September 13, 2005: New Song Added! "Love May Be Blind"

Well, it's been months since I've posted, and I apologise! The past seven months (!) have been quite busy, and some of that time has been soaked up with all things summer (festivals, extra gigs than just the usual weekend stuff, etc.), and we just haven't been doing a whole lot on the writing front. Until two weeks ago. We finally got a chance to get into the rehearsal room and write. What came of the past two sessions is a little something we like to call "Love May Be Blind (but the neighbors see everything)".

"Love May Be Blind" came from a phrase Jon had said to me probably about a year ago. He told me that his mom always said, "Love may be blind, but the nieghbors aren't." That kind of stuck with me as a catchy kind of phrase, and it hung out in my sub-consience for a while. After a few days of mulling it over, and working on some lyric ideas as I drove the delivery van for my day job, I came up with this:

Love may be blind but the
Neighbors see ever'ything
Love may be blind but the
Neighbors see ever'ything
You better listen when they tell you
Your angel's got a broken wing

You say that she's there
Every time you call
You say that she's there
Every time you call
But brother there's another
Mule kickin in your stall!

You think her love is true
Pure as the driven snow
You think her love is true
Pure as the driven snow
It's as pure as a puddle o' mud
Just thought that you should know

I've thrown this into "Got My Mojo Workin" a few times, and it seemed to work with that sort of up-tempo beat. It should, since I took the basic vocal pattern from an old Son House rendition of Robert Johnson's "If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day", and they use the same kind of rhythm pattern. (if you're gasping at the fact that I "stole" this idea, check out my earlier post on that subject) Jon put a guitar thing modeled after "It Ain't Right" by Little Walter and "Gimme Back My Wig" by Hound Dog Taylor. The song is only a couple of minutes long, and it only has to be that long, really. Some songs are by nature 15 minutes long because the artist has that much to say with it. On the other hand, others may only be 3 minutes. We were really trying to go for a more "old school" feel for this tune, and most of the old Chicago blues tunes of the early days were only 3 munites long. The solo section was only one verse long, and features both Charlie and Jon by having them alternate solos within the verse structure. Plainly said, Charlie starts out by playing for four bars, then Jon comes in for four, and Charlie finishes it off. It came out for people to hear last weekend in Charlevoix and Boyne City. It was well received, but it needed a little something. What the French call a certain "I don't know what." So we took it back into the rehearsal room last week and started "tweeking."

First, we decided it needed a cool intro. Jon suggested a guitar-harp unison part mimicing the vocal melody. He and Charlie worked this out, and it added a nice element to the song. It helped introduce the main melody, as well as set up the solo section. The only thing left was a better intro. After a few attempts at something other than coming in on the turn-around, we decided to try something with some big, held-out chords. As the experiment continued, we tried one idea after another, trying to find the big cool intro. Finally, we came up with "it." We start off with a slower, train-style drum part, while AJ, Jon and Charlie all hit a big held-out chord. Repeat the process again, but build the tempo on the drums. Once more, and hit the chord more rapidly, accenting the speed-up, and WHAM! we're in the song, with Jon and Charlie crahing into the guitar-harp melody, and holy cow, is this awesome! Now, we have a song, not just a cool idea.

This weekend will be the unveiling of the new and improved version of "Love May Be Blind," let's hope everyone else thinks it's as cool as we do!