I was quite pleased with the fact that the Wolf album had little in the way of conventional 'you and I' songs, but realised I had a lot of those in my 'unrecorded' collection. I decided to put them out in small collections (the idea was to do them quickly but that never works with me!) with the title Romantic Fiction to dissuade anyone from looking for autobiography in them.
- I.O.U.
- An old song, dating back to the days of the Hungry Ghosts band. 'Oh', said Lynsey when I played it to the band 'You've written a happy song!' I'd always liked the idea of two simultaneous melodies over the one chord sequence, but found that when I tried to record it it was a bit ploddy. The key came when I realised that that a repeating root-4-5 sequence is typical of much African pop and instead of strumming the chords, picked them with a high capo and a chorus effect. This immediately sounded like Graceland but gave the song the life and energy it needed. It took a lot of mixing and editing, in fact most of the recording effort for this CD went into mixing this song. The rhythm track was done in FL Studio and the rest in Cubase.
- Leaving
- One of the 'relationship' songs I'd earmarked for this CD from the start. I recorded it pretty much in one evening, but with a different bass and a MIDI oboe. The real oboe sounds so much better and Lynsey, stuck at my place after a martial arts class was cancelled, tried a bass part which I thought lifted it nicely. The rhythm track was done in FL Studio and the rest in Cubase. The guitar sound is deliberately chosen to give a little consistency with the previous song. The guy in the song tries to be philosophical, quoting Blake:
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He who binds himself to a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise - By the end of the song, he's more honest about his situation, begging the lover to come back. That's more like it!
- At the Harbour
- A completely straightforward account of a dream a few years ago featuring Madame. I added the lyrics to an arrangement I'd been playing with after listening to John Cale's Hobo Sapiens album.
- This was all done in Cubase using drum loops from Computer Music magazine disks.
- If You Had Said
- Described by an Out of the Bedroom review as 'like playing McCartney's Blackbird in a minor key when you've just been dumped'. I did two arrangements, this one featuring two quiet guitar drone loops and one featuring a simulated mournful brass band. I decided the latter was too sentimental, but kept one idea for the little solo in the middle.
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