saint georges

the piano tuner tuned the hell outta billy's U1
and talked a lot about uriah heap
while bob and billy ate phil's burgers
and i sat on the funmaker bench
bob took my advice and went with the 78704
a wise choice
from a very wise man
once the piano was ready to go
billy moved his drums into the control room
while bob and i ran over the song a couple of times
i stood behind him and strummed along
at least i know "saint georges" pretty well
it has a lot of words but i've played it live
more than any other song in the bunch
bob and i sounded pretty good together right away
no real surprise there
the guy's a major talent
it did feel a bit weird to think the last time we played
one of my songs together was in el paso
in 1988
a lot of life had certainly happened to both of us
since then
i wonder how he felt
he never said...
maybe i should've asked him?

anyway after 15 minutes of rehearsal
i went to the back of the house
where billy had set up two mics for me in the amp room
we started recording
billy on drums in the control room (front bedroom)
bob on piano in the living room
me in the back singing and strumming the acoustic
before take 5
a little song came to me
and i started singing it
bob and billy fell right in behind
it was kind of a magical moment
billy hit record and we got it all
i'm gonna use it somehow
after take 5 of "saint georges"
we all agreed it was good enough
and we started overdubbing on it
bob played a second piano part with an unbelievable cool
manic ending
i was really happy with it now
he'd plugged into the "crazy" side a bit
and i relaly suited the story
then i asked him to sing some of the chorus vocal lines
"what is your name...what was your game?"
the plan was to stack his voice with billy's and mine
for our gang style backups
"the kids" asking saint georges about her life
i think it pretty much turned out exactly how i'd envisioned it
which is actually rare
bob's piano a little skewed in all the right places
billy thumpy kick drum and floor tom
perfectly sparse
we'd accomplished exactly what i'd hoped
bob was gone by 5:30 to hang out with his son
billy and i still had a lot to do
since it was our last day
we fixed some vocal lines on "georges"
and did a rough mix
then billy wanted to put drums on "it's not enough"
within 20 minutes we had a smokin' backbeat on the verse
that remind me a lot of ringo on "everybody's got something to hide..."
it was totally not what i expected
but worked strangely well
billy was looking really tired by now
when i left at 10 he was completely spent
we'd blown it out real good on the last day
real good indeed...

tomorrow it's back to dallas
and into the frying pan
J leaves for london
old springs pike is coming in from new york
for some mixing
i gotta be mister mom too
and try not to destroy our house while she's gone
whoo-hoooo!
wheels off!!!!!!!