At the tail end of the RPM Challenge, well technically after it was over I guess, I did a collaboration with another RPM entrant, one Colin Garvey of Liverpool, England. Here’s his likeness:
Anyway, the deal was that I felt that the last song on the Sauna Tapes album — the one tentatively named “Good Night Daddy” — really needed some vocals. I originally envisioned it as kind of an operatic piece, with lyrics in Italian even, but as the clock wound down on the Challenge, there just wasn’t enough time to see this vision through, and so it ended up an instrumental on the album.
But I posted a blog entry on the rpmchallenge.com website, requesting the help from anyone with any knowledge of Italian, to help write some lyrics for the song. And as it happened, Colin took on the additional challenge of not only producing some Italian lyrics, but also topping it off with a really stunning vocal performance. And here it is, for your listening pleasure!
Padre (Persson, Garvey)
Orchestration by Jana Persson, lead vocals by Colin Garvey
There once was a country-rock outfit called Tumbleweed Trail. The band was formed back in 1995 from the remnants of Swedish pop act Vagabond and inspired by a project called Redeye, which was an acoustic trio busking Eagles covers around Sweden in the summertime. This was supposed to be the electric variant of Redeye, albeit featuring original material as well. The band existed for five years, and although it never secured a recording deal, it performed on national TV as well as on national radio, and earned well deserved respect among the musician and artist communities in Sweden. There was never a shortage of renowned artists lining up to make guest appearances at our gigs, as we hosted weekly country clubs at different locations around Sweden.
We haven’t played together for eight long years. But now we’re reforming. We’re currently assembling new material, as well as gathering old stuff that deserves a second shot in a serious recording environment.
I’m expecting great stuff to emerge from this. Eight more years of experience, practice and perspective will leverage even greater songs and even deeper musical awareness. To put things in perspective, and to whet your appetite, I’m presenting three of the songs from the great old days. Hope to see you soon, in the new, even greater days, on a stage near you!
Every weekday in April, NPR’s Second Stage is featuring one RPM Challenge artist, handpicked by Robin. That’s a lot of music to choose from, since I think more than 800 artists completed the challenge. He’s reviewing every album’s featured song, and the Sauna Tapes’ featured song was “Try Again”.
It is a bit overwhelming to get picked among so many artists, and I take great pride in being one of the chosen few featured to represent the RPM Challenge at NPR. The feature page contains a link to a podcast, so you’re able to hear the actual broadcast.
This instrumental has been in existence for quite some time. It was originally performed at the funeral of my grandmother, in 1995. And it wasn’t new even then. It is one of the few substantial classical pieces that I’ve ever written, and it’s definitely never been recorded before. I guess I should have played a gut-string guitar for this, but fact is I don’t own one good enough. It was laid down using my trusted Larrivee, which at least has the right body form.
A rockin’ tune. It turned out quite better than I’d hoped for, and also a little different. I re-wrote the chorus part for the Challenge, lowering it a whole note.
The lyrics are about this guy having a night out, when his long lost girlfriend, the Hollywood Starlet, suddenly turns up at the bar. And it turns out there’s still some ambers glowing.
I had the verse and the chorus parts going into the album making process. But it needed some lyrics and a bridge. I sweated with the words for a long, long time, and I’m still not entirely happy with how it turned out. I finally deemed it “good enough”, and here it is.
Like the second song, this is also about kind of a homecoming. But this is more like the return of the loser that fled, with regrets and feelings of unworthiness.
This song was inspired by the great Swedish songwriter Evert Taube. I hope to have conveyed at least some of the vivaciousness and flare of his truly great spirit of songwriting.
While I can never hope to approach his lyrical genious, this song is about waking up from the dreariness of everyday life to the fact that you only get one shot at it, so go live a life worth living. Like Evert’s.
Originally a drone and more of a soundscape. A song turned into a chant, and a chant turned into a song. I’m not entirely sure about the lyrics. It seems to suggest the picture of a woman left grieving on the shore of the ocean her great love never returned from. For years and years. The musical ending aims to depict someone slowly disappearing into the deep. It may be her, it may be her loved one, it may be both…
The lyrical concept of this song is to capture a brief, fleeting moment in time: The breathless seconds passing between the moment of his asking for her hand in marriage, and her reply.
This song was written years ago, but has lacked a musical home. It pleases me that it finally found its resting place on this recording. The composition is a collaboration between myself and a good friend of mine who I’ve never met. He goes by the name of John Powers, and is a native of New York. The collab was done while we both had songs up on a site called amp3.com, during the prehistoric internet independent music scene. If you see John, please say hi.
Anyway, the deal was that I felt that the last song on the Sauna Tapes album — the one tentatively named “Good Night Daddy” — really needed some vocals. I originally envisioned it as kind of an operatic piece, with lyrics in Italian even, but as the clock wound down on the Challenge, there just wasn’t enough time to see this vision through, and so it ended up an instrumental on the album.
