Stealing from yourself ~ Leather

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gecko zzed

gecko zzed

Grumpy Mod
Some months ago Upfiddler issued a challenge, to which I responded with a song called 'somewhere', which was about my first car (a morris minor).

At the time I was writing the lyrics for the challenge, I came up with a line for the first verse, which was: "leather, rubber oil and dust". I noted at the time that I had borrowed that particular idea from a song written some years earlier.

During a computer clean up and back up, I rediscovered that earlier song, which I wrote in 2004. The song is called 'leather', and its chorus was:

"Leather and cashmere, silk and lace
Chambray and gossamer
Leather and cashmere, silk and lace
Jasmine and lavender"

Sometimes it's interesting to look at earlier stuff, and it brought back strong memories of that time.

For the curious, here are the full lyrics of Leather and a link to the MP3 of the track:http://www.box.net/shared/9pixby3pf4
I wrote this song in an interesting way, but I won't say how yet. I'd be interested in your thoughts first. I'll post how I wrote it in a few days time.

Leather (Mike Raine 2004)

Sharp as a knife-edged teardrop falling
Fine as a blade of grass
Clear as the echo's whispered warning
Still as a pond of glass
Dark are the evening's smokey shadows
Stretched on the curving path
Cool is the misty light that's fading
Unveil the needle stars

Leather and cashmere, silk and lace
Chambray and gossamer
Leather and cashmere, silk and lace
Jasmine and lavender

v1
Inside the shade of the umbrella tree
We forsook the laws of gravity
There is a spider crawling on your back
There is a spark of undercover contact
Fingers writhe like restless worms
Closed-eye submersion of intensity
The pleasure is unleashing just like a whip
Surging with electricity

Dark are the evening's smokey shadows
Stretched on the curving path
Cool is the misty light that's fading
Unveil the needle stars

Leather and cashmere, silk and lace
Chambray and gossamer
Leather and cashmere, silk and lace
Jasmine and lavender

v2
Following the velvet lunar dance
Measured out in pulsing veins
Where these liquid moonbeams fell
Gleaming drops of pearly rain
A zephyr's breath against a throat
Immersed within a silver stream
The Cabernet runs down the side of my mouth
You lick away the blood red stain

Sharp as a knife-edged teardrop falling
Fine as a blade of grass
Clear as the echoes' whispered warning
Still as a pond of glass

Leather and cashmere, silk and lace
Chambray and gossamer
Leather and cashmere, silk and lace
Jasmine and lavender
 
gecko zzed said:
For the curious, here are the full lyrics of Leather and a link to the MP3 of the track:http://www.box.net/shared/9pixby3pf4
I wrote this song in an interesting way, but I won't say how yet. I'd be interested in your thoughts first. I'll post how I wrote it in a few days time.
Click to expand...

Mike,

Just a quick note to let you know you're not being ignored. I am super busy right now at work, but I plan to listen to your song and post my comments soon, when I can give it my full attention.

Cheers,
Joseph
 
your best work yet, Mike

Mike, I think this is the best work I've heard from you. The lyrics, music, vocals, and production are all great. I like it so much I listened three times.

The music has a new age/soft rock flavor, mildly reminiscient of Medwyn Goodall, but with a stronger soft rock influence.

I was very impressed by your backing vocalist, too.

During a computer clean up and back up, I rediscovered that earlier song, which I wrote in 2004.
Click to expand...

This makes me wonder what other little gems are hidden in ye olde vault.

Cheers,
Joseph
 
Thanks for your kind comments, Joseph!

I started recording 'seriously' in the mid-nineties, when I got my first 8-in soundcard (eMagic Isis) and Logic, and entered the digital age. (Prior to that I had recorded with reel-to-reel, then four-track cassette . . . but was always struggling against the beast of noise).

Since that time I've recorded a CD worth of material roughly each year. So I have accumulated ten CDs of original material, plus a double-CD compilation of my favourites.

Lately I haven't been able to find the energy or inspiration for new material, except for the occasional HR challenge, but I've done a heap of covers (four CDs) with my musician mates (the Defibrillators).

The back up singer on that track was my daughter-in-law, who has now, unfortunately, moved three states away. She was just terrific at doing harmonies.
 
I don't know what to say - just stunning. I will have that melody stuck in my head today.

Reminiscent of late 70s/early 80s Chris Rea, especially the guitar solo.

I'd love to hear more of the early gecko material, and please do tell us how you wrote this song!
 
this is fucking excellent !

I really enjoyed listening to that.
Well recorded too and that backing vocalist sounded wonderful.

I loved the unconventional timing as well... in a way, it made it really catchy. :O

Cheers
 
That's real kewel! A lot of unique and inventive in it...and hypnotic trance-inducing, like.

Are you using digi-magic stereo enhancements on the vocal? Is it recorded srereo? Or is that what a really good reverb can do? So much wider that center. Everything clear. Nice job. Wish I could do that.

I'm guessing Genesis with P. Gabriel might be one of your early inspirations?
 
I really like the melody and your performance is amongst the best I have heard from you.

The lyrics are very evocative and I love the way the snatches observations accumulate to create a much larger cohesive image - very 'accumulative montage'. I am intrigued to know how you approached it?

I am sorry though I just can't get past the instrumentation. I'd love to hear with just piano, ac g, bass - light back ground synths to fatten it out, but the old midiness really detracts for me. I think this would be superb with a much more natural arrangement.

Still it sound pretty good now and I suppose if your daughter-in-law is in Qld (3 states away?) it might be hard to get her to rerecord?

I say more Retro-Gecko

Burt
 
the story of leather

Whatmysay said:
Iobservations accumulate to create a much larger cohesive image - very 'accumulative montage'.
Click to expand...

Burt's observations are higly perceptive.

When I started this song back in 2004, I had the melody line floating in my head, and I ended up with three distinct threads I wanted to try and drag together somehow. The first was a sense of loss and frustration . . . a jagged ache of yearning "Sharp as a knife edge" etc.). The second was the focus of this loss; a sense of warmth and comfort (leather and cashmere etc.). The third was the story that linked these two bits.

Words for the first two threads emerged readily enough, and in the early development of the tune I hadn't quite sorted out what I wanted to do with the song. So I initially was wondering which way to go, loss or comfort, thinking that song would be about one or the other. Eventually I thought I could use both, but then I would need to connect them somehow.

This connection proved to be a sticking point for a long time. The inspiration well was empty. I kept getting a word or two, but nothing that I could pin down. In another round of cleaning up at the time (there is a lot of circularity happening here), I discovered a stash of poems that I had written over the years. Browsing through them I saw some of those words in various contexts, and I thought I could draw something from one of the poems. But none quite worked.

But I did like scattered phrases throughout the collection. So I pinched a couplet here, a line there, and a phrase from somewhere else to make up the content of the two verses. So the first verse is made up from stuff taken from seven poems, the second from a different seven. There was no overt attempt to create a story, but just the idea to suggest (I hoped), heady sensualness of a fiery relationship, in the same way that you would remember snippets of dreams, not recalling the exact details, but remembering the feeling. The choice of words was based on what I considered their strength as image carriers, and how well they fitted together rhythmically. A contextual relationship was not part of the thinking.

So Burt's observations about a collage are acutely on the mark, because the verses are in fact collages, snippets of lines stuck together to make a (for me) pleasing entity.

But the interesting thing is that I robbed previous material to create 'Leather', then I robbed Leather five years later to create 'Somewhere'.

There's nothing like autoplagiarism.
 
jeffmaher said:
That's real kewel! A lot of unique and inventive in it...and hypnotic trance-inducing, like.

Are you using digi-magic stereo enhancements on the vocal? Is it recorded srereo? Or is that what a really good reverb can do? So much wider that center. Everything clear. Nice job. Wish I could do that.

I'm guessing Genesis with P. Gabriel might be one of your early inspirations?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments. You will find, if you hang around here, that I have a strong preference for simplicity. If something sounds complex, it's usually because it is the cumulative effect of a number of simple things. This simplicity extends to recording techniques as much as it does to musical arrangements.

The vocal has no particular magic. I recorded it using a Rode NT1a. No fancy preamp, no EQ. The vocal is quite dry, but also quite forward in the mix. There could be a bit of compression on it, but I tend not to use much of it. I have a preference for using a very big room reverb, but very sparingly, and that seems to generate space in the mix. So, no . . . no 'digi-magic stereo enhancements.

I am a fan of Peter Gabriel (and also Chris Rea).
 
Gecko your just one big fractal, an amazing algorithm plummeting through time and space generating originality through your own feedback loop.
 
GZ,
This is prog rock writ large. I could imagine Yes doing this - or at least some one with a high voice.
The midi bass & where ever the snare was generated are the only things that has aged really.
At 1st I thought the chorus was your voice vocoded but it has more texture than that'd allow.
Nicely prog.
Was your reading of "A zephyr's breath against a throat" an error or intentional?
I think you ought to do a little work on this: there are a couple of phrases that sound like you were rushed and the backing would be enlivened by a ricky style bass and a few drum fills. The texture at present would be very PG era Genesis with some darker reverb and some 'tron in the back way, way back.
I concur - more from under the throne of our lizard king!
 
on, two,THREE,four

Hey geck.
I have been busy as stated in my only other post in the last week. I am now getting to some of the things I enjoy....like listening to great music. This qualifies in a big way. I especially like your emphasis on the third beats. It sets the song apart in a good way. I am not fond of the extra long instrumental intro.... but folks here know me well enough that long intros of any kind are a pet peeve of mine. I like songs that start Johnny on the spot and keep going. If you want to throw a couple of inst. leads in there that's fine but give the the story right away. The production on this one is very well done and I agree with others that this is some of your more interesting work. They have compared this piece to the works of many of the big dogs in the industry and you should take those as a compliments of the highest order. I agree wholeheartedly. Nice job.
 
This is a great piece GZ! :cool: The odd timing on the chorus is very cool. Harmonies are well thought out and the performance is great. A gem !
 
up-fiddler said:
I am not fond of the extra long instrumental intro.... but folks here know me well enough that long intros of any kind are a pet peeve of mine. I like songs that start Johnny on the spot and keep going.
Click to expand...


Interestingly, I also dislike long intros . . . on anyone else's material. And if you are interested in marketing your material, it is best to get to the heart of the song quickly, before whoever is listening to it gets bored and goes 'next!'.

But for my own material, I don't care. Some songs start quickly, a lot have a long intro . . . because that's what the song told me to do. I'm not really pursuing commercial success (or even necessarily artistic success) . . . I create songs the way that others keep a diary or photo album.
 
gecko zzed said:
. . . I create songs the way that others keep a diary or photo album.
Click to expand...
Understood completely. I, for one, have plenty of songs with "bad hair days" for photos. Oddly enough, it's some of those tunes which I like best in the long run. None of them have long intros though.....:o
 
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