Track #6: Hold My Heartache

I came back from visiting my aunt and uncle in Oregon and I wrote this song.  I had met a Brazilian who sang beautiful folks songs and one of the songs whose name I forget had this chord progression and I forgot the central melody but it had something to do with God.  But I liked the way it starts in G and moves around and ends at E.

So I came back and I demo’ed it in my apartment one weekend and it had this really good vibration.  At the time it had a chorus part that was a minor key thing where I actually sang the lines “hold my heartache” and I guess you can hear it if you want, just let me know.

The lyrics are about the hospital stuff, as you might be able to tell.  And, of course, as with many things, about these distances between people, about how you want to be able to take someone’s pain away but you’re not able to and maybe you spend a lot of time fighting yourself and fighting your feelings and what that really does is sort of bring you closer to the very thing you beheld, the pain and the misery and all of that.

There was this woman out in Minnesota and she’d had a terrible surgery that left her in debilitating pain all the time and she would beg people for pills because all of hers had been flushed down the drain by her daughter and she was middle-aged and just resigned to bad things because she didn’t have the strength to face the awfulness.

That’s where the lines:

Mary cries to sleep
And the winter’s deep
With every pill flushed down the drain

Come from.

The best part of the song in my opinion is the instrumental outro.  I’d originally written this in yet another progression.  So, in the beginning, this song had four different parts.  But when we listened to it again, the chorus and then the outro felt out of place although that outro progression is still a favorite of mine (Em-G-D).  Instead, we just held the chorus progression or the second part and then did the “oohs” on out.

Of course, in the studio, the whole thing became magic.  This is one of those instances where you can’t really discount the power of the songwriting and you can’t really discount the players.  If you build a solid structure and you imbue it with the right amount of amount and honesty and people have a sense for what the purpose may  be or will be, something good will come of it.  And at the same time, if you have incredible musicians that can take something to a new and better place on top of that foundation then you are really somewhere special.

And this is what happened.

Here are all the good parts.  First, the descending piano line that Matt Ray wrote.  Something about it is so heartbreaking.  It is so fragmented and sad and resigned.  Second, Paul’s samples.  They are haunting and evocative.  They sound like the coos of a nightingale but they are at the same time synthetic and artificial.  So if you are being effusive or hyperbolic or you’re specifically writing about it [ed. note: as you are currently doing] then you’ll begin to draw these references and, again, this is the depth thing, this is the inspection thing.  So anyway the point is that this sample that is almost like a singing bird through the treetops when maybe the whole thing is taking place in a hospital and you’re sitting in bed looking out the window.  That is a fragment of hope, that is a crack of sunlight, and it’s frosted over because it’s the winter time but at least the room is warm now because the sun is coming through and what’s a bird doing out there in the bitter cold anyway?

Third, me and Amber’s vocals.  They are beautiful and she’s doing a bunch of different harmonies and again they create this weird ambiance.  Haunting.  Ghostly.  Strangely optimistic and life affirming.

Then, the coup de grace, Stan’s sax solo.  We hadn’t planned on having him play on this tune, it was Paul’s idea.  Originally, he was just going to do ‘Ways’ but he was around and Paul had some ideas.  And I call it a Lou Reed/Transformer moment.  It sounds like Bowie from the 70s.  Or like Perfect Day or something.  Something so soulful and cool in just the right way.  Something groovy and sad at once.

This whole thing comes together and live it’s even more amazing because this sound can be recreated and we do recreate it and it’s something you should see, you’ll get chills.

I do think this is the best piece of recorded music I’ve ever been associated with.

Here are the chords: G-D-F#m-G-F#m-Bm-E and then the chorus is G-D-G-D-E and that’s what you can do on the ‘ooh oohs’ part.

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