54

you who is the lead guitarist,

14:56

right? And you started as a lead guitarist. I

14:58

was reading that you were in like a kind

15:00

of a hippie prog band or something when you

15:02

started playing lead guitar. So I mean, what's that?

15:04

Like we're going to have three people that could

15:06

solo potentially. Well, yeah, but I

15:08

mean, Brimsey and Martin were the ones I usually

15:10

left it to for the soloing. There was a

15:12

few songs, Mercury Poison, I played the lead on

15:15

that. And that wasn't even an album track, you

15:17

know, but mainly I left it to

15:19

them. But since then, there's been albums I've

15:21

made, Deep Cut to Nowhere, for instance, is

15:23

one of them. Don't Show

15:25

Columbus, another one. The kind of mid

15:27

period things I think were on Bloodshot Records, weren't

15:29

they? Something like that. I don't

15:32

know. I've lost track, maybe Razor and

15:34

Ty. But I play, I was playing all the

15:36

lead on those records and I was playing bass as

15:38

well. I got into this thing of recording

15:41

in America and playing all the guitar parts

15:43

myself and just, you know, using a drummer

15:45

and a keyboard player. I'm no good at

15:47

those things. So I had a lot of

15:49

experience and my solos don't sound like Martin.

15:51

Let me insert some of the solos here. It

16:14

seems like when I hear you play lead

16:16

guitar like that, that it is because you

16:18

are a singer and so you're playing with

16:20

your hands like you would be singing. They're

16:22

very melodic parts. It's not doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. It's not

16:24

the lead player thing. Yes,

16:27

I really like solos that are based on

16:29

the melody of the song. They come off

16:31

of it, they bounce off of it with

16:34

horn sections and with

16:36

other instruments, with a sax solo

16:38

on this sax

16:41

solo on one of the songs on the

16:43

last chance of electricity. I

16:45

sort of base it on singing to some

16:47

degree. That is my style. Brinsley would come

16:49

up with his own take on it

16:51

and Martin often come up

16:53

with their own take on it. Generally, when

16:56

I solo, I'm trying to play around with

16:58

the actual melodic structure of the song, the

17:00

singing part. I'm a kind of guitarist

17:02

when I play lead who takes it from

17:04

the vocal, my vocal style in a way.

17:07

But yeah, it's always good to have

17:09

people like Martin who sound like Martin

17:11

Belmont. Brinsley Schwatz sounds like Brinsley Schwatz.

17:13

These people are always

17:15

on their albums. They

17:18

really do have their own sounds which

17:20

always meshed. My rhythm sat right

17:22

in there with them all the time. We

17:24

had a great rapport without even thinking of

17:27

it. We didn't have to discuss a great

17:29

deal really. A couple more of

17:31

the musical gestures here, of course, toward the

17:33

end because the clock's just stopped and

17:35

everybody stops for a second. This seems pretty typical

17:38

of we're going to articulate, tell the story through

17:40

the music that's being reflected in the lyrics here.

17:43

Oh, I love a good stop in a song.

17:45

I love a good dead stop. Yes. What

17:47

is your thought about when you have backing vocals come

17:50

in at the end, it's pretty much just a light

17:52

unison chorus. I don't think that you stack

17:55

the harmonies or had the choir come in.

17:57

It's just, what's your reference there? Lost

18:06

track of time, I'm doubling my vocal. Okay,

18:08

so it's just you. The girls singers aren't

18:10

on this song. When we did it

18:13

live, they were. We did a short tour. But

18:15

I just thought it's the perfect tour. Like

18:17

a lot of those Stonsey songs as well,

18:20

Jagger doubled vocals a lot. And

18:22

so did a lot of 60s records, of course they did.

18:24

And I don't do it very much, but I should do

18:26

it more, I think. There's some songs

18:29

where I thought, I've got to try doubling the

18:31

vocal here. And it fattens it up.

18:33

And the vocals, the two vocals, I don't

18:35

do them with a computer. I do everyone

18:38

individually so that they rub against each other

18:40

a bit. It's not perfect. And I always

18:42

like that with old 60s records where I

18:44

didn't know what they were doing. I didn't

18:46

know the technology, you know, what it was,

18:48

a double vocal. But I could feel

18:50

it. You could hear the other vocal by

18:52

the singer slightly rubbing there. It kind of

18:55

puts a seed in you for the future

18:57

one day. There I am doing the same

18:59

thing. And then you like your fade

19:01

outs. I know the next song and this song

19:04

both have fade outs so you can continue.

19:06

I mean, again, you resolve, you

19:08

get to the bridge so quickly, but yet

19:10

the whole song is a reasonable length. It's

19:12

345. So you can

19:14

add, make that outro be the thing that

19:17

sits in this and lets you really sing

19:19

along for a while. Yeah. I always thought

19:21

that the song itself by the style of

19:23

it was going to be about five minutes,

19:25

but it sort of felt

19:28

like that playing it on acoustic guitar at home.

19:30

Once we'd done it with the band, it was like, what's the time

19:33

of that? So as you say, was it 345? And

19:35

I'm like, yes. If I get

19:37

songs under three minutes, every time I said

19:39

to my engineer, how long is that song?

19:42

And he'd say, oh, that's two minutes. So

19:44

I'm like, yes. Stop being such a blowhard.

19:47

Stop being so windy, for God's sake,

19:49

which I'm very capable of, which is

19:52

okay and some songs. But I definitely

19:54

prefer things to be a bit more

19:56

concise these days. It suits me better.

20:00

happens as you're starting to repeat things. The

20:02

guitar Martin's part varies a little bit, like

20:04

maybe he doesn't just do the same riff,

20:06

but adds a couple notes, but still it's

20:08

not like he goes into a solo, the

20:10

bass gets a little more busy, you know,

20:12

like let's do a run. He's been so

20:14

disciplined the whole song. What is your method

20:17

in terms of how much you're coaching the

20:19

rhythm section to like keep it

20:21

down? I mean, most of it is this is just straight

20:23

Charlie Watts, but occasionally he does a little a fill

20:25

into the snares, you know, just little

20:27

things here and there. Well observed. I

20:29

mean, it's the musicians. The thing with

20:31

these guys is they just play like

20:33

that when they're required to. And they

20:35

understood that from my songs. I

20:38

don't need to say much about that. You know,

20:40

I let the bass player do some

20:42

movement when he wants to and the drummer

20:44

do some movements when they want

20:46

to, because you need those bits of variation

20:48

for people like yourself who are really listening

20:51

and taking stuff in. And I like it

20:53

that some people of mine

20:55

are quite aficionados at what music

20:58

is. They can take in that

21:00

kind of those details that just spark

21:02

up all kinds of interest in

21:04

their way. I suppose a lot of people

21:06

need something more dramatic like hit records or

21:08

something. They need something. They can't follow

21:11

something as simple as this, which has those variations,

21:14

which make a lot of difference, but don't make

21:16

a lot of difference. So

21:18

I really don't have to say much to

21:20

these musicians with the particular material

21:22

that I've been coming up with for the last

21:24

couple of albums. Now lyrically,

21:27

and though this is kind of a feel-good

21:29

song, this is like depressed in a hotel

21:31

room, which I would think is sort of

21:34

the most common song or the easiest song

21:36

to want to write as a touring musician,

21:38

because you're so often in there. Yeah. And

21:40

he thought about why this one, I mean,

21:42

you're very vividly describing the details of the

21:45

air conditioner and going to the drinks machine

21:47

and then connecting this to missing the people

21:49

at home and potentially this, I don't know,

21:51

what's this message of, am I wasting

21:53

my life touring such that I'm not

21:55

with you at home? What's the sentiment

21:57

there? Well, yeah, you've described it well.

22:00

It was, you got the key word, I've

22:02

put it in vivid, the lyrics are vivid.

22:04

They are a story in themselves, every verse

22:06

is. It's not just, oh, I'm

22:08

so lonely, baby. I wish you were here.

22:11

It's not like that. It's a vivid description

22:13

of a cheap motel with

22:15

the rock hard bed and the air conditioner that

22:17

makes a racket and the drinks

22:20

machine. It's like, what's wrong with, there's nothing here, you

22:22

know, and the smell of smoke. All

22:24

of those things, just, that's just the way

22:26

I write. I call it sort of theme

22:28

association, more of a, it's not word association,

22:30

but it's theme association. What is the

22:32

theme of being in a cheap hotel? And

22:34

you know, you've got a sound check in like two

22:37

hours and you've got to sit there and there's nothing

22:39

around you and there's an office block view outside. For

22:42

me, it's like falling off a log to

22:44

write a description of that, to a vivid

22:47

description of what that is like. So

22:49

it's not just a maudlin song about, I miss you,

22:51

baby. You know? It's just to

22:54

make a cool song that talks about Wi-Fi

22:56

in it. You know, that mentions any current

22:58

technology. It seems like, oh no, don't put

23:00

that in it. But you know, you've already

23:02

established, we're just describing in a mundane way,

23:04

here is the thing. So it's

23:06

a, yeah. That's a mundane thing, yeah.

23:08

But back in the, whenever I wrote that, the

23:11

Wi-Fi was much more dodgy in most of the

23:13

homes. And it's like, God, I'd like to get

23:15

this fucking Wi-Fi. It's just Wi-Fi is nonsense. You

23:18

know, what's going on here? Because the

23:20

early days, they brought it together a bit

23:22

more since then. And even the cheap hotels,

23:24

usually. And you add some

23:26

dramatic, the action of, the brain is seizing

23:28

up. I'm dead inside, but I can still

23:30

feel something deep in my heart. If I

23:33

peel away, there's a glimmer of, you know,

23:35

sort of adding action to a basically static

23:37

scene. Interesting. Yeah,

23:39

well, at that point, you know, you've either got

23:41

to get down to the venue and sit in

23:44

some lonely room as the

23:46

sun, melancholy sunlight peeks in

23:48

somewhere. And in the backstage,

23:50

and it's as miserable as a hotel,

23:52

really, you know, you got to get

23:54

out and do that, or hang yourself from

23:57

a lighting fixture. So I generally think

23:59

that the best. best bet is to go and do your

24:01

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24:03

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Their Did you know Kroger always gives

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our lower than low prices. So,

24:57

what's the best swing song? How this came

24:59

together? It was a very eclectic

25:01

bunch of songs on that record. There's

25:03

a song called Slow News Day,

25:05

which really is obviously a sort

25:07

of kink-free thread. It's very much

25:09

that. This song going there I

25:11

thought was reminiscent in its groove

25:14

to Silly Thing from my first

25:16

album. Yeah, it sounds rather 70s,

25:18

especially putting that lead guitar noodling on

25:20

the riff. Like, that's like a pop

25:23

song, bread. I don't know. Well, from

25:25

the 70s, I very seldom hear that

25:27

kind of thing now. I don't know

25:29

why the lyrics came to me like

25:32

that. I am with my son and

25:34

daughter, cross the water, just one sort

25:36

of going there. There's a boozer rising.

25:38

That's not surprising. That is rising over

25:41

there. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And

25:43

then it goes to this very interesting bridge

25:45

that I love a lot. Another C-sharp minor

25:47

thing, possibly. I don't know. I haven't played.

25:50

E-flat minor. I charted. I don't take the

25:52

time to chart most of these, but these

25:54

were so fun that it's just, oh,

25:56

oh, it's easy to pick the chords out. I can figure out.

26:00

You do your same and write things. Because some of

26:02

the chords I see written down for some of my

26:04

songs on the internet and the Google is, it's like,

26:06

what were they thinking? So you're closer to

26:08

anybody so far. Well, I didn't know... Did

26:10

you use a capo on this? Because when I was playing

26:12

a lot, it seemed like a little easier because the whole

26:15

thing is in G flat minor. My

26:17

goodness, I don't know. There might be a capo

26:19

on the first fret. I don't know. I don't

26:21

know what kids. I hadn't played it since we

26:24

recorded the record. Okay. Yeah, it was

26:26

one of those things. That is so perfect. Leave it.

26:28

Don't do it again. Let's face it,

26:30

me and the room have a lot of choice of live

26:32

songs when we were touring. So it was

26:34

just one of those anomalies that came out. I

26:37

do love it a lot, the composition, the

26:39

swing, and the acoustic style

26:41

I'm using where I stop and actually

26:43

play down, down, down, down, down, down.

26:46

I'm playing those as well. And

26:48

the bus bell when you press the

26:50

stop on your bus, on your English

26:52

bus, it used to go ding, ding.

26:55

Now it sort of goes, but in

26:57

those days it was a ding, ding. Ah,

26:59

so this is where that theme is

27:01

doing that on the symbol there. Duh,

27:03

duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh,

27:05

duh, duh. Bing,

27:08

bing. I think there's a couple of bing, bing. This is

27:10

the song, right? And

27:29

they say there's other

27:31

words discovering, no ground

27:33

words covering anywhere. Anybody

27:38

can be done, I'm

27:41

not listening, I don't care.

27:43

Why was my tongue

27:46

in the water? I'm

27:49

just going to start out

27:52

going there. Ooh, there's a

27:54

blue horizon, that's rising,

27:56

the night is rising.

28:30

Oh, you

28:32

can't be

28:36

discouraged

28:40

You've got to have the

28:43

courage You've

28:51

got to have the heart

28:53

to make it fair Nothing's

28:55

got to do, nothing's got

28:57

to do You need

29:00

to stay, stay, stay, stay

29:02

Oh, I know

29:05

that you're a hobby You

29:07

don't want to give this to

29:10

me You

29:12

think I don't want to

29:16

You don't want to Job it's

29:18

a cherry tree Two

29:20

cats stand on the one and

29:23

the one They're

29:42

hanging around with the arrested and the

29:44

Scene Oh,

29:49

when I'm standing down

29:51

here Cross the water

29:53

to get what I

29:55

have to get to

30:00

I'm gonna try and

30:03

help you guys. So

30:07

we're making this a slow-down. Yeah.

30:11

So we're gonna make it a slow-down. Yeah,

30:14

yeah, yeah. We're

30:16

gonna make it a slow-down.

30:19

We're gonna make it a

30:21

slow-down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're

30:23

gonna make it a slow-down.

30:25

We're going there. We're

30:33

going there. We're

30:40

going there. Yeah,

30:50

so this very kind of goofy intro

30:53

with the... Brimsie doing

30:55

the slide, I think. Yeah,

30:57

Brimsie on the slide. Yeah, yeah, he came up with

31:00

that and I thought, that's it, Brimsie. That's very pop,

31:02

very sixties. Yeah. And you mentioned

31:04

the little chimes. You didn't mention the tap

31:06

shoes or whatever. Oh,

31:08

the tap shoes came in. I

31:11

can see like, do not try to do

31:13

this live. Nobody wants to hear you, you know, somebody...

31:16

You have a very indulgent audience to like, and

31:18

now we're gonna do that tap part. Tap-downs a

31:20

bit, folks. Yeah, come

31:23

on. Get jiggy with it. Well, there you go.

31:26

You know more about the song than me now. I

31:28

must listen to it again. I just kind of blithely

31:30

said, I like that one. It's catchy. Throw that in

31:32

there from that album, which is a kind of a

31:34

bit of an underserved album. It's a

31:36

really good album, I thought, Mystery Blue. Well,

31:39

yeah, and more overtly, Soul. You know, I

31:41

was trying to describe what your style is

31:43

to people. It's a style that I'm very

31:46

influenced by. So, you know, sort of basically

31:48

Dylan-esque in that there are lots

31:50

of words. And that

31:52

means, and you're playing mostly it with an

31:54

acoustic, or even if you're not, it's chordally

31:56

based more than riff-based, but within

31:58

that, then you could be... very eclectic such

32:00

that I think the genre that I usually

32:03

have to go by is singer-songwriter. Like, okay,

32:05

well what does that mean? That

32:07

could be the Dave Matthews band. So

32:09

it's a singer-songwriter playing against a really

32:11

funky section or can be a very

32:13

rockabilly or just on one of your

32:16

albums you might go between just all these

32:19

references to past eras and genres but

32:21

it's still just you and your guitar

32:24

and focused on the lyrics. So it's not

32:26

defined, I guess adding the rumor in it

32:29

makes it more, oh this is the soul

32:31

band. Well we had a lot of that

32:33

because howling wind is basically a kind of

32:35

blueprint for everything I've done. I

32:37

mean I've swayed quite a way off of that but

32:40

essentially it's very much the roots, call

32:42

it roots music for want of a

32:44

better term, Americana or something. It comes

32:47

from soul, it comes from the folk

32:49

idioms that Dylan brought dragged into the

32:51

future and made what people saw of

32:53

as folk actually in the pop

32:56

songs with a lot of weight to them

32:58

as well that was modern to the times

33:00

and not sitting on the porch writing songs

33:02

about the injustices of the world in very

33:04

bland simple terms. Dylan did it in a

33:06

whole different way a lot of the time

33:08

and sometimes he was also quite literal but

33:11

you know there's that influence and a lot

33:14

of the soul influence, well

33:16

that's from when I was 14

33:18

or 15 and we found

33:20

out a lot of the white pop

33:22

bands, the beat music bands, they were

33:24

getting it from American black music, they

33:26

were influenced, you know, twist

33:29

and shout please Mr. Postman, the

33:31

Stones are doing Chuck Berry and

33:33

Sonny Boyer, whatever they were doing was all blues,

33:36

it was all a lesson. It was all a

33:38

great lesson when you were a kid. Growing

33:41

up in England as I was you know age

33:43

12 and the Beatles come along, you didn't see

33:45

it coming and suddenly you've got your own music

33:47

and then you start to learn where it comes

33:49

from. It doesn't take much to learn where it

33:52

comes from because then you start hearing Chuck

33:54

Berry on the pirate radio or something. It's

33:57

like oh for goodness sake, yeah, they're doing

34:00

and the Chuck Berry guy, aren't they? It

34:03

was all that kind of stuff. So that's

34:05

kind of in my DNA, really, as you

34:07

could say. With the rumor, either with the

34:09

original iteration or getting these guys back together,

34:11

are you taking advantage of the fact that

34:14

some of them are legitimate songwriters? Were you trying

34:16

to collaborate in new ways or was it still,

34:18

this is the batch of songs you have and these

34:21

are the people that you're going to have

34:23

back to you on this one, but it

34:25

just simplifies things, just you're bringing the songs

34:27

and see what they do with it. Trying

34:29

to get them to understand where the song

34:31

is coming from, because just a guy on

34:33

an acoustic guitar is sometimes hard for even

34:35

great musicians, because they immediately start thinking of

34:37

themselves and what they'll do and I have

34:39

to rein them in a bit. I'd have

34:41

to rein the rumor in a bit because

34:43

they're so creative and they can play all

34:45

over the place on any song

34:47

you like. They can really get wild

34:49

on it as they did in the

34:51

earlier days. We were younger and it

34:53

was like, yeah, fast, faster, faster. Just

34:56

elaborate, go mad on it. It's

34:59

letting them come up with their creative ideas,

35:01

but there are some things like the song

35:03

I mentioned, Slow News Day, where

35:05

I hummed or played on guitar

35:07

the entire base break

35:09

that happens on that song to

35:11

Andrew and said, try this, here's the

35:13

notes, play it. Andrew is the most creative

35:15

bass player I've ever heard, let alone worked

35:17

with. He was into it because he knew

35:19

it was a good part. He played it

35:22

just as I'd showed him. There's things

35:24

like that, but with the rumor, you give him

35:26

a lot of latitude, you

35:28

let Bob Andrews play a lot because

35:31

he plays a lot, because it's

35:33

quite brilliant and very, very exciting.

35:37

It's the opposite with the Gold Tops. The

35:39

keyboard, I want to be much more subtle,

35:41

very different. For that with

35:43

the Gold Tops is Geraint Watkins, who has

35:46

a beautiful rich country

35:49

pop star. I mean, there's a lot of things

35:51

he can play, but he keeps it very understated.

35:54

That works better for these songs and for

35:56

me in general. At this point in time,

35:58

who knows what's next? I

36:00

don't plan these things ahead. I might be writing

36:02

a few things quite a lot of the time,

36:04

and I'm sort of ruminating on

36:07

what to do, but I never know until I've

36:09

got like six songs, basically four

36:11

to six songs, and I think, okay, there's

36:13

a feel going on here. They're all different,

36:15

but there's a feel. And

36:17

that's when I start thinking about the

36:19

right musicianship to back it. It's a

36:22

process. It's a long and winding process.

36:25

Let me play a couple chunks here.

36:27

The transition between what I'll

36:29

call the first and second verse, which is very

36:31

sudden. Just

36:44

the fact that there's no, I would think

36:46

that I'm not listening. I don't care.

36:48

But no, we're at the second verse already.

36:51

That's it. Yeah, we got the flow. Once you've got the

36:53

flow and the groove, it's all there. By

36:57

contrast... Look at that

36:59

curve in Sherry's wall.

37:02

And the old steel bar. The

37:07

dance going to meet

37:09

in Robert's chair. So

37:15

when you finish the chorus, since we've

37:18

switched to some different chords, we're

37:20

going to go back to where we started, the F sharp, and

37:22

sort of... So

37:25

that you can then have a clean plate. We're

37:27

back to where we started, so you can do

37:29

your little acoustic walk up again. Yeah,

37:31

any thoughts about where we're going to have a

37:34

gesture like that? There could be

37:36

a big lead splash. But

37:39

you do know, we're just going to play the chords

37:42

for a measure to just reorient you, as opposed to

37:44

just what you did between those verses. Like, let's just

37:47

get on with it. Well,

37:49

yeah. I mean, you know this all better than

37:51

me now, that's for sure. I say, I must

37:53

listen again, but once you get

37:55

a take going like that, and it's like, okay,

37:57

that was a pretty good take. Let's do it.

38:00

now and we nail

38:02

it. The flow of these things is just

38:04

magic to me. It's just being in the

38:07

studio and you hear a good take. You

38:09

know what you've got there. Yeah. So in terms of

38:11

how many measures am I going to put between things,

38:13

is that something you just come in with and you

38:16

have the exact structure and this is what the band

38:18

is going to play or is it really let's play

38:20

it with the band a few times and see. I'm

38:22

playing with a new band now and okay,

38:25

I thought I was just going to do my transition

38:27

riff and we're going to go into the next part

38:29

but maybe I should sit on the chord a few

38:31

more measures and you know, another four, another eight to

38:33

let people because we have talented people who want to

38:36

do riffs. Basically, my songs

38:38

are about 95% when I put them

38:40

onto a cell phone on acoustic guitar

38:42

or I've gone into a little studio

38:44

and banged them down. They're basically about

38:46

90 to 95% there.

38:49

But once you're in there with a band, there

38:51

are things that you need to adjust. I

38:54

had the idea for sit on

38:56

a new record like the first track, the

38:58

music of the devil to have this spooky

39:00

keyboard. That

39:03

was there when I went in but I wasn't

39:05

sure how long the measures were going to be.

39:08

So there's you sort of run through it and

39:10

say that was good lengths and I try to

39:12

be in visual contact with the musicians. I might

39:14

be in a booth but I try to be

39:16

in visual contact and give a quick nod that

39:18

we're coming back into a short verse

39:20

or some kind of stress or a bridge.

39:22

There's always a lot of okay and I

39:24

start playing and I'm singing it live. Oh,

39:26

so this lead vocal is the one that

39:28

was sung with the band that you were

39:30

able to isolate it enough from your guitar.

39:33

Yeah, I've been doing live vocals as much

39:35

as possible and that's pretty much most of

39:37

the time throughout my career from the Mona

39:39

Lisa's sister onwards. When I said, look, I

39:41

don't want any more of these producers. I

39:43

don't want it. They're going to make it

39:45

sound like the 80s. I think the 80s

39:48

are over even though it's 87. They should

39:50

be over enough of that. So I became

39:52

the producer and got a great engineer and

39:55

that's what I've done ever since. In

39:57

that sense, I can call the shots and cover

39:59

the bases. I want to cover. That's really

40:01

what I've been doing all that time since

40:03

I'm only so system because I thought, well, I

40:05

did a good job on that. And it's not

40:08

an 80s sounding, it's not a big giant snare

40:10

drum sound. Right. The way of processing now is

40:12

not the way of processing in the 80s. My

40:15

last album that I could refer

40:17

you to has a little too much, even

40:19

though it's basically an acoustic album of this

40:21

sort of singer-songwriter variety, has a little too

40:23

much pitch correction that sounded okay

40:25

when I was playing with a big three-piece

40:28

electric guitar thing. But now in

40:30

this exposed, that's the

40:32

studio standard of this could work on

40:34

the radio means you got to

40:37

use at least the pitch correction to fix at

40:39

least the nasty bits. But it seems like you are

40:41

not... The acoustic guitar is going to bleed onto my

40:43

vocal track and vice versa and there's nothing that can

40:45

be done about that because it was recorded live, you're

40:47

not going to be able to fix anything rhythmically or

40:49

pitch-wise about the vocal. It's just that's the way it

40:51

is. You can drop in

40:53

for a piece with both acoustic and

40:55

voice. And I've done that before, but

40:58

very, very few times because it's

41:00

about work. It's about hard graft. It's

41:02

about getting your voice in shape.

41:05

I'll even go sometimes to a rehearsal room

41:07

on my own before we go into a

41:09

studio to really open my voice up, to

41:11

really belt it out, then take a day

41:13

off and sing gently. It's a full-time job

41:15

for me to make an album. It's not

41:17

a chance. It's not, oh, I

41:19

don't really know. I know. That's what I have

41:21

to go in there with that thought. I know

41:23

because I can't rely on anybody else because no

41:25

one else is as good as me. So take

41:29

that to heart, baby. It's work. It's graft.

41:31

And generally, I'm very successful. The thing I'll

41:33

tell you why I wanted to take it

41:35

back to what you were saying, sing a

41:37

songwriter. That's what I am. That is what

41:40

I call myself first. That's my job description.

41:42

More than a live artist

41:45

or a live performer. That's a very interesting

41:47

part of it. I had to say exciting

41:49

for the audience and stuff, hopefully. But

41:51

the main thing was I got fed

41:53

up with recording albums like the producers

41:56

used to do where they don't care

41:58

about your vocal. It was always even

42:00

from Howling Wind, the vocal was the

42:02

last thing that was a scratch vocal

42:04

until then. Even one album,

42:07

I said, I love this vocal. I don't already do it.

42:09

And the producer at time, I think it was Jimmy Iovine,

42:12

said, no, no, we can't use that. We can't use

42:14

it. It was a terrible microphone, terrible mic. Well, it

42:16

wasn't really. Now I realize it was a 58 mic,

42:19

which a lot of bands used to

42:21

sing through, even when they were recording.

42:24

It just wasn't one of those big

42:26

noimas that had... Right. That would pick

42:28

up everything around that you need an

42:30

isolated vocal boost with just the vocal.

42:32

With a little 57, there was a

42:34

lot of vocals in the 60s done

42:36

on that. Sometimes it's a very dry,

42:38

close sound. So what I treat

42:40

it as now is the vocal, the

42:43

singer-songwriter, the guitar and the voice is

42:45

the most important thing. That's the most

42:47

important thing. It's not the drum sound.

42:49

It's not any sound. It's the singer and

42:51

the songwriter because that's what I am. So

42:53

that is my reference point,

42:56

ethos as it were, for every album

42:58

these days. And I hated what I heard

43:01

sometimes when after three weeks of working, we

43:03

got the tunes down. It's like, okay, vocals

43:05

day, Graham. And my vocals weren't anywhere near

43:07

as good as they could be. I

43:10

wasn't working enough then. I didn't understand

43:12

it. I thought it's just, it's all

43:14

about energy and emotion. It's not really,

43:16

but it was effective that intense vocal

43:19

style at the time, but it's not what I want

43:21

to do now. It wouldn't serve the songs right. But

43:24

I hated it when you went back and

43:26

you put the headphones on and now you're

43:28

supposed to sing. It's like, oh, you and

43:30

the engineer and maybe one of the musicians

43:32

is hanging around. You feel self-conscious. You've

43:34

got it on earphones. Well, yeah, you're

43:36

more likely to be out of tune because you

43:39

can't hear exactly how well are you really hearing

43:41

what you need to from the backing? You're right.

43:43

My pitching was terrible in those days. Terrible. I

43:45

can hear it. I'm squeezing out sparks all over

43:48

the place, but now my pitching

43:50

is way better. Yeah. I'm not the

43:52

greatest singer in the world by any

43:54

means, but my pitching is way better

43:56

because I'm playing live because I've learned

43:58

to try and capture that vocal. right

44:00

when it happens with the band and the

44:02

acoustic guitar with the bleed over going on

44:05

from the acoustic of the voice. Man,

44:07

it gives it a feel every time. Well, that's

44:09

really interesting. I was wondering because you do some

44:11

sort of vocal riffs at the end,

44:13

the soul improv of whoa,

44:16

putting in the extra syllables.

44:18

And for me, it's easier

44:21

to have that kind of freedom and

44:23

improvisation if I'm not playing the instrument.

44:25

But you're saying it's actually easier, or at

44:28

least you were able to do it on

44:30

here, that first to going to doing a

44:32

very straightforward thing with your hands while trying

44:34

to disconnect your head and do something that

44:36

floats off the rhythm and things like that,

44:38

just like you do live. That

44:41

describes it. It's like the man with two or three

44:43

brains. And that's what it feels like. I

44:45

mean, it's always going to, how am I doing this?

44:47

I don't know. Don't think about it. So,

44:50

yeah, I'm juggling all the balls at the

44:52

same time. That's why you need to be

44:54

prepared and ready to put it out there

44:56

because you're going to do more than one

44:58

take you. Sometimes you get a take in

45:00

some first go through. That usually

45:02

was something that was on like one chord or

45:04

something. You know, it doesn't mean it's

45:06

a bad song. It's on one chord. Hello, so

45:08

I stand on everyday people, you know, a

45:11

Rida Franklin, Don Cervé song, Chez

45:13

Nifuls. These are one chord songs. So

45:15

I think you can get those with the first take

45:18

more than the complicated ones where really

45:20

people are also working on the fly

45:22

like me because I've got to remember

45:25

some complex chord sequences and they

45:27

have as well and they haven't lived with them as much as

45:29

me. So that's a tribute to the

45:31

kind of musicians I work with. And

45:33

if they get something wrong, it's not so bad. They

45:35

can overdub it. But

45:37

me, I'm there with the live vocal and

45:39

the live guitar. I want to play a

45:42

clip just from the end of the bridge

45:44

where you go into the instead, instead. Now

46:00

we're going to do, oh, it's going to be minor.

46:02

It's going to be, yeah, any thought about introducing

46:04

that at that point where

46:07

I'm not even really sure that the lyrics,

46:09

right? Look at that sunset cherry red, trim

46:11

that sail, boys, sail ahead, pick

46:13

up the wind and head right there instead. Like what

46:15

is there about, oh, now it

46:17

has to get a little ominous because of...

46:19

Ominous, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's

46:22

one of those things where you just know in a pop

46:24

song, you need a surprise. I think

46:27

that's basically it. And it's ingrained

46:30

from all those sixties pop songs

46:32

where a band, the Beatles or

46:34

the Kinks, they can go to

46:36

places like that, but not in

46:38

a ridiculously overt way all the

46:40

time. In just a way that most

46:42

people just feel it. They don't

46:44

think, wow, that's weird. They just feel it. You're

46:46

obviously analyzing it and that's a great thing. I

46:48

like that, but people sometimes take their time out

46:51

to say, what? Oh, that's a minor chord there

46:53

and figure it out. I love that. I

46:56

guess I'm just thinking of quick variety before

46:58

you get boring. You know, panic, panic.

47:00

What do I do? Oh, minor

47:02

chords. Fantastic. It just opens the whole thing up

47:04

again. You don't have during that, even though it

47:06

would be very natural for one of your two

47:09

league guitarists to do a big

47:11

bend over that, to add some

47:13

tension that we're focusing on the

47:15

vocals. And what is different about this

47:17

than the first song is that the harmony vocals are very

47:19

prominent. It's not just you. So is

47:21

that Brinsley? Whose voice are we actually hearing

47:23

prominently? Well, Bob

47:25

and Brinsley are the main singers. Together,

47:28

they work well. Steve Goulding joins him

47:30

on some things in a little low

47:32

harmony. Andrew can do as

47:34

well. But basically, the voices you hear

47:36

are a combination of Brinsley and Bob.

47:38

They've always worked well together. And I

47:41

encourage them on that particular album. I

47:43

really did on the particular on Mystery

47:45

Glue, especially on this song. They

47:47

like that. They enjoy it. I just said, come on,

47:49

go to town on it. Come up

47:52

with some vocal backing vocals here. The group comes

47:54

in on the go in there, go in there,

47:56

go in there, which again is ridiculously sort of

47:58

70s goofy. Exactly.

48:02

I love that. On that particular,

48:04

the part before that with the instead,

48:06

you got one prominent higher vocal.

48:08

So when you demo, did you have the

48:10

harmonies worked out or you let them as

48:13

the backing vocalists figure out what they feel

48:15

natural to sing, and how many of them

48:17

want to do it? I

48:19

basically encourage you. I just have to say it to

48:22

Bob and Brinsley. I mean, I think when I was

48:24

writing it, I'm sure I knew

48:26

the scope for backing vocals on that

48:28

particular song was going to be a

48:30

great buzz for those guys to do,

48:32

and it was going to work beautifully.

48:35

So I would have been aware of that and

48:37

probably dropping some hints as we're

48:39

recording. When

48:42

we're doing run-throughs, quick run-throughs,

48:45

and I can hear it. As it grows, I can hear

48:47

it. Then I just have

48:49

to encourage those guys and say, come on.

48:52

We got loads of acres of space here

48:54

to do this stuff. I

48:56

think that was good about the album that I just gave

48:58

them a pointer and let them go. Mystery

49:00

Glue has a good bit of that, I think. Yeah,

49:03

there's a little more playing around, some

49:05

big drum riffs going into parts. I

49:07

noticed piano and organ, at least in

49:09

different parts of the songs. Again, he

49:12

gets as many passes as he wants. Keeping

49:14

Bob to one keyboard instrument is not

49:16

easy. He's always going to

49:18

say, can I try and help him about an organ

49:21

on here? I'm like, yeah, go on, Bob, do it.

49:23

Of course, you've got it all the way through the

49:25

track. You've got two keyboards

49:27

going. Sometimes it can thicken the

49:29

stew too much, but I think

49:31

on this album, Mystery Glue and Three

49:33

Chords Good, the two keyboards are just

49:36

sublime on everything. Bob's incredibly creative. Was

49:38

he playing the organ live with you

49:40

and then the piano, junk, junk, junk

49:42

are an emphasis it is later or

49:44

vice versa? I would think

49:47

he was playing the organ live on

49:49

this one. It's the thing that floats

49:51

through it. It flows beautifully. An organ

49:53

can flow beautifully with a live take.

49:55

And a piano, I think that will

49:57

be an added instrument there, the added

49:59

keyboard. Welcome to Codependents.

50:02

What's up guys? I'm Sierra Miller and

50:04

I want you to join me and

50:06

my sister, Maya Allen, every week for

50:08

the Inside Scoop into our sisterhood. You

50:11

will be getting front row access to

50:14

the good, the bad, the ugly, and

50:16

the pretty. So come let your

50:18

guard down with your fellow Codependents as

50:20

we laugh and of course cry our

50:22

way through this crazy world. See

50:24

you every Wednesday. Alright,

50:30

well let's go back in time. I wanted to pick out

50:32

one of the songs that I had listened

50:34

to a lot when I discovered you in the

50:36

early days from the Struck by Lightning album 1991.

50:40

I believe I got the cassette from the

50:42

cutout bid. I loved picking up the 199

50:44

cassettes or whatever. I always think of the

50:46

things in the cutout bid as somebody thought

50:48

this was going to do really well but

50:51

maybe the record company stuff didn't work out

50:53

as well. It did not become a cutout.

50:56

But the first song off that, She Wants So

50:58

Many Things. This is a six minute song. It's

51:00

in 6'8", so we get a little different. And

51:03

this seems definitely a solo tune in that it

51:05

is the most Dylan-esque of the things that we're

51:07

picking here. There are arrangement things but it's you

51:09

doing a lead guitar riff, not the lead guitarist

51:12

that would play this inter-riff and then have to

51:14

be just sitting there doing nothing for a while.

51:16

Like, anyway, can you say something about this era

51:18

and this song before we hear? Actually, it just

51:21

popped in my mind. You were saying like a

51:23

singer-songwriter song. Very Dylan-esque, of course it is. And

51:26

I had the temerity, I suppose, thinking back

51:28

on it. When I opened for Bob in

51:30

1991, we did a load of European tours

51:32

and I was solo and he had a

51:35

four-piece band. And I was opening

51:37

my set with She Wants So Many

51:39

Things. A little bit cheeky, I think,

51:41

perhaps. And also Garth Hudson is on

51:43

there, talking about the band. Garth Hudson's

51:46

playing the accordion. Oh,

51:48

so he's the one really freaking out and filling

51:50

up the space. Yeah. Yeah, he's the

51:52

one doing it, man. Yeah. And

51:54

that was just let him go and do

51:56

it. He'd do three different recordings and tell

51:58

the engineer to put... one on the left,

52:01

one in the middle, one on the right.

52:03

And we'd listen through and he'd say, stop

52:05

right there, one minute, 35 and a half seconds.

52:10

Take out two seconds of the middle

52:12

take. If there's some genius

52:15

at work here, wait a minute. He can

52:17

keep a track of three different takes of

52:19

accordion and pick out three,

52:21

five seconds or 10 seconds of one that

52:24

he doesn't like and pull it out. And

52:26

you'd never know about it. It

52:28

was extraordinary working with him. And

52:30

we spent quite a bit of time just letting

52:33

him go, let him play on that accordion on

52:35

that particular song. And I did

52:37

some, also it's interesting. I played

52:39

a toy piano on it. On

52:41

the down, down, down, down, down,

52:43

down, down, down. There was a

52:45

toy piano. I think I've used it

52:47

even in the past or since then.

52:50

In Dreamland Studios in New York

52:52

state, West Early New York. You

52:54

just need to add it. The pure momentum

52:56

of the song is like a train. It

52:59

just rolls. It's just rolling

53:01

along very much like I suppose,

53:03

obviously a whole different ball game

53:05

of brilliance and quality like the

53:07

Rolling Stone, where Dylan doesn't

53:10

tell anybody much from in those early songs.

53:12

He was like giving him the cord. He

53:14

just played it and they say, okay, that's

53:17

all you need to know. And then they'd

53:19

all play because a lot of his songs

53:21

have bridges. They just rolled in one thing

53:23

and it was so perfect. You didn't need

53:25

a bridge. You didn't need to elevate it.

53:28

A lot of those songs, but it has that

53:31

feel. Yeah, it's obvious it was Dylan S. That's

53:33

why it was like cheeky of me

53:35

to open my set. I

53:37

hope they would open it. Doing that.

53:58

She was so many things. You

54:01

can't get to her, she wants so

54:03

many things, you don't have much.

54:06

She wants so many things,

54:09

you can't deliver to her, she

54:11

wants so many things. All

54:13

that was, like a brick

54:16

wall that'll keep her from

54:18

crumbling, and a camouflage jacket

54:20

to hide from herself in,

54:22

and a system of worship,

54:25

like a powerful magnet that'll

54:27

jar in the heathens put

54:29

them up in a dragon

54:31

and pull them underwater too.

54:33

They all go shadily. She

54:36

wants so many things, beaming

54:38

on the satellite, and

54:40

the bones sandwich me, and the bones

54:42

sandwich me, she wants

54:45

so many things, where you gonna find

54:47

them all. She wants

54:49

so many things, get up and

54:51

run. She wants

54:53

so many things, they'll ride a

54:55

beck and call, you're the puppet,

54:58

she pulls the string just for

55:00

fun, like a blue

55:02

ocean that's devoid of fishes,

55:05

sat all on a cable, the

55:07

pen in the dishes, like an

55:10

army of lieutenants all standing to

55:12

attention, and a pucker that

55:14

you weigh, you don't care to mention,

55:17

with a hand on a bottle, she's

55:19

a righty in your face, she's

55:22

a living example of bad taste

55:24

with him or an ally,

55:26

she can't be a heirloom

55:28

to the high form of

55:31

the voluntary, some are

55:33

synthetic. She wants so

55:35

many things, but when it questions,

55:38

the garden's in battle, hanging

55:41

in the dunes, she's in

55:43

the desert, you're so afraid,

55:47

you can't wait in the long run

55:49

that don't make her wait, she

55:51

wants so many things, you

55:53

can't negotiate, she wants

55:56

so many things, She

56:00

wants so many things, don't make her

56:02

reiterate She wants so

56:04

many things, all at

56:07

once The collection of clowns was

56:09

dragged up in public schools Between

56:11

the upper and the lower She

56:14

had her in the distillery They all

56:16

surrounded her and she ended up in

56:18

a set With her

56:20

hands on their mouths to hide

56:22

their bad breath She lives

56:24

in the fortress in the

56:26

back of her project She'll

56:28

let you ensue the night now, not

56:31

yet She

56:33

likes to see you, but it

56:35

mustn't breathe The fields

56:37

ain't right for you, I'm with what

56:39

you need She wants so many things,

56:41

spit up in the item She knows

56:43

it's round you, you can get out

56:45

of it She

56:49

wants so many things, where you gonna

56:52

find them all She wants

56:54

so many things, get up and

56:56

run She wants

56:58

so many things, you'll have a

57:01

backhand call On a puppet, she

57:03

pulls the string just for fun

57:27

She wants so many things, you can't keep

57:29

up with her She

57:42

wants so many things, at the same

57:44

time She wants so many things, you

57:46

can't keep it up her

57:48

She wants so many things,

57:51

get up and run She

57:54

wants so many things, you'll

57:57

never hurt a million

57:59

shoes and a closet full of

58:01

webs and two dozen

58:03

hearts and then everyone fits

58:06

in the kind of acceptance

58:08

that needs a lobotomy that'll

58:11

help you access every single

58:13

contradictory statement that hits you

58:15

like a pause nine gale

58:18

and makes you go pale

58:20

at a time that you

58:22

fail to bring home the

58:24

bacon and the goods,

58:27

get the musk from the deer and

58:29

a shell from the turtle and

58:31

the gold from the hooze and

58:33

a shell from the sea she's

58:35

a rodent and a caravan bring

58:38

them to me she

58:40

wins from this thing, I'll

58:42

do a feed, heavy

58:44

and rich as the world

58:46

in her trees you better

58:49

do it, it's only a

58:51

fade she can't wait any

58:53

longer now, don't make her

58:55

wait, she wants so

58:57

many things, you can't get

59:00

to her she wants so

59:02

many things, you don't have

59:04

much, she wants so many

59:06

things, you can't deliver to

59:08

her ever since the past

59:10

is break, you can't touch,

59:15

she wants so many

59:18

things,

59:23

she wants so

59:26

many things to

59:47

focus on the least important element first so

59:49

the toy piano I'll admit at

59:51

this time in 1991 when I

59:53

played with my band in college none of us were the

59:55

keyboardists but we had a toy piano that we would bring

59:57

around with us to gigs so that's what I'm going to

59:59

do. that somebody could play it with one finger

1:00:01

for like two songs. So I have an

1:00:04

affection toward that kind of gimmick, but it

1:00:06

is almost like a slide whistle or something.

1:00:08

Like it's not a dignified instrument. No,

1:00:11

it's not dignified. It's like a kazoo. I played

1:00:13

kazoo quite a bit. You can't

1:00:15

call it dignified, but it's extremely expressive. The

1:00:17

tour piano is not very expressive, but it

1:00:19

has a lovely clunky sound. You wouldn't want

1:00:21

that on a real keyboard. It would be

1:00:24

too good. It needs bang, dang, dang,

1:00:26

dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang. It's

1:00:28

perfect. It's a great little keyboard for

1:00:31

people who can't play keyboards. So it

1:00:33

suits me fine. Likewise, the lead riff

1:00:35

that is doing, which is a very

1:00:37

singable, if you had a lead guitarist

1:00:39

that was doing that, they probably want

1:00:42

to add a little slide, a little

1:00:44

something extra, not just play dang, dang,

1:00:46

dang, dang. So it's clearly just you

1:00:48

overdubbing yourself, right? I think I play

1:00:51

probably Telecaster Electric on the song, but

1:00:53

I don't think I was picking out those notes.

1:00:55

I think that was the job of the tour

1:00:57

piano. So I'm sorry. Oh, okay. I thought the

1:00:59

two were doing it together, but- Oh, maybe I

1:01:02

am. Maybe I'm doing it. If so, it's me.

1:01:04

I'm really guitar-o-mattro. Yeah. Before I actually

1:01:06

sat down to chart this, I was thinking,

1:01:08

this is really just the same chords over

1:01:10

and over and over again, but no, no.

1:01:12

There are actually distinct parts that

1:01:15

it's A-E-B-E, A-E-B-E for the

1:01:17

intro, but then for the

1:01:19

verse, it's A-E-B-A. We're

1:01:22

going to have something different just on the last line

1:01:24

to keep it going. And

1:01:26

then when you get this pre-chorus part,

1:01:28

this B to A is just designed

1:01:30

to go on forever, potentially.

1:01:32

That one of the times- Really, yeah.

1:01:34

You have five lines, four

1:01:36

lines, you're ready for the chorus, but no, we're going to

1:01:38

add and pull them underwater until they

1:01:40

all go staggered. We're going to add an extra one.

1:01:43

And then it's eight lines. And then it's, I think

1:01:45

more than that for the last one. Oh no, it's

1:01:47

eight again. The other interesting thing-

1:01:50

Ooh, ooh, ooh, down,

1:01:52

down, down. Right, those

1:01:54

are the chords, the basic chords. So it starts on

1:01:56

the A even though I guess it's in the key

1:01:58

of E. But

1:02:00

I play, this is what I

1:02:02

play, I add this note. Can you see that? It's 1,

1:02:05

2, 3, 4th fret. It's

1:02:10

the, on the A string, note,

1:02:13

D string, D string. So

1:02:15

I'm playing an A, but I've got that note

1:02:18

there, and that sets up the entire feel of

1:02:20

the song. So it's an added ninth. Yes, is

1:02:22

it a ninth? I don't know what I'm doing.

1:02:26

I still don't know what I'm doing, but it gives you the whole feel of the song.

1:02:30

Oh, sorry, it's a sixth. It's a sixth. It's an

1:02:32

A sixth. It's a sixth, yep. That's

1:02:46

what makes the song unique, and

1:02:48

it makes me say I've got to write this song. If

1:02:51

it was just... It's

1:02:54

not a D. Sure,

1:02:56

oh yeah, you've got to have the little tension in there.

1:02:59

You've got to have that, and it's quite pretty as well.

1:03:01

It's got a lot of things going for it. Yeah,

1:03:03

that's how it's done, kids. So

1:03:06

this is a song that, even

1:03:09

though it goes on a long time, it's like

1:03:11

the energy is about to burst. It's about to

1:03:13

explode almost from the beginning,

1:03:15

that it's just this very intense vocal. Any

1:03:17

thought about how you're navigating the levels of,

1:03:19

when am I going to jump to the

1:03:21

high octave? When am I going to do...

1:03:23

Oh, now it's down, back down. You've

1:03:26

got to make it last six minutes. It's not just, we're going

1:03:28

to state it, and then we're going to open it up, and

1:03:30

then we're going to have a big solo and end it. No,

1:03:33

it's got to be this perpetual tension

1:03:35

here. It has to be the perpetual

1:03:37

tension, I guess. Yeah, and to me, it's

1:03:39

just playing the song quite a lot at home, and

1:03:42

then going, okay, good luck, Graham, and

1:03:44

plowing into it, and hoping

1:03:46

by the shape of the lyrics that are

1:03:48

coming up next, I'll find

1:03:50

the appropriate emotional level and the appropriate twists

1:03:53

in it so that it should be. It

1:03:56

should be interesting all the way through, unless

1:03:58

you're a dumbass, which most people... people are. But

1:04:00

I think... Well, and then the climax is,

1:04:03

again, one of those stops. You're the puppet,

1:04:05

you know, that early you had one of

1:04:07

those stops. No, actually, this was in the

1:04:09

earlier song. It was also in, right, the

1:04:12

last verse. You know, this indicates...

1:04:14

Oh, yeah. It's not the most climactic move

1:04:16

one can have. But in the

1:04:18

context, it breaks things up. You've been

1:04:20

going so long, this momentum, that to

1:04:22

actually have a stop there is quite

1:04:24

jarring. Yeah, there's all those

1:04:26

lyrics, all that time I've gone through, and I still

1:04:28

have to have a quick look up to the band,

1:04:30

you know, if I'm seeing the bass player, if it

1:04:33

was a bit, you know, a drummer

1:04:35

or whoever's playing, and sort of lift my

1:04:37

head up and nod and go, whack, stop.

1:04:39

So you sort of... You've got to act

1:04:41

it out a bit. Just a

1:04:44

little hint, but a lot of the guys make notes,

1:04:46

you know, they make notes. But that's a tricky thing

1:04:48

to keep up with a song that long, and suddenly

1:04:50

I'm going to stop. You just

1:04:52

got to conduct it. You got to just be... You got

1:04:54

to just jump for something, because, like, they know what something's

1:04:56

going to happen. That's right.

1:04:58

It's a studio, but it's a performance.

1:05:00

That's what I've been trying to do

1:05:02

for... Since I'm not a Lisa

1:05:04

sister, it's a performance. It's a live

1:05:06

performance, but it's studio. So you got

1:05:09

to get the balance of the both worlds there,

1:05:11

really. So you haven't tried to teach this to

1:05:13

live bands since? Is that the message I'm getting

1:05:15

for this long? It's what? Playing live on stage?

1:05:17

Yes, with a band. I mean, I know you

1:05:19

play the whole thing. Yeah, with a band, you

1:05:21

rehearse it, and they all know when the song's

1:05:23

on. Oh, okay. All right. But

1:05:26

there's always going to be someone. I'm always a keyboard player who

1:05:28

keeps playing. I

1:05:30

blame keyboard players for the ones who keep

1:05:32

going. They're enjoying themselves.

1:05:34

They're lost, and they don't realize the

1:05:36

dead stop is coming up, and everybody needs to

1:05:39

stop. But live is live.

1:05:41

You know, it doesn't matter. So

1:05:43

this pre-chorus, I'm sure that's not what it is, but the

1:05:45

B to A section, like a brick wall that'll keep up

1:05:47

from crumbling, etc. This of

1:05:49

various lengths. So, again, I said five the first

1:05:51

time, eight the second time, eight the third time.

1:05:54

I'm looking at my notes. Ten

1:05:56

the fourth time, and the ten,

1:05:58

I think that's when... you

1:06:00

really the tension is really like

1:06:03

you're in a mental institution at this point

1:06:05

because you know you're expecting after four or

1:06:07

after eight. Finally give us the relief

1:06:09

go into the chorus no we're gonna just keep doing

1:06:11

this and the gold from the fools and the shells

1:06:13

from the sea. She has load that make care of

1:06:15

and bring them to me i mean this is the

1:06:17

real plan i have a song is not. That

1:06:19

that stop with only three minutes and this is. The

1:06:22

place where you know it's gonna go off the

1:06:24

rails of anyway to the point of i guess

1:06:26

yeah there's still more. There's

1:06:28

still another course after this oh

1:06:30

and then you actually repeat an earlier verse

1:06:33

that like oh that this wasn't long enough

1:06:35

i'm gonna repeat some lyrics earlier. I

1:06:38

think i repeat the first one again or something

1:06:40

like that just to remind you where you are

1:06:42

that is a dramatic line. Remember

1:06:44

that put them in a caravan bring

1:06:46

them to me it's like that's where

1:06:48

you hit it hard you know those

1:06:50

are the line right there. So that's

1:06:53

kind of a natural thing sort of

1:06:55

things i'm writing i'm already getting a

1:06:57

hint that is a dramatic punch there.

1:07:11

Finally everything attached to strings you can touch

1:07:14

she wants so many things you can you introduce

1:07:16

this echo. This is the

1:07:18

outro is you're gonna use some studio

1:07:21

trickery but with that your idea

1:07:23

was that this is one of the

1:07:25

cases the producer doing something yeah. Thank

1:07:27

you my engineer who actually engineered co

1:07:29

produce the reunion how was both of

1:07:31

them that's when i first met him

1:07:33

i think it was stuck my lightning

1:07:35

i had a lot of hats to

1:07:37

wear and i even in on the

1:07:39

song. Children and dogs i

1:07:41

had to conduct children they were too

1:07:43

young to really understand what rhythm and

1:07:46

punctuation means it was very very difficult.

1:07:48

I did it all and they cook

1:07:50

would have been the guy to put

1:07:52

on some air cover there and i

1:07:54

would have said yes yes fantastic good

1:07:56

idea that's pretty much how you

1:07:58

were officially the produce. this is already past

1:08:00

the point, 88 or whatever

1:08:03

that was, where you said, no more

1:08:05

actual producers, no more people

1:08:08

telling me what to do. Now

1:08:10

I'm on my game, but for when it

1:08:12

comes to mixing and a lot of effects,

1:08:14

all kinds of things, EQing, that's the engineer's

1:08:16

job. And if something feels funky to me

1:08:18

in the wrong way, I'll say, hold on

1:08:20

a bit, what are you doing there? But

1:08:23

generally, you get someone you can trust like

1:08:25

Dave Cook and my new co-producer engineer, Tuck

1:08:27

Nelson, who's done the last couple of albums,

1:08:29

I'll leave them to come up with some

1:08:32

of the subtleties of the sound. And

1:08:34

those interesting things you throw on all that echo.

1:08:37

It's an old trick and it often works. Was

1:08:40

there a single length,

1:08:43

an edit of this just to have

1:08:46

because it's so catchy. Okay, so this was already

1:08:48

past the point where you're like, I'm not going

1:08:50

to be on the radio. It's just fine. No,

1:08:52

no chance am I going to edit it. No,

1:08:54

you got to go the whole hog with it.

1:08:57

You got to be brave enough to stand by

1:08:59

your insane amount of lyrics

1:09:01

and verses and different timings. I

1:09:04

think most of my tunes have got catchiness to

1:09:06

them in some way or another, but that doesn't

1:09:08

mean I'm going to try and make them into

1:09:10

singles because I think that's too good as it

1:09:12

is. I'm not going to mess with that somewhere

1:09:14

like that. You got to tell a long

1:09:16

story with that one. There's so much to tell. And

1:09:19

finally, when you are done and we

1:09:21

engage in this doo-doo-doo-doo, whatever this outro

1:09:24

is, that's when the Garth Huds and

1:09:26

Accordion really kicks in, that it's

1:09:28

been sort of building and it sounds like you gave

1:09:30

him a free reign to... You got a lot of verses

1:09:32

here, build it however you like. There's

1:09:34

not going to be a lot else going on in

1:09:36

the background. It's just all vocals, but he's the wild

1:09:38

card that then, oh, now we're

1:09:41

done with the vocals. Now

1:09:43

he can solo. There's a

1:09:45

bit, I remember it. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

1:09:48

And he's often running, yes, because a

1:09:50

great musician like that kind

1:09:52

of knows, oh, okay, I need

1:09:54

to break out a little here. And he's always playing

1:09:57

original stuff all the way through. I mean, I wasn't

1:09:59

sitting there trying to... cocks him into

1:10:01

his accordion parts because I know Jack

1:10:03

of Alan got accordions. That's my mail.

1:10:05

They're a mystery to me. So

1:10:08

he let go after the thing and he's bound to

1:10:10

come up with something like that. All those... He's

1:10:12

off on this wild stuff and it's not

1:10:14

perfect. The one time I got an accordion

1:10:16

player who said he would play on one

1:10:19

of my songs, was going to email me

1:10:21

the part. He's like, oh, but you recorded

1:10:23

in B. My accordion's not in B. You

1:10:25

have to write it in A or something. It's

1:10:28

too late. All right. Oh, I got lucky there

1:10:30

then. I got lucky there because once I recorded

1:10:32

that song, I thought, oh, Garth,

1:10:34

I've got Garth coming in. He's going to do

1:10:36

two or three songs and I immediately pegged him

1:10:38

for that song. So I got lucky it was

1:10:40

in the right key then. What do I know?

1:10:43

Yeah, maybe I don't even know what I'm talking

1:10:46

about. Oh, that's the squeeze box. That's only in

1:10:48

one key. But the accordion... So it's like harmonica.

1:10:50

So you got to get a different one for

1:10:52

each key or do a chromatic. Oh my God.

1:10:55

Yeah, harmonica is a tricky thing. People don't understand

1:10:57

that a D harmonica you got to play it

1:10:59

totally different from a G. And also the horn

1:11:01

sections, when you use a horn section, they're like,

1:11:04

yeah, that's not a good key for us.

1:11:06

And I'm like, well, tough man. I'm saying

1:11:08

it. You know, there's certain keys that call

1:11:10

horn sections find a lot easier.

1:11:12

They can work their way around it,

1:11:14

but they're comfortable with certain chords. Another

1:11:17

thing I don't understand. I don't understand.

1:11:20

All right. Finally, I asked you pick an

1:11:22

early career one you picked between you and

1:11:24

me from the first Grant

1:11:26

Parker Rumor album Howlin' Win 1976. But

1:11:29

I think I read online that in fact, this

1:11:31

was the demo, right? It's not even the rumor.

1:11:34

It's not. That was just happened to

1:11:36

be on that album. Yeah, say a little about this before

1:11:38

we hear it. This is a really focused one. Less

1:11:41

than two and a half minutes. The verse

1:11:43

is a couple lines, get right to the chorus. Get right

1:11:45

to the next part. Yeah. Now you gotta

1:11:47

remember at the time I was writing these

1:11:49

songs and even recording them punk rock wasn't

1:11:51

really a thing. People weren't doing one and

1:11:53

a half minute songs or two minute songs

1:11:56

and go one, two, three, four. They were

1:11:58

it was prog rock ruled no matter what

1:12:00

anybody tells you, oh, 1976 and April punk rock.

1:12:04

No, it wasn't. It wasn't. So literally

1:12:06

it shows you what I actually am, this

1:12:08

song. And then that's just sing a songwriter.

1:12:11

And that's what it is. And the

1:12:13

reason we use the demo and even

1:12:15

the band agreed when we got into

1:12:17

the studio and suddenly I've got this

1:12:19

backing band, the rumor, okay, that my

1:12:21

manager basically put around me, the songs

1:12:23

are written. We're ready to go. I've

1:12:25

got a record deal. And Dave Robinson

1:12:28

bought these musicians. He knew put them

1:12:30

together in a way, or they were

1:12:32

sort of playing together a bit. Heart,

1:12:34

you know, rehearsing, but not live gigging.

1:12:36

Didn't have a name. So in they

1:12:38

came and they obviously picked up on

1:12:40

a lot of the intensity of songs like salt

1:12:42

shoes, you know, there wasn't much of that around

1:12:45

at that point in time. It was still pro

1:12:47

rock land, really. You know, I was sort of

1:12:49

a handful of people here and there in London

1:12:51

or wherever, you know, it's 30 miles out of

1:12:53

London. They were just discovering you are a heap

1:12:55

for crying out loud. You know, it's

1:12:57

like suddenly your uncle would have long hair and a

1:13:00

flared trousers in 1975. It's

1:13:02

like, Oh my God, that's all over.

1:13:04

Please stop it. They've done. So the

1:13:06

rumor we're playing to an intensity of

1:13:08

those songs, like you've got to be

1:13:10

kidding, which is very Dylan ask and

1:13:13

salt shoes and back to school days,

1:13:15

which don't ask me questions,

1:13:17

the intensity. So here I am playing this

1:13:19

sweet song that they all know is good.

1:13:21

It is good. It's a good construction. It's

1:13:24

really a full grown song. It's

1:13:26

not really what we were playing like. And

1:13:29

so the demo, me and Dave Robinson, I

1:13:31

think, he might say, I think the

1:13:33

demo is better, Graham. And I listened. I thought

1:13:35

it is. It's got a perfect feel to it.

1:13:37

And that was done in my manager's studio, which

1:13:39

was like an eight track. So you

1:13:42

just spent all this money and you're like, you know

1:13:44

what? Let's use a

1:13:46

demo. You know, it happens with some people

1:13:48

when they end up using. It's amazing.

1:13:50

The amount of artists from the eighties when the

1:13:53

record company was saying you've got to make

1:13:55

good demos, spend a hundred thousand on the

1:13:57

demos and the guy had already done demo.

1:14:00

from about 2000. I sing a song and a

1:14:02

few people talked to me and said, the demos

1:14:04

are better man, we spent $200,000, $300,000 on the

1:14:06

record. We spent $50,000 on the demos, those

1:14:11

demos, and they weren't as good as my

1:14:13

original demos. That's one of the big mistakes

1:14:15

of the 80s is the

1:14:17

more money you spend, the better the record will

1:14:19

be. And, you know, Guilty is

1:14:22

charged. I went along with that. And you

1:14:24

just do it because it's fashionable sometimes. But

1:14:26

I'm long out of that fashion now. And

1:14:29

I, it's the song comes first. And

1:14:31

with Between You and Me doing that demo,

1:14:33

the song came first. And

1:14:35

it was just some guys who came in

1:14:37

and played. It was natural. I, you know,

1:14:39

I played a little lead guitar on the

1:14:41

acoustic. There's no electric lead on that song.

1:14:44

And it's the sound of it that Dave

1:14:46

got was absolutely, you know, just perfect. You

1:14:49

just get that magic down again. Whereas other

1:14:51

demos of those days weren't as good as

1:14:53

the rumor, the rumor GP in the rumor

1:14:55

that it just happened to be that song.

1:14:58

And I love it. It's very atmospheric. It's

1:15:00

not about anything in particular. It's just

1:15:02

an atmospheric song, I guess, a lost

1:15:04

love kind of song, which creates the

1:15:06

sphere in the lyrics and the feel

1:15:08

of it. With a slightly different voice

1:15:10

from you, you know, it's a different

1:15:12

vocal timbre, a little lighter, some

1:15:15

weird, you know, all I knew were lights in

1:15:17

the haba. I don't know if you're letting yourself

1:15:19

be more English or if this was some, do

1:15:21

you know who you were channeling as a vocalist

1:15:23

at this early point? Not really. No, I had

1:15:25

no idea. I was still being much more gruff

1:15:27

than I would have liked when I think

1:15:29

back on it. When I do the song now,

1:15:32

it's so tuneful. So a lot. It's so pop,

1:15:34

really. That I was still like

1:15:36

already starting to sing in that intensity

1:15:38

of voice that made me stand out

1:15:40

a little bit in my own little

1:15:43

way. But it is. Yeah, man. It's

1:15:45

a pretty song. I think sort of somebody like

1:15:47

Cliff Richard. I wish he'd heard it and done

1:15:49

it, but he didn't. You

1:15:51

know, I can see it by a pop

1:15:53

singer like that, you know, with who is

1:15:55

much milder and softer than me. The bop

1:15:57

bop that you end with is very much.

1:16:00

in the same style as that, go in

1:16:02

there, go in there, go in there. Even

1:16:04

though this is a much more kind of

1:16:06

cool record in terms of the soul aspect,

1:16:08

it's okay to do that sort of 60s

1:16:10

pop, bop, bop. We're going to have a

1:16:12

three-part harmony, bop, bop. It's not just a

1:16:14

bop, bop. It was

1:16:16

very much my intention of whatever I was

1:16:19

doing there. There was some kind of intent

1:16:21

to go back to the days when the

1:16:23

Beatles wouldn't throw

1:16:25

jams into their record because they didn't

1:16:27

have enough songs. The Stones

1:16:29

didn't. These bands, these pop bands, the small

1:16:32

places, whatever. Every song

1:16:34

mattered with a lot of the prog rock

1:16:36

stuff which had gone stale by now. It

1:16:39

was very much like, oh, we can just

1:16:41

jam five of the tunes because we've only

1:16:43

got four. There was that plodding

1:16:45

stuff that went on a bit after

1:16:47

prog rock had lost its shine and

1:16:49

created ultra-creativity of the earlier bands. I

1:16:51

was trying to bring back pop music

1:16:54

into things. They'd get a bit like,

1:16:56

you know, silly thing, hey, hey. This

1:16:59

is a pop tune as well from Bowing

1:17:01

Wind. It was great discovering in

1:17:03

prepping for this the Middlesex demos, 73 to 75,

1:17:05

to hear what you

1:17:08

were even before this point. I'm

1:17:10

really curious. Are there any surviving recordings

1:17:12

of you playing with the, was it

1:17:14

actually a prog band or was it

1:17:17

a whatever it is you played guitar

1:17:19

with in your file there? I did

1:17:21

a band in Gibraltar after I'd been

1:17:23

in Morocco. I was like 21 or

1:17:25

something by then just getting on buses

1:17:27

and going all over the country, staying

1:17:29

places, you know, hanging with the stoners

1:17:31

and all that, which usually meant old

1:17:33

Moroccan guys in Jalabas in cafes.

1:17:35

And I'd done all that and then you

1:17:37

run out of money and some American cat

1:17:39

said, oh, just go to Gibraltar. You get

1:17:41

a job. So you go across to Gibraltar.

1:17:44

I got a job, insulin on the docks,

1:17:46

unloading food from ships, you know. I'd go

1:17:48

down and there was this bar, a dive.

1:17:50

It was like downstairs. And there

1:17:52

were these long hairs down there and they

1:17:54

were givitarians and they had some instruments set

1:17:56

up and they were playing and doodling around

1:17:58

and I sort of. went in the

1:18:00

next time they were there, I think, with an

1:18:02

acoustic guitar and played them some stuff

1:18:04

and they thought, this is good, you know. We

1:18:07

weren't playing my stuff so much. It was a

1:18:09

very singer-songwriter. We were playing with

1:18:11

Wispo Nash, the song Phoenix. So it

1:18:13

was all around. We played Hey Joe

1:18:15

that you could make last 15, 20

1:18:17

minutes, you see. You're noodling around over

1:18:19

Hey Joe, which is, you know, great

1:18:21

chords. It's not a terrible prog rock

1:18:24

thing. But the bar man in this place,

1:18:26

every day, you'd have to be subjected to

1:18:28

over over there. It's a God

1:18:30

of the year baby. But don't

1:18:32

you know that? No, you awful

1:18:35

thing. Hideous keyboards.

1:18:37

That's what most people are into about then. 71, 72, I guess it

1:18:39

was wrong. Rock

1:18:42

was really coming on and you get really

1:18:44

overwrought tunes like in a God of the

1:18:46

Vida. I'm sure it's good in its own

1:18:48

way. It was just, I heard it one

1:18:50

too many times. I think in that bar

1:18:53

and I introduced the band to playing things

1:18:55

like in the midnight hour. For some reason,

1:18:57

I wanted to do a Wilson Pickett song

1:18:59

with a band that doodled. They never heard

1:19:01

a song with all major chords in. You'd

1:19:03

always have to have a minor root so

1:19:05

you could go dwee, wee, dee, dee, dee,

1:19:07

dee, doo. You could do a lot of

1:19:09

dweeing and doodling. Well, that seems to be

1:19:11

the difference between English prog bands

1:19:14

that were sort of more based

1:19:16

on classical and American prog bands,

1:19:18

which are, you know, like NRBQ

1:19:20

or whatever, that are more eclectic

1:19:22

and like can throw in soul

1:19:24

and blues and funk

1:19:27

and parliament funkadelic is basically a

1:19:30

prog band in some of its iterations. It's

1:19:32

just the fact that you have instrumentalists that

1:19:34

noodle. That's really what it sounds like. Yeah,

1:19:36

they picked it from the times and did,

1:19:38

you know, psychedelic-y type of things. But NRBQ,

1:19:41

for instance, says that there are roots

1:19:43

kind of band that you could form

1:19:45

an Americana band at the same time

1:19:47

as being wildly creative. So

1:19:49

it doesn't sound like ordinary, it

1:19:52

doesn't sound so rooty as a lot

1:19:54

of things because they were so wildly

1:19:56

creative. But you know, you can certainly

1:19:58

say they weren't doing King Crimson.

1:20:01

Fish, a band that can do literally

1:20:03

anything and in fact does these like

1:20:05

Halloween shows where, oh, let's play a

1:20:07

whole band as this other, just the

1:20:09

idea of, we're good enough instrumentalists, we

1:20:11

can literally do anything. Oh

1:20:14

yeah, that's great that they have an audience that accepts

1:20:16

that as well. It takes it in the stride, that's

1:20:18

good, which they apparently do. They're

1:20:20

very popular. All right. Well, we've

1:20:23

gotten off the topic of you. Before we say goodbye, is there a new

1:20:25

album in the works? What's going on right now?

1:20:28

No, I have. If you go to

1:20:30

grahamparker.net and click on the tour page,

1:20:32

you will see a bunch

1:20:34

of solo gigs for the US

1:20:37

of A coming up starting at

1:20:39

Sellersville Theatre in Sellersville, Pennsylvania on

1:20:42

the 5th of April, I

1:20:44

believe. That is the first solo show. And come out

1:20:46

and see me. You never know how long this is

1:20:48

going to last. I keep saying, well, why don't you

1:20:50

play Ian O'Hara? No, I've done it all. I've

1:20:53

been in the trenches. I only want to do

1:20:56

a dozen gigs a year. You know, stop

1:20:58

going on about it. So I've done my bit.

1:21:00

So catch me when you can. And I'm working

1:21:02

on the set now. Always, it's always work

1:21:04

way ahead of time. We're thinking

1:21:06

of songs that I want to do and

1:21:09

throw in this thing and start to

1:21:11

maybe evolve a few jokes. Other

1:21:14

than that, the grahamparker and the

1:21:16

gold tops with the ladybugs, 6-8

1:21:18

tour that we did in England, there are

1:21:20

live tracks that two of them have been

1:21:23

released for streaming with the Sun

1:21:25

Valley from the last chance to learn

1:21:27

the Twisters, the A side as it

1:21:29

were. So that's out there.

1:21:31

And there will be, I think, some more live

1:21:33

tracks from that little tour that we did with

1:21:35

the gold tops, the ladybugs, the whole bit. I

1:21:37

think they will be coming out because usually it's

1:21:40

better to make a record that isn't as good

1:21:42

as this one because then after a month, it

1:21:44

stops and I don't have to do anything. You

1:21:46

know, I made a big mistake there in doing

1:21:48

a record that people seem to like more

1:21:51

and there's quite a lot of special things

1:21:53

they're finding about. So I keep doing

1:21:55

things like this and now I've got to listen to

1:21:57

some live stuff to follow, you know, to keep the

1:21:59

ball rolling. on the new record and it's

1:22:01

tiring man. Can you please stop enjoying this

1:22:03

new record on everybody? Yes, I should say

1:22:05

that in addition to the 25 albums, which

1:22:09

I did listen to, I think all of

1:22:11

them for this, but I did not get through the 15. You

1:22:15

got a lot of live albums or live bootlegs or

1:22:17

whatever that are in the. A

1:22:19

lot. Well,

1:22:21

that just, yes, hopefully people can get out to

1:22:24

see you. I've got your, I'll put your Milwaukee

1:22:26

one on my calendar. Oh,

1:22:28

soloing Milwaukee, the good old shankle. Yeah,

1:22:30

man, and Chicago as well then. Thanks so much

1:22:32

for doing this. It was a pleasure talking to

1:22:34

you and wandering through your catalog. Great,

1:22:36

man. It was a good take on things. You

1:22:39

do good work and you do a lot

1:22:41

of work on it. So that's quite an

1:22:43

unusual thing in some respects. Yeah, good man.

1:22:45

I enjoyed it thoroughly. In case people forgotten,

1:22:47

here we are. Listen to it between

1:22:49

you and me from Howlin' Win 1976. Bye-bye. All

1:23:03

I do is I'm back

1:23:06

to the harbor. All

1:23:11

I know I'll smash in my

1:23:13

head. And

1:23:17

that's all that's left to do with this. Oh,

1:23:21

yeah. Yeah,

1:23:24

that's all that's left to do with

1:23:26

this. I

1:23:35

think I knew I was being carried

1:23:37

out to sea. I

1:23:42

wish for a wonderful

1:23:45

day. And

1:23:48

that's all that's left to do with this. Yeah,

1:23:52

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's

1:23:55

all that's left to do with

1:23:57

this. I'm

1:24:05

not a man, I'm a woman. I'm a

1:24:07

woman. I'm

1:24:12

a woman. I'm

1:24:16

a woman. I'm

1:24:20

a woman. Nothing

1:24:26

more is all a side

1:24:28

evil to serve. And

1:24:33

that's all that's left between you

1:24:35

and me. Yeah, yeah,

1:24:37

yeah, yeah. That's all

1:24:40

that's left between you and me. Uh-huh.

1:24:47

And that's all that's left between

1:24:49

you and me. Yeah,

1:24:51

yeah, yeah. That's all

1:24:54

that's left between you and me.

1:24:56

Yeah, that's all that's left

1:24:58

between you and me. Uh-huh. Yeah.

1:25:10

This is the place. Yeah,

1:25:12

yeah, yeah. Thanks

1:25:18

so much to Graham. This one was a real treat for

1:25:20

me. I'm a longtime fan,

1:25:22

but had completely fallen out of touch with

1:25:24

what he'd been doing for the last

1:25:26

many years. Those last several albums are

1:25:28

so good. I just

1:25:30

think Graham is an endless font of

1:25:33

wonderful songwriting. Really

1:25:35

adds this soul to the singer-songwriter

1:25:37

formula, which I think distinguishes

1:25:39

him from just being a Neo

1:25:42

Bob Dylan. But

1:25:44

of course he has the good lyrics, the thoughtful arrangements.

1:25:47

Just an excellent, excellent artist. Please

1:25:49

see grahamparker.net to learn more. My

1:25:53

next interview is with Paul Chastain, perhaps

1:25:56

best known as Matthew Sweets, bass

1:25:58

player slash harper. harmony singer for

1:26:00

many years, but he led

1:26:03

his own band, primarily in the 90s, of

1:26:05

Velvet Crush, which very

1:26:07

much hits the sweet spot for

1:26:10

me of that neo-70s

1:26:13

power-pop thing. Great

1:26:15

melodies, great vocal harmonies, bombastic

1:26:17

guitars. And I have

1:26:19

just this week recorded my first nakedly

1:26:21

examined music discussion. Now, I

1:26:24

had done these through the Pretty Much

1:26:26

Pop podcast, where I would occasionally get

1:26:28

previous nakedly examined music guests on that

1:26:31

show to come back and discuss issues

1:26:33

in songwriting. But since that

1:26:35

show has gotten new co-hosts moved in

1:26:37

a different direction, and I miss having

1:26:39

these music discussions, I think at

1:26:42

least a few times a year, I will

1:26:44

gather three previous guests

1:26:47

and just have them talk. In

1:26:49

this case, we talked about writing from

1:26:52

the head versus writing from the gut,

1:26:55

something like that is a pretty wide ranging discussion that

1:26:57

featured Roger Joseph Manning Jr., David

1:27:00

Christian from Comic Gain, and

1:27:02

Rachel Taylor Brown. So all

1:27:04

very, very smart people. Stay

1:27:06

tuned to hear those episodes and the

1:27:08

wonderful guests that I have planned. Make

1:27:12

sure you're subscribed directly to the nakedly exam

1:27:14

music feed. Even if you're listening to

1:27:16

this on the partially examined live feed, you'll

1:27:18

get your episodes promptly. Sometimes

1:27:21

I don't even put in the auto insert

1:27:23

ads until it goes into the partially examined

1:27:25

live feed because that's where it gets most

1:27:27

of its downloads. And

1:27:29

of course, if you want a guaranteed ad

1:27:31

free experience, if you're using

1:27:33

Apple podcasts, you can just click the

1:27:35

subscribe button that will collect some of

1:27:37

your money on a monthly basis, or

1:27:40

at patreon.com/nakedly examined music. You

1:27:43

can support me there and you're only

1:27:45

charged there, according to episodes

1:27:47

that I actually released. So if there's a

1:27:49

long delay as there was before this episode,

1:27:52

you pay nothing. So that is where I really

1:27:54

want you all to go and just make a

1:27:57

dollar or you know, more if you can afford

1:27:59

it per episode contribution

1:28:01

that'll really, really motivate me to

1:28:03

want to keep doing the show and

1:28:06

cover my expenses. I know

1:28:08

it seems counterintuitive to pay a podcaster

1:28:10

when you're probably not even paying for

1:28:12

the artists individually that you listen to

1:28:14

now if you're like me and just

1:28:16

listen to everything on Spotify or another

1:28:18

streaming service. So regarding the artists,

1:28:20

I would of course advise you to get out

1:28:23

to the shows that come to your area and

1:28:25

you know whatever once in a while just give

1:28:27

them a tip go on Apple Music or on

1:28:29

their website or bandcamp and just

1:28:32

drop some change for the recent album or

1:28:34

something that you're getting some pleasure out of really

1:28:37

makes a big difference. And

1:28:39

likewise with the podcasts I do

1:28:41

several podcasts. Some of them are

1:28:43

more lucrative than this one. If you

1:28:45

enjoy the show if you listen to it regularly I

1:28:47

encourage you to do not take it for granted. Chuck

1:28:50

in some change. I'm very excited

1:28:52

because I'm going into a studio

1:28:56

with my new right now eight

1:28:58

piece band to record our demo

1:29:00

tomorrow. It's just four songs we're going to record

1:29:03

it all live. Certainly it

1:29:05

should be available for you to hear within

1:29:07

the month. I'm super

1:29:09

excited about this army of a

1:29:12

band that brings together players from

1:29:14

a couple different projects in

1:29:16

the past and some brand new people

1:29:18

to me. We've been working since August getting

1:29:20

this together and judging on

1:29:23

the rehearsal footage I've been capturing on

1:29:25

my phone it is

1:29:27

tight. Thanks so much for listening

1:29:29

for hanging out with me. I hope

1:29:31

you're doing well keeping creative. Keep

1:29:34

on musicin'!