9/28/05 Shaken By Dylan

Yesterday we had another amazing recording session with the girls. We did their parts on Happy Endings, The Amazing Tenacity Of Job & His Brethren, and In Praise Of Shadows. The latter two are bitter blues-rock with abstract gospel overtones.

I was a bit concerned because my vocals were sung in a low register and it didn’t seem like they would mesh well with the women’s voices. I only answer I could come up with was to layer their voices to create a large choir that my voice would lay on top off.

The plan worked out great. We layered their voices multiple times then created a new set of harmonies and layered those. The extra harmonies really gave depths to the choir. The overall effect was incredible. It is really thrilling to work with such talented people. They seem to be able to handle anything we throw at them.

Last night I watched the second half of the Dylan documentary. It kind of threw me for a loop. There is a shot of him where he looks like a little kid and he is singing “Mr. Tambourine Man” at a folk festival.

I had never paid much attention to that song, but the lyrics coming out of this kid’s mouth really shook me up. Usually any songwriter I hear, I think, ‘I could do better than that.’ But the words Dylan wrote even as a young man, are on another dimension. The bastard really set the bar high. Realizing the depths f his genius shook me to the core.

It feels good to be challenged though. I haven’t been inspired to write lyrics in a long time. Now I have a goal of hitting those heights that he set with those early songs.