THE SONG: This song goes way back... wrote it in 2005... I freshened it up and put strings on it for MURDER YESTERDAY. This song is one that stands out for me amongst my others... it just represents a lot of things for me in terms of how I feel about belief... and even just the vocal and finger-picked guitar style of it. Some of my older songs sound very much of that time for me... but this one doesn't have that quality... not sure why. Maybe because it's simple in a lot of ways, yet for me, complicated in a lot of ways... so it just remains fresh... am I rambling? I'll let the song do the talking, how about that! ha. that's what it's for.
THE RECORDING: Used my U47 on the acoustic guitar and vocals. The strings recording was a blast. The Section Quartet KILLING IT again. They used mutes on the first half of the song... SO eerie. Makes them sound like little monsters or something... makes the strings sound like their underground and speaking in some weird language... hard to describe.... but it was such a great choice by Eric Gorfain (first violin and leader/arranger). I told him to just go for it on this song (and The Hard Way).... I didn't wanna get in the way... so I gave him a blank canvas and he absolutely exceeded my expectations. Thank you Eric.
Most of the sound you hear on these strings (and the others on Murder Yesterday) is coming from my two Nuemann TLM 103's set about 7 feet high up above and 3 feet apart (facing out) in front of the four string players who were in a semi-circle.
I remember calling my new friend Jack Joseph Puig to ask about how he engineers strings... I remember what he said, "It's no big deal... people always freak out about strings... it's just like anything else, put mics up and listen. Use your ears. You have great ears. So just go with your instincts. It'll be great. It's no mystery". That's pretty much it. It was like "oh, yeah, duh! Listen. Their just instruments.". He's quite direct that JJP... yet also... not. ha.
:)A
Original Release Date: September 21, 2010