Song For Francie

Featuring my (barely competent) debut on a rented double bass. A pedal steel would have been nice - but...... One of the best songs I've written to date - actually has a proper chorus for once (golly!). Bit of a sonic departure too - trying to roughen/loosen things up a bit. Hope y'all like it.

I can't be arsed to type the lyric out, but will upon request. Usual instrumentation etc - see previous posts passim.

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posted by MajorDundee (9 comments total)

I like the unexpected, somewhat asymmetrical rhyme structure you've employed here.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:59 PM on August 16, 2010

sweet. and the bass is cool too. loving the harmonies.
posted by peterkins at 2:36 AM on August 17, 2010

oh, and you should get yo'self a lap steel. a cheap and cheerful one'll set you pack £90 or so and with judicious use of volume pedal and the right tuning you can make it quite pedal steel like...to someone of your abilities, i'm sure it wouldn't be too hard!
posted by peterkins at 2:47 AM on August 17, 2010

This sounds great. And I'm always a sucker for tremolo guitar. I keep hearing a mandolin in there, though...
posted by uncleozzy at 5:41 AM on August 17, 2010

Thanks very much guys _ appreciate you taking time to give it a listen and comment.

The unexpected, somewhat asymmetrical rhyme structure is basically down to a lot of the lyric just coming out when I was messing around with vocal ideas, and then trying to tidy up/make some kind of sense out of it. So some bits are "written" while others are improvised. So it's a bit.......slapdash.

I think, P, you're being your usual generous self in what you're saying about the bass playing - it's as rough as a badger's arse but the boominess in the mix kind of disguises just how iffy it really is. Hats off to you being able to play one of those fucking monsters - my fingers are still sore three days after recording the bass part. The rented bass is pretty rubbish - I think it's made of old orange boxes, the action is so high I don't know whether to pluck it or shoot arrows with it, the strings could moor a battleship, oh deary deary me..... They're not all like that surely?

And as for mandolin - funnily enough the first pass of the guitar solo I actually played in mandoline style, but dropped it for the tremolo sound which kind of fitted and the solo just came out in one take (always the best way) so I wrapped at that. I don't have a mandolin - so if you wanna bung a bit of something on this, go right ahead ozzy.
posted by MajorDundee at 12:37 PM on August 17, 2010

bot being generous at all, me old mucker. i like the tone of it. and your intonation was fine. though the big violin (as taxi drivers like to refer to it) can be a bastard to play the tone of it can sometimes disguise less than perfect execution. i speak from experience. and no, they're not all like that, though i owned a similar beast at one time. good for building up the muscles though. i bet you could drive a bus under the strings of charles mingus's bass.
posted by peterkins at 4:05 PM on August 17, 2010

The double bass sounds great! The chords and bass together are smooth and pleasing to the ear. Great stuff.
posted by tunewell at 5:38 AM on August 18, 2010

Thanks again folks - particularly pleased that no-one has dissed the bass playing. I'm now thinking about having a go at a really basic R&B kind of thing (I mean old-fashioned late '50's R&B verging into Rock 'n' Roll)) using the bass, slapback echo, twangy guitars and in-yer-face early reflections to attempt that Sun Records or Chess kind of room sound. Drums will - as always - be a problem. I need that kind of skittering, jumping brushes and BIG floppy kick drum sound. Hhhhmmmmm
posted by MajorDundee at 5:53 AM on August 18, 2010

Sure the bass, but this is just a great song and cool recording. Tell us who is Francie?
posted by gallus at 12:35 PM on May 19, 2011