He also says this his collaborators pushed him to deliver the best possible lyrics onCarry Fire.
My game is sporadic, he explains.
I have to run at it, as a singer and a lyricist.
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Maybe you could create a beautiful melody, but what are you going to say?
I cant sing about truck-stop women and railroads and stuff Im British!
Youve gotta cut through to how you feel and what youve been observing more recently.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How has recording albums changed in your career?
you could make it into a little potpourri of approaches.
Other pieces you’re free to construct and create beds [of] cello and viola.
I have no particular favorite way of doing it.
If youve got something really spontaneous, great!
Sometimes, that spontaneity can come just from a repetitive loop.
Its such a naked track.
So you might do that, build it up, in a very short space of time.
I love Keep It Hid and your otherCarry Firecollaborations with Massive Attacks John Baggott.
Hes always submitting, constantly, more and more beautiful pieces.
John is a beautiful musician because he is totally engrossed in his game.
Theyre the events of our time, but theyre the events of our forefathers time.
You cant ignore them.
you’re able to only comment on them.
His father was in the trenches in the First World War.
And my great-grandfather was in South Africa in the Boer War.
Theres always some event some chain of events that runs through everybodys families, I think.
Carry Fires musical motifs are so worldly and fascinating.
From Jack White to Tinariwen, its all the same, really, just people letting it out.
You covered Ersel Hickeys 1958 folk Bluebirds over the Mountain for this one.
I listened to the version by Richie Valens.
When I was a kid, it was one of those types of mantra songs.
It was probably about 24 bars of intro and I just was choosing different songs from night to night.
I got to singing Bluebirds over the Mountain a lot, and I really love it.
Instrumentally, we got it sounding good.
I couldve put a harmony on it, but it really did need another voice.
I sent Chrissie Hynde, who Ive known over the years, a copy of what we were doing.
She was really, really positive and enthralled.
She said, So, the great psychedelic dream comes alive again!
I drove out, picked her up in my car, and we went off to the studio.
Its nice a sort of psychedelic Sonny & Cher.
