Notes on Your Photograph, Track 3 from the CD because there's nothing outside, companion piece to the book God in Chains.

Notes on Your Photograph, Track 3 from the CD because there's nothing outside, companion piece to the book God in Chains. 

This melody and lyric came to me very quickly, again with no clear idea of what I was writing.  I do remember having the idea to start the melody/lyric on the second chord rather than the first- that is, once the singing starts we have switched the order of the chords.

With the lyrics: sometimes there’s simply an interior, intuitional logic that is at work- when a line like “Something your photograph doesn’t see” shows up, there’s a million possible meanings, yet also something that the line encompasses, some way that it drives what other lyrics will come along- I don’t know how else to explain it!  Clearly, I had spiritual things on my mind...

This recording was fun to cobble together.  Besides the basic rhythm guitar and vocal, much of it was accidental and experimental, one of my favorite ways to work. For instance, I had my friend, Simon Lynge (from Greenland), play guitar on this track with very little instruction. He did several passes. On a couple of them, he spontaneously broke into playing “drums” vocally- completely on his own volition. I ended up taking a couple measures of this and looping it, coming in on the second verse.  I also cut and pasted the guitar parts Simon played, moving them around to my fancy, sometimes repeating parts, sometimes using several parts at one time.  This is a sort of studio “sound painting” process that I enjoy very much.

This is the first track on the album to feature Al Wolovitch on bass guitar (I played the bass on the prior two).

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WacgKn_4Y_U

your photograph

because everything is moving/i know nothing is worth proving/is god love is god a monster?/sometimes love feels like a monster/not for you it must be/something your photograph doesn’t see/no one can make you make you believe/something your photograph doesn’t see/because i don’t trust the surface/these two eyes just make me nervous/is she real is she a vision?/‘cause right now she is my religion/not for you she must be/something your photograph doesn’t see/i’ll never make you make you believe/something your photograph doesn’t see/because everything is shifting/i know i can’t keep this with me/all that’s mine is only borrowed/gone today back tomorrow/not for you it must be/something your photograph doesn’t see/i’ll never get through it’s plain to me/something your photograph doesn’t see/something your photograph doesn’t see/something your photograph doesn’t see/it’s something, your photograph

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