Total time (64.05)
The first 100 orders come with a free DVD of the first
ever Haze show to be filmed at Stocksbridge Victory Club in 1983, videoed by
Keith Bradley & digitally enhanced by Jon Dunnington.
The album is also available as a
digital download/streaming from Bandcamp,
as well as all the usual places (itunes, spotify, etc, etc)
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Flight Behaviour
(words & music P McMahon & C Ashton)
Paul McMahon (lead vocals, guitars) Chris McMahon (bass,
keyboards & vocals) Danny McMahon (drums) Catrin Ashton (flute & vocals)
with Charlie Bramald (vocals) & Jessie McMahon (vocals)
{Chris} This was a song that Cat had back when Chis was in the band, but we
never quite managed to make it work. Once Back to the Bones was release,
we started work on it again, adding the pulsing keyboard sound & Jethro
Tull-esq instrumental
{Paul} Cat started work on this on
piano sometime around 2013 (with baby Hazel on her knee). Influenced by
a song by Swedish electronic band, The Knife and lyrically based on
Flight Behaviour the Barbara Kingsolver book. Musically, all of the
vocal parts of the songs were by Cat, with some consultations over what
time signature the chorus should be in - we settled on 5/4 and why not?
After the middle 8, Cat wanted an instrumental section, and I remembered
a really old tune I wrote in the early 2000s which never fitted anywhere
- it was rhythmically similar to America from West Side Story and just
never made sense in a Haze song. We tried it out, with the flute taking
the lead tune, and it immediately came to life, with hints of Jethro
Tull mixed with Latin American. Yes, we know they don’t go together!
Chris thought it should be in 5/8 rather than 6/8, possibly he was
thinking of the Tull song “Living in the Past”? So we
compromised/complicated it by putting it into 11/8, and came up with a
little question and answer section in 6/8. The rhythmic change going
into and out of the instrumental section was a little tricky, keeping
the tempo constant while switching from 4/4 to 11/8, but if, instead of
trying to count, you just say “one thousand, two thousand, what the f*ck
we gonna do thousand” it all works fine. Usually. The final ingredient
was the intro/outro tune on the Variax sitar sound, with Danny adding a
Kalimba (thumb piano) counter melody. That made no sense either, but
there’s a bit of a theme appearing here isn’t there? When recording, we
used five voices in total, with me doing the first verse, Chris the
answering verse, Cat joining in on the “We will Come for you” line, then
Charlie joining Chris on the answering phrases, and Jess and Charlie on
the next “We will Call for you”. On the middle 8 (“You see in us what we
are looking for” bit), Cat usually does a high harmony, but since we had
Charlie there, and I know he can get up to a high B easily, we asked him
to have a go. He did it, we used it, it sounds brilliant!
I am wing on burning
wing, a song you fear to sing,a scattering of sky,a deathly lullaby.
I am fatalistic fire,the ember of desire,a
forest floor alight,out of sight.
We will come for you.
I am symmetry in flight,a whisper in the
night, a soft celestial sigh, the monarch of the sky.
I could not hear nature’s call, descending
with the Fall,a field behind a farm,a drop of calm
We will call for you.
When you hear the sirens sing,
You don’t hear the sirens ring,
You don’t see the snow in spring.
The monarch’s on the wing.
I climbed the
monarch’s wing, as king descends from king, all condembed to die, by one
convenient lie.
I clung to those below, a furnace under snow, slipping from the tree, in
agony.
We will
fall for you.
You see in us what we are looking for;
You want for nothing, and yet you still want
more.
You fear
death, never thinking you might die.
You walk the earth, but still you long to fly.
I am lying on the
ground, a fragment to be found, to find the reason why, one more dead
butterfly.
I am
lying on the ground, but the poet has me found, found the reason why I
still might fly.
We will comfort you.
When you hear the sirens sing etc. |
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Not Alone (P McMahon)
Paul McMahon (lead vocals, 6 & 12 string guitars) Chris McMahon (8
string bass, vocals) Danny
McMahon (drums, vocals) with Jessie McMahon (vocals)
{Chris} Paul was trying to write something simple in the style of the
songs I'd been writing for Treebeard, but being Haze, it ended up with
all these complicated Rush bits in it!
{Paul} Very rarely, I wake up with a song in
my head. The verse and chorus of this song appeared one morning, all I
had to do was grab a guitar and work out what key to do it in. The rest
of the band were suitably outraged by such a simple song, and insisted
that we must at least make the arrangement complicated, so we played
around with different length choruses, different chords behind the later
choruses, and a couple of tunes thrown in at random. One of the tunes
was a little thing I had recorded on my smart phone - only it was
originally a nice little waltz! It went into 4/4 easily enough. The
middle section (Don’t get me started etc.) was worked out while I was on
a long walk to the shops, trying to work out in my head what the chords
would be. The song is played on a distorted 12 string, with the bass
part on an 8 string bass, the intention being to create an aggressive
snarling sound along the lines of The Who or The Jam. 12 string guitars
are notoriously hard to keep in tune, but we wanted it to sound raw, and
didn’t fuss too much if the tuning was imperfect! Lyrically, it’s the
angriest song we’ve ever done, but as the saying goes - if you’re not
angry, you haven’t been paying attention! Listen out for Danny’s famous
“goat scream” behind the line “the mess they got us in”. It’s fabulous.
Do you wake up in the morning, when the sunshine hits
your eyes?
Do you shake your head, get out of bed and put on your disguise?
Do you ever think that you've forgotten how to feel?
That you're going
through the motions like a hamster in a wheel?
You're not alone, you're not
alone.
Do you wish the world was kinder? Do you wish the world was fair?
Do you fear the news and hide your views and wallow in despair?
Do you think
we're led by donkeys? Do you think we're fed on lies?
Do you think the
howling mob drowns out the voices of the wise?
You're not alone, you're not
alone.
You're not alone.
Do you think that our democracy’s descended into farce?
Do
you wish our politicians knew their elbow from their arse?
Do you hope for
peace across the world? Do you fear that we're to blame?
For all the bombs
and bullets that are flying in our name?
You're not alone, you're not alone.
You're not alone.
Don't get me started I don't want to know.
I never thought
that we could sink so low.
The quick & the dead; the blue & the red;
Don't
they ever wonder why the
voices in their head are all
laughing at them?
Will they build themselves an empire based on prejudice &
hate?
Because they think it's greed and ignorance that make a nation great.
Will they build themselves a castle rooted deep in English soil?
And then
pull up the drawbridge and prepare the boiling oil?
While the moat fills up
with sewage and the flag is drenched in blood,
As they drag the reputation of
the nation through the mud.
If kindness is a weakness and intelligence a sin,
Do you think they're never gonna fix the mess they got us in?
You're not
alone, you're not alone.
You're not alone.
|
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Waters Rising (P McMahon)
Paul McMahon (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars) Chris McMahon (keyboards,
bass pedals, vocals)
Danny McMahon (drums, percussion, vocals) Catrin Ashton (flute, vocals)
{Chris} We first jammed on the chord sequence for this song in one of
our lockdown sessions on Sunday 28th March 2021, have a listen
here. It's probably the simplest Haze song, and is
proving to be one of the most popular (is there a lesson here?), so was
an obvious choice for the
2weeks 2 make it video competition. We've
recorded an alternative version, produced by Danny McMahon & featuring
Lee O'Donnell on bass and Derek Nash on saxophone, which will be available as
a bonus track on bandcamp
{Paul} It must be 5 years since we
started writing this. We had a simple but effective chord sequence, a
melody which was very reminiscent of the sixties - kind of a Roy Orbison
feel? The problem from a songwriting point of view is that a strong
melody needs lyrics which fit the melody perfectly, there’s no room to
mess about with the rhythm of the words, they have to fit the tune. It’s
even more difficult if you want the lyrics to have some depth and
meaning rather than writing any old drivel that fits! Originally, we had
4 verses, but it was too long for it’s own good, so we amalgamated
verses 1 and 3, and cut one of the final choruses. Over the last chorus,
Chris sings one of the lines cut from verse 1 (on the single version,
Dan sings the other cut line!). Far and away the simplest song we have
ever done, we think it really works because of the strength of the
melody & lyrics. Multiple harmonies from all of the band, Jess, Hazel &
Lily and of course Charlie! |
Today, I climbed the hills above the bay,I
looked out on the horizon,eyes on the sea.
I looked down, and where
there used to be a town, there was nothing but the ocean, nothing to
see.
You can’t stop the waters rising. All round the world they’re
rising.
Fools and deniers, leaders and liars, Can’t stop the waters
rising.
I can feel, the pain of wounds that will not
heal, I can feel the spirit leaving, grieving for me.
Because you
see, we fracked the land and fouled the sea. We made a wasteland out of
Eden, eventually.
You can’t stop the waters rising etc.
Now you lie, look my children in the eye, and
tell them that you could do nothing; you didn’t know.
They were sold,
their future traded in for gold. Now count your profit while the earth
dies; the blame lies with you.
You can’t stop the waters
rising. (Speak for those who have no voice)
All round the world
they’re rising. (Choose for those who have no choice)
Fools and
deniers, leaders and liars, (Fight for those with no defence)
Can’t
stop the waters rising. (Feel for those who have no sense)
You can’t
stop the people rising . All round the world they’re rising.
Leaders
and liars, can’t stop the fires, Can’t stop the people rising.
|
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The Outlandish Knight (C McMahon & P McMahon)
Paul McMahon (vocals, 12 string acousitc, electric &
baritone guitars, guitar synth) Chris McMahon
(lead vocals, 12 string acoustic guitar, bass, keyboards - including Mini Moog!) Danny McMahon (drums)
Catrin Ashton (flute, vocals
{Chris} I first conceived the idea of this track back in about 2007, but
didn't think anyone would be daft enough to play it with me! The lyrics
are traditional & there are many folk versions of the song out there,
but I felt that the music needed to reflect the development of the
narative, hence it goes from folk to metal to prog, back to metal, to
ambient, back to prog, then folk & finally metal to wrap it all up. Many
versions of the song have a daft last verse about a parrot (probably
added to the traditional lyrics in Victorian times), but instead we've
added an instrumental ending that is supposed to evoke the ending of
'Alien' - she's just got home, thinks she's safe in bed & suddenly the
Alien/Knight pops out of the closed & goes 'surprise!' Well that's what
happens in my head anyway!
{Paul} The lyrics for this song - a
classic tale of a male villain being outwitted by a quick thinking
female - are several hundred years old, and the song has been done by
many folk artists over the years, each with their own tune and
arrangement. Sometime around 2008, Chris wanted us to do a version he
had come up with mixing folk, detuned metal and rock. It was basically
completely crazy, and we thought there was no way anyone would want to
hear it, so we didn’t try to get it on Back to the Bones. When we
started planning the current album, we dug it out again, and started
practicing it and revising it, section by section. I was in the middle
of writing Redemption, and was looking for a new mid section tune,
coming up with a slightly odd chord sequence (Am/D/F#m/C/G/Bb/F/E) with
a tune which makes sense of these disparate chords. I decided it didn’t
fit Redemption, but would go fine in The Outlandish Knight, first as a
flute tune between the folky verses in 6/8, then later as a prog out in
the ⅞ mid section. That led on to another major key tune in the ⅞
section, which is played on flute, guitar and keyboard in turn, before
returning to Chris’s original ending for the ⅞ bit where the keys,
guitar and flute follow each other then join in harmony. After more
detuned metal, at the point where the knight is left to drown, Chris
revived a bit of ambient floaty (!) music from his Von Daniken days,
replete with looped guitars, drifting keyboards and little wriggly
guitar synth noises. To represent the death of the knight, we added a
classical sounding flute tune backed with piano and nylon strung
classical guitar, which is then repeated on heavy guitar with full
mellotron, strings and bass pedals. Perhaps he drowned in the Firth of
Fifth? We then steered gently back into folk, before closing the song
with more baritone guitar metal and the inevitable gong! |
|
An outlandish knight from the north lands came, And he’s courted a lady
fair.
He promised he’d take her unto the north lands, And swore he
would marry her there.
Go fetch me some of your father’s gold, And some
of your mother’s fee,
And the two finest horses you have stabled here,
Where there stands thirty and three.
So he’s mounted on the milk-white
steed, And she on the dappled grey,
And they rode til they came to the
saltwaterside, Three hours before it was day.
“Light off, light off your
steed,” he said, “and deliver unto me.
For six fair maids I have
drowned here, and you the seventh shall be.”
“Take off, take off your silken
clothes. Deliver them to me.
For I do fear they are too fine to rot
with you all in the sea.”
“If I must take off my silken clothes, then turn
your back on me.
For it is not right that such a rogue a naked maid should
see.”
“And cut away those brambles so sharp, Those brambles from off of
the rim.
For I do fear they may tangle my hair, And scratch my tender
skin.”
So he’s turned his face all away from the maid, And he’s bent
low on the cliff-side.
And she’s caught him all around the waist, And
tumbled him into the salt tide.
'He's swum high & he's swum low, until he reached the side,
take my hand you pretty fair maid and I will make you my bride.
Lie there lie there you false hearted man, lie there instead of me.
for if six
fair maids you have drownded here, the seventh has drownded thee
So she’s mounted on the milk-white steed,
And she’s led the dappled grey.
And she rode til she’s come to her own
father’s hall, An hour before it was day.
|
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Belong (P McMahon)
Paul McMahon (vocals, acoustic guitar) Chris McMahon
(fretless bass, keyboards) Danny McMahon (drums, pedal organ) Catrin Ashton (flute)
with Jessie McMahon (vocals)
{Chris} Here's the first recording of
(and possibly first time I heard) Belong at our
6th June 2021 livestream
{Paul} This began as a quiet
acoustic ballad, first written many years ago - I nearly performed a
version at my wedding to Catrin in 2011 - I liked the chorus and the
tune, but was never quite happy with the lyrics. We did an updated
version at one of the outdoor acoustic live streams in 2021, and sure
enough, not one person pressed the like button! Disheartened? Not us, we
decided to record it anyway. When we started playing through the songs
for the album, we decided it might be a nice change to do something
quieter, so we tried putting a swing/shuffle into the rhythm, played on
a full drum kit, which seemed to work well. In the studio, Dan also
added a pedal organ playing bass notes under the fiddle tune and Jess
added backing vocals, which really blended well with the lead vocal.
After the brutal insanity of the Outlandish Knight, this was the perfect
place for the song. It truly Belongs!
I never believed that life was a game It seems that the ending is
always the same
If you can't win, what are you competing for?
Why would you fight when there isn't a war?
I need a place in
this world I belong that doesn't feel ugly and twisted and wrong
With
no compromise and no pointless disguise and so this is my promise
to you
To be faithful and honest and true
I can't deny there's
a darkness in me I buried it deep so that no-one will see
I feel it
growing inside of me day by day draining the sand of my lifetime away
So many roads that will lead you from home And there are some you
must travel alone
But when you go, you take the bright colours too
Leaving me grey and the darkest of blue
I've found a place in
this world I belong I realise it was here all along
I opened my eyes
and took off my disguise and so this is my promise to you
To be
faithful and honest and true. |
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Drinking with the Devil (P McMahon)
Paul McMahon (vocals, guitars) Chris McMahon
(bass, keyboards) Danny McMahon (drums) with Jessie McMahon (vocals) & Derek
Nash (sax)
{Chris} Musically a bit of a departure for us, we're definitely
channeling some mk#3 Deep Purple & more than a little ZZ Top here, it'd
be a simple bluesy song if it didn't keep changing key every 8 bars! It
evenually settles down to a shuffle time jam with slide guitar, sax &
hammond organ. Lyrically it's one of Paul's 'Sympathy for the Devil'
songs (see also The Barrister & the Bargast)
{Paul}
Unusually, this began with the words. The line which came into my head
was “I was drinking with the Devil in a downtown bar, and his horny
little head was in his hands”. Cat told me it sounded too rude, so I
changed it a little, but then I had the problem of working out how to
finish the song and find some music to fit. I postulated a ludicrous
tale of Satan being made redundant as the worst of humanity had wilfully
parted with their souls, leaving nothing for him to collect! Sleazy,
jazzy, funky blues seemed to fit the bill, with restless, unrelated key
changes and slight style variations in each key. Our love of classic
Deep Purple shows through, with a riff reminiscent of the Stormbringer
era between the verses, embellished on the recording by Derek Nash’s
saxophone. There is a weird 12 note triplet guitar lick which occurs
twice, the first time dropping down into the “Nothing to damn” section,
which leads to the superb sassy “Colour & Shape” backing vocals from
Jess, the second time pulling the whole song from 4/4 into a triplet
shuffle with slide guitar, sax and steaming Jon Lordesque organ solo
from Chris. Why do I sing “Now dig this!” on the intro? It’s an homage
to the great Tony Ashton of Paice Ashton Lord from the song Silas &
Jerome. After Bernie Marsden passed away, we started watching the live
videos of the band and remembering just how extraordinary Tony Ashton
was as a frontman, and how great Jon Lord was. Bernie was pretty
fantastic as well! |
I was drinking with the Devil in a downtown bar,
and his horny head was hidden in his hands.
He said, “I'm good at my
job, I like what I do but I think my time is coming to an end.”
I
said, “Satan, Satan, how can that be? From where I stand you're doing
very well.
With the state of the world, they'll be bumper to bumper,
all along that highway to Hell.”
The Devil smiled, looked me in the
eye, and said, “It really doesn't work the way you think.
I can tell
you what went wrong, God knows it won’t take long, but first I'm gonna
need another drink.”
I said, “What will it be? A shot of Tequila?” He
said, “Go ahead and make it a double.”
So I filled the Devil's cup,
filled it up to the brim, I said, “Go ahead and tell me your troubles.”
He said, “It's all about soul, my only goal is to whisper sweet
temptation to mankind.
And if they heed what I say, when the reaper
comes their way, Their soul will come below and they're mine.
But
today, far away, in a land to the East, I went to claim a soul that I'd
earned.
A leader in his land, a cruel vicious man, who had killed and
maimed and tortured and burned.
He had run out of friends, his time
was at an end, and a righteous mob was beating down the door.
They
hanged him high, watched until he died. I was there to claim his soul
for evermore.
So I waited and I waited and what did I find? Mankind's
latest greatest mutation.
This man had no soul; no fear of salvation;
no hope of damnation; an abomination!
Nothing to damn; nothing to
save; nothing comes from nothing, from the cradle to the grave.
No
fallen angel; no heaven bound ape; nothing but a void devoid of colour
and shape.
The Devil drained his glass, put his head back in his
hands.
He said, “I'm done with you, and I will never understand.
In Heaven and Hell we know what a soul is worth,
but it seems that
they mean nothing to their owners on Earth. |
**********************************************************************************/p>
Who Goes There? (C Ashton, C &
P McMahon)
Paul McMahon (vocals, guitar, guitar synth) Chris McMahon
(keyboards, bass pedals, lead guitar) Danny McMahon (drums, lead guitar) Catrin
Ashton (vocals) with Charlie Bramald & Jessie McMahon (vocals)
|
{Chris} A simple Cat song, she didn't have high expectations of
it, until we grabbed it & gave it the Haze treatment. We reuse one of my old Von
Daniken synth tunes in the middle & Dan suggested that we all play guitar on it!
{Paul} Sometimes a good way to get started
with a song is to base the lyrics on a book. We have done this in the
past with See Her Face, The Awakeners and Flight Behaviour. Cat read The
Woman in Black novel, thought it was a horrible story, and she was never
going to write a song based on that - but if she did, it would go
like…….. You can guess the rest! We recorded a very rough demo around
the dining table, making up bits as we went along, with Lily (aged about
5!) singing along. Cat never believed that we could make a Haze song of
it, but we played it at one of the Halloween livestreams and both me and
Chris thought it had potential. When planning the album, we talked about
including some of Chris’s Von Daniken instrumental/electronic music, and
this song really came alive when we tried a tune from his Electric Fish
suite. Because we had never played the song live, we felt free to
experiment with instruments and voices in the studio, and we had four
separate vocal parts written, and we found that Cat & Charlie’s voices
blended very well, as did Jess’s and mine. Dan also suggested that he
and Chris should play some lead guitar parts, so we took turns at
soloing, and played some triple lead guitar harmonies. One better than
Thin Lizzy! (Slightly Overweight Lizzy? Obese Lizzy?) One of the studio
days was a Saturday, and as we had no available babysitters, Hazel &
Lily were in the studio with us and they wanted to sing backing on The
Waters Rising. At the end of this song, we were going to use my voice
singing falsetto, but we got Lily to try it, and it worked really well,
classic horror story music, with a child’s voice singing in the
distance, swathed in reverb. Chilling!
|
Who goes there? Who goes there?
Who goes there? Who goes there?
Are you a man or a beast? A prodigal son?
A prophet or priest or a
man on the run?
I hear steps in the dark, deadened by night,
A dog
with no bark, or a woman in white.
Who goes there? The light is
fading fast.
Who goes there? The tide is rising.
Who goes there?
Shadows cross the path.
Who goes there? The moon is hiding.
Are
you out on your own, trapped by the tide?
Lost and alone, a lover who
lied?
Are you a friend or a fool, a thief in the night?
A ghost or
a ghoul, or a woman in white?
Who goes there? I have been waiting
here.
Who goes there? Beside the water.
Who goes there? I need to
take from you.
Who goes there? A son or daughter.
Are you a
will-o-the-wisp, a soul without form?
A shape in the mist, in the eye
of the storm?
Is it wheels on the road, feet on the track?
The
call of a crow, or the woman in black? |
**********************************************************************************
Parasite (P McMahon & C Ashton)
Paul McMahon (vocals, guitars) Chris McMahon (keyboards,
bass) Danny McMahon (drums) Catrin Ashton (flute)
|
{Chris} A Cat song about the joys of motherhood, given the
prog treatmet! It's not enough to get a writing credit, but I like to think it
was my idea to go to the big prog chords for the final section!
{Paul} Another song from Catrin, starting
with the lyrics this time. We collaborated a bit over the music, I was
told that the verse vocals should be a whining descending noise, and the
big final section should be like the chorus of Comfortably Numb!
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t make much progress, but one morning I was
noodling around on an old classical guitar and came up with a 13/8
arpeggio on a really weird chord change, which Cat said sounded right
for Parasite. It was a start! I’m not a big fan of smart phones, but
there is something to be said for the voice recording feature. Since
2019, I have been recording riffs, tunes and chord sequences in case
they come in useful, and it really helped with Parasite. I had already
recorded a heavy riff with a Steve Hillage twist and a guitar tune with
majestic but odd chords behind, with no thought of them ever fitting
together, but along with the 13/8 bit, we had the bones of the song. It
wasn’t easy to find a vocal melody over the 13/8, but as my brief was to
make a descending whining noise, it was possible! The chords behind the
majestic tune were easy enough to fit a tune over, even if it’s not like
Comfortably Numb - it sounds more Van Der Graaf Generator as Chris is
finding the most interesting inversions and bass notes under the chords.
The ending created itself, who doesn’t love a bit of Steve Hillage!
|
What is that grub, burrowing under your skin?
Pushing the door;
why did you let it in?
This blessed maggot - helpless you watch it
grow.
What will it become? Do you really want to know?
What is
this worm, squirming inside your hands?
A wolf in sheep’s clothing; a
beast wrapped in swaddling bands.
What is this creature, crawling
across the floor?
Sucking you dry, but still it cries for more.
What is this tick that's nestling in your bed?
Feet of of ice and a
kick to strike you dead.
A whining needle scraping at your skull.
Your spoon's empty but its is never full.
Will no one rid me of this
parasitic pest?
The cuckoo's in the cradle; the leech is at your
breast.
It is a joy; it is a jewel. It is a gemstone in the sand.
It is light; it is renewal. It is sunshine in your hand.
Sometimes
you wish that time would stop. Sometimes a minute lasts a day.
It is
a climb to the mountaintop. It is a love these words can never say. |
**********************************************************************************
Redemption (P McMahon)
Paul McMahon (vocals, guitars) Chris McMahon (keyboards,
fretless bass, bass pedals)
Danny McMahon (drums) Catrin Ashton (flute)
{Chris} We took advantage of the space &
nice acoustics in Yellow Arch to record as many of the backing tacks as
live as possible, all playing together (in the Cellar we always had to
painstakingly layer tracks up, one at a time) This techique really paid
off with this song, it was the last one we recorded & we just kept
playing through it until it felt right (I think in the end we used take
#3 out of 5)
{Paul} The music for this has been haunting me for
years. The hook is just eight chords, three of them repeated, but the
suspended notes, the inversions and the melody over them have a simple
power that makes it hard to stop playing them. As with The Waters
Rising, it needed a strong vocal tune and good lyrics to do justice to
the music, and to be fair, it took a while and the reject bin was filled
to overflowing! Chris came up with a middle 9 (a middle 8 is more
conventional, but we are Haze and convention is optional) and the basic
song was complete. The lyrics were still under constant revision, but
the song was coming to life in rehearsal and was shaping up to be a
closing track for the album. The chord sequence just begs for an
extended guitar solo fade and some rehearsal versions went on for ten
minutes or more! In the studio we intended to do a live fade at the
ending - playing quieter and quieter until the music disappears, but we
also found a lovely Ionosphere reverb effect in the guitar pedalboard,
and we added that in at the end while the drums and guitars slowly
vanish. |
Here at the water's edge, the river runs so fast.
The actors have
left the stage, bewildered to the last.
There is no mercy here, no
slackening of pace.
Breathless we rush toward the ending of the race.
As soon as the ink has dried, history is dead.
We cover the scars and
try to hide the tears we've shed.
If I could wipe the page, or,
better still, forget.
I could believe I've lived a life without
regrets.
How do I forgive? Where will I find healing?
The wounds
you left me with are still bleeding.
All that we laboured for will
soon be washed away.
Wisdom has just arrived, too late to save the
day.
Every day the future sinks into the past.
Every time we say
goodbye could be the last. |
**********************************************************************************
We played a pre-release show at the Greystones in Sheffield
on Saturday 25th May (also our 46th anniversary!) and played the entire album in
order for the first time for the first set, then played a set of old favourites
for the 2nd set. You can watch the full show here -
Set 1,
Set 2
