This song kinda came together in dribs and drabs over a wee period of time. The main chunk of the lyrics were written all at once, in a longer form that I edited down a good time later. But it didn’t really start to come together until I added what became the middle section and the whole idea of what the song was about started to take shape.
Initially I was going for a piano version of a surf-pop kinda song, to counteract the bite in the lyrics, I’m still not sure about what way the arrangement will go: whether to make it poppier and lighter, or to go for a more piano rock sound. I’m still toying with this song in that regards, but I do like playing it solo with just piano.
I’m rather terrible at programming beats, but I just needed something to play off and to start to give myself an idea of how the whole song would sound. So, it’s definitely a demo, and definitely quite rough still, but it’s helped me to see the shape of the song, and what I want to change or alter, and to give me ideas on how I want to flesh out the arrangement more.
When the wonderful Anna Lee was visiting back in May, we re-demo’d some of my songs, including “The Best Of Me”. Since the previous demo, I’d changed what key I was doing this song in, and quite simply, I wanted to just demo that much for now.
I’m happy enough with the piano & vocal combination, and it’s given me the space to listen to it and really hear the other parts that I want on it. As Anna was playing back the demo to me after recording it, I was clearing hearing specific parts in my head that I was humming along. I need to sit down and transcribe the string parts and the like, and see how well I like them when they’re added to the song.
I remember the first time I listened to a Tori Amos album – it changed my idea of what a piano could do. It was Under The Pink, which I listened to all the way through a few times alone in my room. Before listening to Tori, my notions of piano music were limited to classical piano or vamped-chords and simple piano riffs of some of the pop music I knew. I’d finished all the classical piano grades with the RIAM, and was feeling a bit frustrated with the limited scope of the piano material I knew. Hearing Tori by chance on the radio, and checking out the piano books in a shop made me decide to get the albums. – yeah, I honestly looked through the piano books for Under The Pink and Little Earthquakes before ever hearing them.
But the opening notes of Pretty Good Year, the first track on the album, still sticks with me as one of my favourite piano lines, probably because it was the first of her songs I really heard at home, but mostly because it showed me that piano accompaniment can be melodic, fluid, and have a life of its own under the vocal melody line of a song. Every piano part on that album is absolutely gorgeous, musically interesting, and completely makes the songs something else.
When I was doing a few rough takes in my home studio, I knocked out two quick cover versions: the Under The Ivy one I posted about before, and a cover of Tori’s Donut Song from the album “Boys For Pele“. I was mostly messing about with my Roland RD 120, exploring the other instrument sounds on it, and certainly it’s not well recorded, played or sung, but it’s there, so I may as well put it out. I actually used one of the bass instrument voices on the digital piano, and added some of the Rhodes voice from it too, to see how they matched. It was mostly an experiment. I’ve dicked about with the song a small bit too, I’m afraid. But still. Oh, and I think I mentioned that it’s a not-great recording with bad mixing, yeah? I’d fix it up a bit, but at the moment I’m in Dublin, dogsitting. No, really.
It’s not a patch on the original, which you should go and listen to (see the live video below), but it was an interesting experiment for me. It’s actually not one of the Tori songs that I’d usually play at all, but I think I was just in the mood for it that night. There are a few of her songs that I’ve loved and learned over the years, that always pop into sets or sessions every so often, but this is not really one of them. I guess it’s just a good song for a late night, home alone, dark bedroom with a piano.
Nina Simone was studying to be a classical pianist, but got sidetracked by her evening job playing jazz to help support her studies in classical piano at Juilliard School of Music. I can relate, on a much smaller, less talented kinda scale. While studying for a degree in music I became as much interested in jazz and other forms of music, as I was in my primary area of study – classical music, and classical piano more specifically.
I remember spazzing out over her version of Love Me or Leave Me with a fellow piano student, and drawing comparisons with Bach’s Inventions. She was one of the first artists I was introduced to musically, who seemed to cover a lot of the same musical interests as myself.
It was one of my best friends in Secondary school who first introduced me to Nina Simone. We would listen to her albums while getting ready in her room to go out to town or somewhere. I have a strong memory of her dancing around her room to I Put A Spell On You.
Over the years, my love of Nina’s music has grown, and one of her own songs that speaks to me a lot lately is Mississippi Goddam (live!). She was passionate, political, intelligent, and very talented.
“Keep on sayin’ ‘go slow’…
to do things gradually would bring more tragedy.
Why don’t you see it? Why don’t you feel it?
I don’t know, I don’t know.
You don’t have to live next to me, just give me my equality!”
I’ve had the house to myself again today, so after spending a while in town being sociable I came home and spent the evening playing with the cat, cooking dinner, and demoing a song.
This song is one that popped up in the video clips from a gig I did in January, so I’ve been wanting to start recording it in some way. I never really get to hear the songs until I hear a recording of them, as when you’re playing them it’s hard to be an outside listener too.
Regardless, this demo is scrappy: bum notes on the piano; bum notes in the vocals; rough sketch of the middle bit with the layers. Just generally a bit scrappy all round, but it gives a good idea of the whole song.
I’m not 100% sure of about this song yet – it feels too long, and I’m pondering whether I should cut a section, or merge some parts or something. As it stands, the lyrics were mostly written when I lived in the UK in 2005 or so, and the music was written when I was living in Galway a year ago at this stage. It’s a song that has kinda hung around for a while without really becoming anything until it just popped out while I was playing around with a piano idea one day.
Anyways, here’s the demo I put together this evening.
[audio:http://www.misterebby.com/previewtracks/galwayraindemo.mp3] Galway Rain (demo) (right-click and save to download)
