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Description
Another in the series of Ed’s-Collabs-That-Take-Years-To-See-The-Light-Of-Day…
This one has the following unusual distinction: I don’t actually play or sing on it.
Over the years that I’ve been on MacJams, one of my great joys has been doing the occasional collaboration with Dion (Macaudion). Dion and I think very differently from one another about music, and as far as I’ve been able to tell, we seem to communicate by teasing each other into things. Up until this song, the way we would work was this: Dion would send me a more or less fully wrought piece, I would add some guitar bits to it and send it back, Dion would slice and dice it all, and something cool would emerge that would sound nothing at all like what I may have thought we were working on.
This one is different. Dion wanted me to work on something with him and to maybe have it end up with a little more me in it, and a little more conventionally song-like. He sent me an eight bar track of bass, drums and percussion, labeled “Uno”, which is, more or less, what you’ll hear in the first 22 seconds of this recording. My job was to make something of it. After a bit, Dion sent me an expanded version, provocatively labeled “Dos”, but by then I wanted to work with “Uno”, and so I did.
Even in its bare bones stages, I heard a potential for something between “Born Under A Bad Sign” and some sort of jazz ballad, and since I have no skills in those areas, it was a real mystery to me how it all would be brought about. As Fran said in an early email exchange, “So…what are YOU going to do on this?”
What I ended up doing was changing Dion’s recording into a loop [Note: Dion himself does not use loops] and dragging it out until it was a bit over four minutes long. Then I did my own Loop-It-Or-Lose-It challenge and listened to it over and over on my iPod until I got an idea for some words and a melody. I was aiming for a combination of desire and affection…
Then I did what I’ve been doing best lately: I recruited people who are better than me.
John (ktb) took the bare track and came up with a synth track and a piano track that were exactly what I was hoping for, right out of the box.
Anne took my words and sloppy demo and delivered a really sweet vocal track. Can we say “sexy” on national television?, er…Internet?….
Fran did a track of electric slide and a track of electric blues guitar.
Everybody’s tracks just dropped right in with minimal tweakage, and here we are. I was able to surprise Dion with it this past week, and since he doesn’t appear to be dying of shame, I get to spring it on an unsuspecting world.
Thanks to Dion for his patience and faith in me, and for a cool and challenging starting point. Thanks to Anne for the perfect vocal track, to John for a keyboard bed that fit so well it sounds like it was done first, and thanks to Fran for tasteful guitaristical decoration of the tune.
This one has the following unusual distinction: I don’t actually play or sing on it.
Over the years that I’ve been on MacJams, one of my great joys has been doing the occasional collaboration with Dion (Macaudion). Dion and I think very differently from one another about music, and as far as I’ve been able to tell, we seem to communicate by teasing each other into things. Up until this song, the way we would work was this: Dion would send me a more or less fully wrought piece, I would add some guitar bits to it and send it back, Dion would slice and dice it all, and something cool would emerge that would sound nothing at all like what I may have thought we were working on.
This one is different. Dion wanted me to work on something with him and to maybe have it end up with a little more me in it, and a little more conventionally song-like. He sent me an eight bar track of bass, drums and percussion, labeled “Uno”, which is, more or less, what you’ll hear in the first 22 seconds of this recording. My job was to make something of it. After a bit, Dion sent me an expanded version, provocatively labeled “Dos”, but by then I wanted to work with “Uno”, and so I did.
Even in its bare bones stages, I heard a potential for something between “Born Under A Bad Sign” and some sort of jazz ballad, and since I have no skills in those areas, it was a real mystery to me how it all would be brought about. As Fran said in an early email exchange, “So…what are YOU going to do on this?”
What I ended up doing was changing Dion’s recording into a loop [Note: Dion himself does not use loops] and dragging it out until it was a bit over four minutes long. Then I did my own Loop-It-Or-Lose-It challenge and listened to it over and over on my iPod until I got an idea for some words and a melody. I was aiming for a combination of desire and affection…
Then I did what I’ve been doing best lately: I recruited people who are better than me.
John (ktb) took the bare track and came up with a synth track and a piano track that were exactly what I was hoping for, right out of the box.
Anne took my words and sloppy demo and delivered a really sweet vocal track. Can we say “sexy” on national television?, er…Internet?….
Fran did a track of electric slide and a track of electric blues guitar.
Everybody’s tracks just dropped right in with minimal tweakage, and here we are. I was able to surprise Dion with it this past week, and since he doesn’t appear to be dying of shame, I get to spring it on an unsuspecting world.
Thanks to Dion for his patience and faith in me, and for a cool and challenging starting point. Thanks to Anne for the perfect vocal track, to John for a keyboard bed that fit so well it sounds like it was done first, and thanks to Fran for tasteful guitaristical decoration of the tune.
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Lyrics
Uno (I Like The Way…)
Lyrics © 2009 Ed Hannifin
I like the way you do what you do
You know, I like the way you do what you do
Nobody does it quite like you
I like the way you do what you do
I like it when I’m walking with you
You know I like it when I’m walking with you
You know there’s nothing I’d rather do
I like it when I’m walking with you
I like it when we’re in the groove
I like when we’re in the groove
Sometimes I just like to watch how you move
I like it when we’re in the groove
I like the sunshine and the rain
I like the sunshine and the rain
I guess I’m not inclined to complain
I like the sunshine and the rain
I like what we’ve got goin’ on
I like what we’ve got goin’ on
It stays around after you’re gone
I like what we’ve got goin’ on
It’s all about the way that you’re you
You know It’s all about the way that you’re you
You’ve got your own particular view
It’s all about the way that you’re you
I like the way you do what you do
I like the way you do what you do
Nobody does it quite like you do
I like the way you do what you do
Lyrics © 2009 Ed Hannifin
I like the way you do what you do
You know, I like the way you do what you do
Nobody does it quite like you
I like the way you do what you do
I like it when I’m walking with you
You know I like it when I’m walking with you
You know there’s nothing I’d rather do
I like it when I’m walking with you
I like it when we’re in the groove
I like when we’re in the groove
Sometimes I just like to watch how you move
I like it when we’re in the groove
I like the sunshine and the rain
I like the sunshine and the rain
I guess I’m not inclined to complain
I like the sunshine and the rain
I like what we’ve got goin’ on
I like what we’ve got goin’ on
It stays around after you’re gone
I like what we’ve got goin’ on
It’s all about the way that you’re you
You know It’s all about the way that you’re you
You’ve got your own particular view
It’s all about the way that you’re you
I like the way you do what you do
I like the way you do what you do
Nobody does it quite like you do
I like the way you do what you do
bud
a very fine concoction you've put together here Ed. There's even some shaker and stirring vocals. Pardon me - I'm getting carried away. Excellent collab - fine performances all around. Cheers!