nbc@INF.RL.AC.UK (12/07/89)
Part 3 of the article in International Musician
****************************************************************
Track seven, Between A Man And A Woman, gets a simpler treatment.
"That was, let's get a groove going at the piano, and a pretty
straightforward Fairlight pattern. Then we got the drummer in,
and I thought that maybe it was taking on a slightly Sixties feel
- not that it is. So we got Alan (Murphy, Level 42 guitarist) in
to play guitar - who unfortunately wasn't credited - a printing
error. He played some smashing guitar. Then I wanted to work with
the cellist again, because I think the cello is such a beautiful
instrument. I find it very male and female - not one or the
other. He's actually the only player that I've ever written out
music for. They're lucky if they get chord charts normally.
"We were just playing around with a groove. We actually had a
second verse that was similar to the first, and I thought it was
really boring. I hated it, so it sat around for about six months.
So I took it into a completely different section which worked
much better. Just having that little bit on the front worked much
better. Quite often I have to put things aside and think about
them if they just haven't worked. If you leave a little time,
it's surprising how often you can come back and turn it into
something."
The Write Stuff
Inevitably, some of them are set aside for good.
"On this album I probably wrote more than I have in ages, but
some of them really weren't up to much. They needed so much work
to get them into shape. It's just not worth the effort. And you
tire of it really quickly. You hear it three or four times and
think it's so boring. I think something's got to have a
personality, almost. It doesn't take much. Maybe just a little
bit that you think works, and then you develop the whole thing
from there."
One track that made it for further developing was Never Be Mine.
"I wanted a sort of eastern sounding rhythm. I wrote it first on
the piano, though the words were completely different, except for
the choruses. I did it on the piano to a Fairlight rhythm that
Del programmed - I think that maybe because of the quality of the
sounds, it was harder for Del to come up with the patterns. And I
was more strict - he found it much harder. I think the pattern in
Heads We're Dancing is really good - really unusual, the best he
came up with. But Never Be Mine was kind of tabla based. We got
Eberhard (Weber) over to play bass and he played on the whole
song. When we were trying to piece it together later we kept
saying it just doesn't feel right, so we just took the bass out
and had it in these two sections. You hardly notice it going out
at all. I think the song has a very light feel about it, which
helps the whole imagery. The Uilean pipes have a very light feel,
and the piano is light .. I think it's a nice contrast when the
bass suddenly come in.
"The piano on this is an upright Bernstein that has a really nice
sound - I think it has to do with proportions for us. We did have
a big piano and it's a small room, and it didn't record well. The
small piano sounds much bigger."
How do you decide if a track's going to feature acoustic or
electric piano?
"If I write the song on piano in the studio, chances are that's
how it will be. If I write at home on the electric piano, or the
synth, it's probably going to be a synth track. I was getting
worried at one point that so many of the songs are all based
around the piano. On Hounds of Love I got away from that, and
most of the songs are based around the Fairlight, which gave them
different flavours.
Having used the Bulgarian singers to slot into existing tracks on
the album, with Rocket's Tail she wrote the song specifically for
them.
A Rocket's Tale
"It was a vehicle to get their voices on a track in as dominant a
way as possible. So I put this down with a DX7 choir sound so it
had this kind of vocal feel. Then we got a drummer in and got
this big Rock 'n' Roll thing going. Then I got some friends in to
hear what it would sound like with big block vocals singing
behind my voice, and although they were English people that sing
completely differently, it still gave me a sense of vocal
intensity. So these two friends must have spent all day trying to
sing like Bulgarians. But it was so useful, because there were so
many things I immediately understood we couldn't do, and lots of
things it felt like we could do.
"So we took it to Bulgaria and started working with this
arranger. I told him what I wanted, and he just went off and
said 'what about this?' and they were great. He kept giving me
all these things to choose from, and we worked so well together.
It was so good that we decided to hold the drum kit - it was
originally starting much earlier in the song. Then we let Dave
Gilmour rip on it, so we'd have this really extreme change from
just vocals to this hopefully big Rock 'n' Roll kit, with bass,
and guitar solos."
The last track on the album, though not on the CD and cassette,
is This Woman's Work, which again started life on the piano.
"That was a really easy song to put together; all that was added
to the piano was a bit of Fairlight, a bit of backing vocals, and
a tiny amount of orchestra - about four or five bars. But the
difference it makes is extraordinary.
"That song's really all to do with John Hughes, the American film
director, who'd just made this film called She's Having A Baby.
He wanted a song for this scene in the hospital that's very
powerful where the father is expecting to go in there with her,
and the nurse comes out and says the baby's in a breach position.
He's sitting in the waiting room, thinking about their
relationship, and I think it's at the point where he actually
grows up. He's sitting there and he's not a little boy any more -
he's got this big responsibility. You can see he's sitting there
thinking of all these great times they've had together, and that
possibly she could die with the baby. I wrote the song to the
film - one of the quickest things I've written. The imagery was
so strong. I really enjoyed being asked to do it.
"I think this is the big problem with song-writing - it's this
blank page. You can start anywhere. There's too much to choose
from, and I think technology in studios is doing the same to
people. There's so much to choose from, so much information, that
you're not working within restrictions that actually help you to
form a direction. I'm sure that for me, doing this, it was quick
and easy because the song had to be about that. It couldn't be
about anything else. I think that helps tremendously."
Extra-Ordinary
CD and cassette buyers get one extra track for their money, Walk
Straight Down The Middle.
"That song was definitely the quickest I've ever recorded
anything. We'd given ourselves a specific day to cut it, so I had
to do it fast. The backing track I'd originally recorded ages
ago. At the time I wasn't happy with the lyrics, and I felt the
song needed more developing. When we came back to hear it again,
both Del and myself were really impressed with the sounds and how
together the song sounded; previously we thought it had been
rubbish.
"I wrote the lyrics, recorded the vocals, backing vocals and
synth overdubs in one day, which is totally unheard of for me.
The next day we did some more overdubs, and then mixed. I'm glad
it was tagged on. We made the gap longer, so that you could get a
sense that the album was finished, it sounds okay, but I don't
think it holds the same depths that the other tracks do."
How did it feel without the hours of agonising?
"Terrible. I couldn't cope. I couldn't sit and anguish over my
lyrics. It was very difficult. But I think it's all right, some
nice sounds, nothing special. The whole thing is just an album,
that's what I keep telling myself.
"Just an album."
Tony Horkins
***********************************************************************
There are two additional boxes accompanying the main article: one
on Kate's Place, and one on Kate and the Bulgarians. I will type
these in later.
Be seeing you,
Neil
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neil Calton UUCP: ..!mcvax!ukc!rlinf!nbc
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, NSFNET:
nbc%inf.rl.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX JANET: nbc@uk.ac.rl.inf
England Tel: (0235) 821900 ext 5740