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January 15, 2017 by Simon Sweetman

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 145 Recording Rachel

rachel_weisz_2297380bShe came on the flood in a wave of hopeless lust

My animal senses felt the same way about her

 

She came to me first in the mid 90s – that first stanza

I had just got my Telecaster back and was thinking along the lines of Leon Russell

 

Rachel – reach out

Restore my faith in human naturejacob-meeting-rachel-joseph-von-fuhrich

She’s a fine woman to love

Talk about déjà vu

You gave me something I could never do

 

The chorus came then too – a series of words that spilled the beans on the song

We had an old car and I managed to hang the second verse around the time its brakes gave out

yes

She took my car and backed away

She could go far but not in that wreck

I told her about the brakes and the chances that she takes

But she put it in gear and she drive straight

 

After that I couldn’t find the words to complete it but I played it to the band

It’s floated in and out of our set ever since

This raunchy down home blues/soul fest where I’m making up the words as I go along to half the song

I kept up the charade for twenty years or more

And now we have come to record it and I have to finally finish it

It’s not like I haven’t tried to nail it down over the years

I just couldn’t come up with lines worthy of that series of chordspainting1

A song that exists before it is fully realised

 

She was ready to escape from a previous life

And I was so wired it was tragic

 

Over the last few weeks I’ve been mulling over what to write – the way I do for this weekly story

Something clicked one night and I introduced the animus to counteract the animal and the idea of trading clothes

 

She wound up on the bus like it was the end of us

My Animus howled for her and just closed down

We found that we’d swapped clothes and I was naked to the worldDeath_and_the_maiden_10x8_72

So I went back to the life she’d taken with her

 

In our recording of the song we have built up layers of guitars, keyboards, violins, slide, piano, mouth harp and now vocals

It sounds like nothing we have ever done before

Someone asked me who she was

I know who she is now

She is Rachel the song

 

Rachel – reach out

Restore my faith in human nature

She’s a fine woman to love

Talk about déjà vu

You gave me something I could never do
Rachel-Weisz-Computer-WallpaperThe Ghost of Electricity – War Stories by Jon McLeary is a new initiative at Off The Tracks, a series of stories and reflections from painter, writer and musician Jon McLeary

To read any of the first 144 in the series click here

Posted in Blog, Miscellany and tagged with Art, Guest Blog, Guest Post, Jon Mcleary, Music, Painting, Rachel, Recording Rachel, Songwriter, Songwriting, Spines, The Ghost of Electricity, The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories, The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary, The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 145, The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 145 Recording Rachel, The Spines, War Stories, War Stories # 145, Writing. RSS 2.0 feed.
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Off The Tracks is the home of Sweetman Podcast, a weekly interview/chat-based pod. It's also home to my reviews across film, TV, music and books and some creative writing as well.

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