Jim Carroll's songwriting workshop continues
This is a better mix, it's an engineer mix, and I think it's just...
[to Student/Technician - Is it going yet? - No, no, wait a minute. Let me… Shake.. do the lyric, you think?..Okay, I'll do the lyrics]
This is kind of.. This was kind of a fun thing too. We wrote it at the last minute, because he [Ray Manzarek] had the music for… for all of these. I gave him the lyrics first and then he wrote the music (which is unusual for me). This one, we kind of worked at together which I found is much easier when you're working together than three thousand miles apart.
But, how does this start? - oh -
"In France, I've been to France,/ lots of rude people and tongue-tied romance/ I met artificial punks into artificial junk/and a bunch of Anglo Harvard-educated Buddhist monks/ They all shaved their hair/in France, no, I didn't find much there/ Amsterdam, in Amsterdam,/ it could make you believe that The Second Coming's at hand/With those blonde kids smoking hash/And the red-light district trash/Let's go down to the Milky Way/It's surrounded by the bay/The drawbridge down with busted hinges,/get over-the-counter fresh syringes/ Too much sweat, too much blow/Down at the Para-dis-io/That's where Herman and the wild boys go" - And then, there's a little break there where it gets melodic, and then it says, "Except for Van Gogh's chair/and his mad Self-Portrait's stare/No, I didn't find much there, I didn't find much there/ And it's too much foreign food , my sound-man's wearing a dress/Lord, this tour, this whole tour is a mess/ - I've got.. I've got..the something.. I've got the something xenophobic stress/I love writing care of American Express/My dear, please write me care of American Express/and I love writing you care of American Express'".
So, it's got a pretty good swinging sound to it, actually, I think.
So, it's got a pretty good swinging sound to it, actually, I think.
[To Student/technical assistant - Which one's this? - JC plays recording of the Manzarek-Carroll composition, "American Express"]
[Ray Manzarek]
Student: Did you write the tune for that one?
JC: No, actually, I wrote that when I was out there, when we were rehearsing for the demos. Actually, I think those two songs we wrote, you know, within a day, when we had all the other songs ready. Let me see, there's another (one).. Is it tiresome to listen to these?
Student(s): No
JC: I mean it's easier than talking about them, for me, I think.
[To Student/technical assistant - Do you have that tape? Oh good - Student: It's a transfer from.. - JC: Well, fuck that!... do you want a hand?]
This is an interesting lyric. It's kind of ambitious but it doesn't have the band, well, it has a
aLinnDrum and (Ray) Manzarek's playing all the parts on the synthesizers. It's called "Shape Shifter" but I.. It's "Shift to crow hear the carrion cry.." - (You know that movie Wolfen, I liked a lot, where they.. (where) the guy could shape-shift into not just a werewolf, but anything) - "Shift to crow hear the carrior cry/Shift to driftwood smooth and dry/Throw me on the fire/I shift to flame/ I've got ten thousand shapes/I've got shapes that have no name" - Then, let's see. "Shift down to stone/Feel the water's danger" - and then there's a pause there - "I'm so alone/Every change a stranger""I'm a shape shifter from the Lower East Side/Up on the bridge I dance, beneath the water, I slide" (and then it's got this little "beneath the water I sli-ii-de" And then "Shift on.." - I think you can hear the lyrics after that, but you got the gist of it there - shifting to different objects, in various forms…
But, actually, I'd rather play this song "Cops Talk", which is a more minimal song and does have some guitar on it but.. No, I'll play this one, what the hell…
[JC plays a recording of Shape Shifter (at approximately sixty-three minutes in)]
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The thing I noticed about that (I thought about this before ) is that part "I'm part wolf, I'm part dove, I'm the horror, I'm the horror of.. - and then I hold the note - "love" - and I fucked up - like, I did… like, I could do like I did in the other song and get back-up singers to hold it with me, like "paradis-i-o" - But I think it'll be much better like - there I could hear right now the idea of.. you know.. I can extend, like, instead of going "I am the horror of (love), holding that, that's not what I could do. I mean I could say "I-am-the-horror-of... love!", you know, like, just let the pause.. I think could do a lot more, you know. "I am the horror of.." and then let the synthesizer... That's the good thing about working with a keyboard player like..like on the albums I've always worked mainly with guitar music (which I like more in a way, but more…) I mean. you can sing better with a synthesizer or a keyboard because you can, of course just, like, hang your vocals on that steady, you know, like, rise, it's like a control, and so it's easy to stay on key, but I think the phrasing, like, that's an example where the phrasing would be just intuitively better if you, like, paused instead..