The Prelude: When I play this, I always open the piece with a very straight version of the instrumental guitar line before playing it again with more improvised movement and complexity. I wanted to honor that somehow, but to give it a different sound, as well. I searched my studio plug-ins for a button or knob labeled: “sound of a cheap guitar with rusty strings through an old AM radio from the front porch of a farm house a quarter mile away down a dirt road.” But I found nothing. This is as close as I could get. With added mando.

Then, The Rain. Again, a song about the loss of disconnection? Maybe, metaphorically. Kinda. If it needs to be…

So there is this train randomly hanging out in these lyrics. And there is rain. The train is real (in the narrative of the lyrics, that is). The rain is not. The “rain” is explained in a line in No Goodbyes.

The train is buried under a hill.

There is a train tunnel cut through the hill that forms the bluff overlooking our apartment building. It runs through the entire length of the hill (about 4000 feet, as the crow flies) under one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. The tunnel was built (under the already old neighborhood) in the early 1870’s.

It collapsed in 1925. With a train and the crew in it. The entrances to the tunnel were sealed. The train and the crew are still there. As is the tunnel – giving one something to think about when walking back from a restaurant or shop (being suddenly swallowed up by a sinkhole after one too many tacos at Kahlo’s, for instance – I just knew I shouldn’t have eaten that third taco). It is a story that has given rise to urban legends of ghosts and vampires in the neighborhood and throughout the city over the years since.

The core of the original electric concept was based around one of these train workers. But some of the songs were a little too on the nose. It was the more acoustic songs, with a less aggressive structure, that seemed to allow for something more abstract and let the songs have a life of their own, outside the narrative of the rest of the collection.

This was recorded with a final chord resolve at the end. But I left enough space that I could remove that chord if I felt I wanted to later. I just didn’t know what would feel right. The resolve stayed in the mix until all the tracks were recorded and the first full mix done. I put the full collection together for the first time, put on some headphones, and took a walk to listen to them all together. And removed the resolve.

Oh, and that Oberheim style guitar synth patch that orchestrates the entire piece really says something about how much I loved Carl Sagan’s Cosmos when I was growing up, doesn’t it?

Listening to the Rain

We faced up the hill full steam and the will
Loaded with men and with freight
To the night down the hole, taker of souls
Sound, silence, and the weight.

Slow as you go to the earth below
Maybe we’ll rise back like grain
Slow as it seems in a long, sad dream
We’re just listening to the rain.

Steam rolls like tides. To keep hope alive
Feels like fight back the waves.
And one thing that’s for sure is there has to be more
Than here just sitting in a grave.

Slow as you go to the earth below
Maybe we’ll rise back like grain
Slow as it seems in a long, sad dream
We’re just listening to the rain.