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Spitfire Summer Dick Langford Mix


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Description
One of a series of songs about a street in London where I lived. I'm new to Garageband and had trouble mixing this so Dick Langford kindly helped me out. How much I learn and absorb from Dick will be evident when I next post - a new song is currently in the pipeline undergoing a MacFerret mix!
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Lyrics
Spitfire Summer

VERSE 1
I'm feeling kind of safe here
Behind the garden wall.
Dirty knees and dungarees
I've burnt my cap and shed my shorts.

VERSE 2
Grown-ups shake their heads now
He should be an evacuee.
But Garratt Lane has never been
A safer place to be.

CHORUS
And now Winter's here to spoil the Spitfire Summer
It's the Few who sleep while the rest hide underground.
Fire and the sky mix with water and glass in the gutter
A yawning gap in the face of the Lane used to be the Rose and Crown.

VERSE 3
Seize the day! they said at school,
But they never taught us how to let go.
Carpe Diem! Honi soit
Qui mal y pense (and I should know).

VERSE 4
So I seized the moment, shook the tree -
I ain't gonna be no refugee.
It takes more than Hitler and his little games
To drive me and my mates out of Garratt Lane.

CODA
And when the first flying bomb came -
A doodlebug drone that filled the cold night -
Every soul in every home prayed
For the comet to continue its flight.
All but for me: who thrilled to the sound
Of silence, that thrall of silence
As the invader succumbed to Newtonian law
And lit up the night with a terminal roar.

Heaven for a boy who is seven!



Song Stats
Hits: 794
Comments: 14
Fans: 9
Plays: 40
Downloads: 56
Votes: 4
Uploaded: Nov 28, 2007 - 03:19:13 PM
Last Updated: Nov 29, 2007 - 03:12:56 AM Last Played: Oct 28, 2009 - 01:00:19 PM
Song License
Creative Commons License:
Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial

Creative Commons

Song Actions
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Hardware:
Mac Mini
Condenser mic
Guitars by Fender, Epiphone and SX
Roland Synth
Software:
GB
Melodyne Uno
Comments
Rebsie said 724 days ago (November 28th, 2007)
Still good
I stand by all the nice things I said about this on its previous posting!
Check out my latest song called Amongst The Colours (w/ Luna Trick)
Rebsie said 723 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
Just wanted to add ...
... although the mix here is really good (Mr L has production skills most of us can only dream of) I honestly couldn't hear anything wrong with the previous mix ... I think you did a better job of it than you realise. In fact to be honest I preferred Dick's voiceover in the original mix when it was more upfront and without the effect.

Good luck with the next one. I think you'll get to grips with GarageBand pretty quickly and get more confidence in what you're doing with it. I remember being reduced to tears when I first started using it but it soon becomes second nature!
Check out my latest song called Amongst The Colours (w/ Luna Trick)
dajama said 723 days ago (November 28th, 2007)
I like this
I think the lyrical imagery is terrific - very evocative and nicely put together. I like the narrative flow and the "radio" style voiceover works well I think. Great title, too. Good guitar playing and nice percussion. Not sure what melodyne Uno is - I'm assuming the source of the keyboard sound? If so, it sounds good. Nice work. Glad I stopped by. Peace.
Check out my latest song called Across the Wire (MJRF)
MacFerret said 723 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
Melodyne Uno
Dajama,

Glad you stopped by too. Melodyne Uno is a tool that allows you to correct pitch and amplitude on a melody. It's similar in purpose to the pitch correction tool in GB, but gives much finer control. Its main use is for vocals, but I have occasionally used it to tidy up a single bum note in an otherwise pleasing guitar solo, and even on harmonica.

I try not to overuse it because it can become a crutch, and this is possibly an example: I made several bad vocal takes, partly because I had a cold, but then tidied them up in Uno. Dick Langford's mix then more or less got me out of jail, but the fact is that I used the tool to put lipstick on a pig. Not good. Having said that, the celebrity endorsements include Madonna and Fat Boy Slim, so I ain't the only one...

Regards,

MacFerret
Check out my latest song called Ordinary Air
DWL said 723 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
I loved this first time
wonderfully evocative and great playing.

Cheers

Dick
craft said 723 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
good work
Love the sound... Nice singing and lyrics. Lovely playing...
Check out my latest song called Blue Lights (feat. Spleenveil)
apb said 723 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
Great song ..

excellent imagery: voice overs effects, helping everything along .. but it's a very nice WWII piece ..
lyrics are great .. fabulous final line - the ambiguious interpretation leaving you hanging as to wether the boy really died or just thought the doodlebugs were cool...
and if he died .. it gives this song a chilling narration from a ghost quality.

The mix is great .. the drum sounds are a bit weaker then the rest IMO.. what they play is great though.

I'm still in shock from hearing the Rose & Crown got destroyed. :o)
Check out my latest song called Misplaced
MacFerret said 719 days ago (December 3rd, 2007)
Glad you spotted that...
I honestly hadn't thought about the ambiguity until I read your thoughtful review. Very neat idea, that the narrator might actually have died because of his youthful stubbornness to move to a place of safety. (In fact, can I use that?)

It's rather humbling to discover that one's own music can trigger an unexpected response in another. (Art exists only in people's heads, of course.)

Oh, and you'll be relived to learn that they rebuilt the Rose and Crown, and restored its rather improbable Victorian name "The Gin Palace." It was still going as recently as 1985. Come to think of it, there was always an old boy who had his own seat in the corner, but I never really saw his face. He just seemed to be a fixture, part of the fabric; it was almost as if he were a ghost...

Regards,

Tim
Check out my latest song called Ordinary Air
davisamerica said 723 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
a recommend from DWL
is as good as a ticket to ride and this little trip to your song was extremely nice. very much enjoyed!
Check out my latest song called No Son(egobandit band)
dolby said 723 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
Good
I always think it's interesting to compare the British stuff to the American stuff (and all the stuff from all over the globe of course). I think one of the hardest things as a singer is trying to be honest about where you come from. I know that occasionally I wobble and end up somewhere in the mid-Atlantic (but I'm working on it!). This is so obviously English, which is to its credit. An easy comparison is Syd Barett (but like I say, that's too easy); you weave a slightly dark and edgy narrative about a moody soundscape - and it works really well.

Good song, good performance and good mix. Welcome to MJ's:-)

Phil
Check out my latest song called You Can't Win Them All
guitapick said 723 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
~
Wow...

Hat's off to you...fine, fine tune/performance/production
Check out my latest song called Outside the Corral
Joe Brady said 722 days ago (November 29th, 2007)
Welcome!
Really great piece of writing as well performance; the voice-over is a great set-up and the mood is not broken all the way through. Well done, would love to read more about your inspiration for writing this, but that's the tease with a good song. Bravo.
Check out my latest song called The Refugee Blues by Feter with Jiguma
Feter said 718 days ago (December 4th, 2007)
Spitfire Summer
cool rockin and thoughtfull work here friend ..!
indeed a very good production and mixing .thnx
for sharin this song !
sir dennis crowther said 712 days ago (December 10th, 2007)
You already
know my views on this. Great number in your trademark style. Always splendid subjects you write about. A kite festival, for example... :)

Chas
Check out my latest song called this is it
Genre Info
The terms alternative rock and alternative music[1] were coined in the early 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired music genres which didn't fit into the mainstream genres of the time. At times it was used as catch-all phrase for rock music from under

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