Night In Cairo
his is a song about wanting something you can’t have. I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt and see the pyramids and realise that it most likely will never happen so that became the way to express what the person in the song is feeling. It was co written by Steve Mapstone who came up with the bass line. I wrote the lyrics and recorded it at The Lost Note Studio around 1994. The guitar (since stolen) is a Hondo Strat with Jackson stacked humbucker pickups, the bass guitar was Richard Stillwells Vester P-Style, Kawai PH50 keyboard for the strings. Recorded at The Lost Note Studio 1994. Gear used : Fostex x26 4 track, Alesis III Midiverb, Kawai PH50 Keyboard, Kawai R100 Drum Machine, Shure SM58 mic for vocals, keyboards, drum machine and vocals were recorded through a Sansamp Original and Akai Studio Compressor.
Lyrics:
Night In Cairo
I was talking to the pharaoh
He said you don’t have to go
No one is making you do so
On a night in Cairo
Delta man said stay awhile
These pyramids can make you smile
Stay a while check out the Nile
On a night in Cairo
But keep your feet on the black land sand
Don’t get lost in the temple man
Watch out for the mummies hand
Pharaoh took me to his tomb
And he took me in a room
He said I’ll be back real soon
On a night in Cairo
But keep your feet on the black land sand
Don’t get lost in the temple man
Watch out for the mummies hand
Seven Scenes
The words for this came from two different songs I wrote. The first part of the song was written in 1981 after Siren had played the New Years Eve concert at Mount Maunganui. The second parts came after my kids started going to sunday school and my Dad joined Greenpeace the day after the French terrorists bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, murdering a crew member along the way. The song is a bit of a jumble through my family I guess… I still don’t know what some of it means.
The music came after Steve Mapstone refused to record it so we had a big argument. I borrowed a bass guitar off Richard Stillwell and played a three chord finger picking thing. The jangled up chord in the chorus is one I learned off a U2 song.
Lyrics:
Seven Scenes
Seven scenes encased in glass
Visions after summers past
Enrapt in glory, suicide
Really not a cushy ride
A friend betrays, a pet befriends
Doe See Doe revolve again
Like a square dance
Be my friend
A Camera clicks, a frame exposed
A shiny car, the old disposed
New things, kids with new toys
Christmas gifts, dolls for the boys
Heaven scenes enrapt in fashion
Fashion pressure latest passion
When will it end,
This latest trend,
Wont you be my friend
Beware the men in lengthened robes
Beware the market of faith
Believe what’s real and not make believe
Question your status your place
Take an appearance and answer it’s question
Then question the answer you see
Transcend mirror images, mirrors are true
And all is not as it appears to be.
Don’t bring me down
Don’t make me your clown
Your making me frown
Aw you better stop making that sound
You got your TV screen
And your answering machine
You joined Greenpeace,
Cause your green
Got your holiday dream
And your angry white scream
And your submachine
Beside your bed so clean
…You got your TV screen
…Blue light comes out your window
….It lights up the carport
It lights up the goldfish pond
You can see the rhododendrons
And you can hear this song
Don’t bring me down
Don’t make me your clown
You’re making people frown
Aw you better stop fucking me round
Tradition
I wrote the lyrics for this one day at the Otahuhu Railways Workshops where I worked as a coachbuilder and was the union secretary. The music came years later after Steve Mapstone came up with a bass riff one day. After he left I played with it and had been listening to Pearl Jam and tried to get the biggest dirtiest in your face most disgusting obscene guitar tone possible. I dug out my old lyric book and found the words to Tradition and they fitted perfectly. The drum track here is from a DX50 and was programmed in a hurry by some keyboard player who had no idea about drum machine dynamics. Steve plays bass, a Fender Precision, I’m doing the guitar work on a Hondo Strat with Jackson stacked humbusker pickups. Recorded at The Lost Note Studio 1994. Gear used : Fostex x26 4 track, Alesis III Midiverb, Shure SM58 mics for vocals, guitar recorded through a Sansamp Original driven hard by a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal and Akai Studio Compressor.
Lyrics:
Tradition
Tradition tells us what to do
Don’t do what you oughtent to
Something bad will happen to you
Tradition will win over something new
Tradition, Tradition, Tradition, Repetition
Tradition make you change your ways
Forget about those rebel days
Tradition make sure one rule stays
They get paid, it’s us who pays
Tradition has it’s roots in the teachers
The judges, the cops, the Tv and the preachers
Tradition has such frightening features
Tradition maintain the rule of the leeches.
Tradition, Tradition, Tradition, not sedition.
Pounds, Shillings & Pence
This is a song Richard Stillwell and I originally recorded in about 1980 in his Parnell flat. We mixed it down to stereo and I don’t know what happened to the original master but I wore out the cassette copy I had so decided to have another go at recording it around 1996. The song showcases the vintage Ibanez AD-80 analog delay pedal, perhaps the most musical effects pedal ever.
The song is about New Zealand’s conversion to decimal currency in 1967 and not, as some people have suggested, a song celebrating the immense fun you can have with mind altering hallucinogenic drugs.
I worked out the chords and made up a bass line, whacked the drum machine track on it and did a vocal. That was mixed down to stereo and I bounced the stereo track back onto the Fostex X26. I grabbed some sound bytes off some video tapes I’d made and mixed them in live on the bouncedown.
With the remaining two tracks I made up a sound effects track with the AD-80.
I did the reverse guitar solo by putting the cassette tape in backwards and mixing it down in reverse, then I listened to it in the car on the way to and from work for about a week so that I knew the song backwards. Then I recorded the solo with the 4 track going in reverse and knowing where the changes were I just did some pentatonic soloing.
Recorded at The Lost Note Studio 1996. Gear used : Fostex x26 4 track, Sony HiFi VCR, Ibanez AD-80, Alesis III Midiverb, Shure SM58 mics for vocals, all recorded through a Sansamp Original and Akai Studio Compressor.
Pounds Shillings And Pence
Strange, strange music
Strange, strange words
July the 10th 1967
It all happened then
Strange, strange money
Strange, strange switch
Took a trip to currency change
Aint been quite right since
(Sound Bytes) Repeat Verse 1 (Sound Bytes)
Strange, strange feelings
Strange, strange sights
They took away pounds shillings and pence
They took away my dollars and sense
(Sound Bytes) Repeat Verse 1 (Sound Bytes)
Strange, strange story
Strange, strange end
Don’t take away my LSD
Strange, strange friend
(Backwards guitar solo) (Sound Bytes)
Almost A Conspiracy
I wrote the lyrics to this late one night in 1992 walking through Dunedin. All around there was this spectacular architecture and some of it was being demolished. The music was the first sequence I ever did on my midi studio. Recorded at The Lost Note Studio 1994. Gear used : Fostex x26 4 track, Alesis III Midiverb, Kawai PH50 Keyboard, Kawai R100 Drum Machine, Shure SM58 mic for vocals, keyboards, drum machine and vocals were recorded through a Sansamp Original and Akai Studio Compressor.
Almost A Conspiracy
Nothing like a movie
Something like a scene
Zero to the postcard
A lot of what it’s been
People in a game plan
No one knows the rules
Almost a conspiracy
At least a tragedy
Always someone wanting
Answers to an end
Questions of a demise
Never seem to end
People in a game plan
No one knows the rules
Almost a conspiracy
At least a tragedy
Life goes by regardless
Living it’s is own bliss
Spirits never haunt us
Soul blows us a kiss
People in a game plan
No one knows the rules
Almost a conspiracy
At least a tragedy
Humanity’s not it’s own enemy
People learn the rules
Almost a conspiracy
At least a tragedy.