: The Making of Tender Loving Abuse – Parts 7 & 8
Pshew. Here are the final installments of my little mini-autobiography of the making of the Tender Loving Abuse album. In part 7 I do a detailed analysis of the album and then part 8 wraps things up.
Before I start with the reminiscing, after much technological anguish, fighting with computers, figuring out software and what not, I was able to digitize the album and I have put it out on this internet thing that everyone talks about. However, if you want to get these, you will have to do battle with your computer. If you are familiar with Drop Box, this should be simple for you, otherwise…. I’ll give a few instructions.
If you go here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sijii1dglnqlqci/PWNY8X7FWX
you will see a folder labeled Tender Loving Abuse. Now there are several things you can do. In the upper right hand corner, there’s a download button. If you click that button, you will have an option to download a zip file. If you know what this means, then you’re in good shape, go ahead and download, then unzip. It’s about 46M. Otherwise, if you click on the folder it will open up and there will be a full set of mp3 files of the tunes. You can click on any of these and it will play or download the files.
I have tested this out on a few computers and it seems to be working, but if you are having problems, let me know and I’ll do my best to get you this stuff
Danged technology. It’s bad enough that I spend the better part of my working days programming these beasts . Then I get home and do it all over again.
Part 7
Deep breath in, through the nose. Slowly exhale through the mouth, relax on each exhalation. In, out. Think calm thoughts. Ah, that’s better. Well. After all that depressing stuff in my last letter, all that “what might have been” and what went wrong, all the breast beating and self criticism … it’s time to lighten up a little.
For the last few weeks I’ve been listening to the album whenever I can, trying to cast my mind back 20 years. I’ve got one of those “retro” record players with one tinny little 3″ speaker. Last time I talked about the problems of listening through small speakers, but there is also a positive. Since you can’t let yourself be taken over by the sound quality, you are forced to listen to the essence of what’s going on. And the essence of TLA is the material. And what I can say is that after 20 years the material holds up. It still sounds fresh, and the emotions still come through. So this time, no bad endings, no soul searching, no self pity. This time we celebrate.
Aahh, but — before I start, here’s a quick caveat. I have tried to give my best interpretations of what the songs are about, but don’t take my musings here as the final authority. One of the marks of great music is that it supports different interpretations, and what I’m going to say here is only one person’s opinion. If you feel differently about any of the songs, your take is just as valid as mine.
A few General Observations
The first is about the lyrics. With a few notable exceptions, there are no story lines or narratives. Instead, what Rick does is to piece together images and phrases to create a feeling, an image, a hint of things. I wouldn’t call it poetry. He rarely says anything obscure, it’s more the way the lines fit together – and the way he ties things together with his singing. It’s only after the song is over that you say to yourself, “Hey, what was that?”. So you go back and listen to it again. And again. And each time you listen, it sounds different, it’s a surprise. And this is a rare quality. You can listen to (and I’m pulling this out at random) SMOKE ON THE WATER 30 times and you’re not going to get anything new out of it after the 2nd listen. Yeah, we know. There was a flare gun and the studio burned down. OK. What else can you tell us? Not much. Not that SMOKE ON THE WATER isn’t a fun song, it just doesn’t have that depth.
Second observation. With the exception of BABY NOW I (which segues into STRAIGHT JACKET), there are no fade outs, every song has an ending. I don’t know whether a non-musician will appreciate this as much, but most album songs fade out. As a cover musician, one of the big “challenges” is to figure out how to play a song and give it an ending when there is no ending in the original. But on TLA, every song has a definite end. It’s funny, I never asked Rick about that, I assumed that it was part of his artistic statement. With 20/20 hindsight (and this just hit me the other night) it’s clear that this was part of the live feel that Rick was going for.
My Favorite Song
Of all the songs we recorded, my favorite is RESTLESS SLEEPER. Now those of you with copies of TLA are already saying that there’s no such song on the album, and you’re right. This is the song that didn’t make the album, not that there was anything wrong with it but because there wasn’t enough room. On a CD this wouldn’t have been an issue, but on LPs there’s only so much space.
On the last day we were in the big room, after the drums had been taken down, Jack had chairs placed on opposite sides of the stage and mikes set up. Gary & Rick brought in their acoustic guitars and proceeded to lay down a medium tempo sort of strumming thing, with a repeated melodic line in the lower register. When played back through the speakers at high volume it was an awesome sound; I had never heard acoustic guitars at this volume and the effect of the 2 guitars strumming different parts was very powerful. A week or two later Rick laid down the vocals. It was beautiful, haunting. I’m embarrassed that I can’t remember what Rick was singing about. In fact, when I started working on this I couldn’t even remember the name of the song and had to get it from Jack. But I remember the emotion. In the verses, the melody was more in the lower register and more conversational. Then in the chorus, Rick’s voice soared up, full of yearning and loss:
“There’s no dreams, for the restless sleeper,
“There’s no sleep, for the restless heart.
Or something like that. I’ve been trying to come up with some other song to compare it to, to give you a frame of reference (e.g., It sounds a little like blah-blah-blah) but every time I think of something, I find myself saying “Nah, that will only throw people in the wrong direction.”
Anyway, after Rick did the vocals, we did a lot of keyboards. We spent nearly a week doing keys on just this one song. I think I did my best work on RESTLESS SLEEPER, partly because it wasn’t on the demo tape, so I was free to be completely creative. I remember some string lines, some synth stuff to reinforce the melodic line, and some piano fills. We all loved it. Jack and Lee both felt that it should have gone on the album instead of 10000 BANDS (maybe a heretical thought to those of you who are fans of that song) but 10000 BANDS was such a key personal statement that it had to stay.
So.
Side 1
LOVE IS THE ONLY WAY (I GO DOWN)
What a great to start an album. A stuttering guitar opens up into a rush of sound. A keyboard arpeggio floats on the top as a counterpoint, cymbal washes. Then a unison descending line into the vocal:
“Loves game’s fine by me,
I can accept defeat”
“But when she marks the deck,
I just can’t win, win”
The instrumentation is sparse so you can make out the lyrics. The vocal is defiant but not angry. Then the groove kicks in, and Rick comes out of left field with a great image
“I’m one of the last fallen angels,
broke all the laws of love”
“Cuz each time my love calls,
I go down”
The “I go down” is a great double entendre hook, but it also echoes the fallen angel image – falling down out of the sky. And into the chorus, Rick doubles up on harmony:
“Love is the only way that I go down.” {2 times}
When I listen to this song in my mind, the thing that stands out is the way the high arpeggio keyboard line plays off the vocal in the chorus. I wish I could claim the credit for that part, but it was someone else’s (Rick or the keyboard player on the demo?). Second verse:
“Flew into her moon last night.
my entry to quick, whoa”
“Could be why she’s so uptight,
she said, ‘mama no, mama yeah, yeah”
Sexual image here, also moon sounds a lot like room/womb. I could be wrong, but I think there’s a typo in the album lyrics, I think it should read “my entry too quick” (i.e., “too”, not “to”). In other words, he made his move too soon. But she’s ambiguous. Does she like it? No? Yeah?
“I wrote this song hopin’ one day,
to prove to you my point”
“With these three simple chords,
you’d understand, that.”
And here Rick brings it back home into the real world and makes it a personal statement to the woman.
“Love is the only way…” {4 times}
We then go into a one verse guitar solo, doubled in octaves first time, starting from the lower register building into the middle. Then the bottom drops out and Rick repeats the chorus over and over in a pleading voice. Strings fade in and out, acoustic guitar strums. Then the whole band kicks into high gear, the guitar goes into the upper register for two more singing choruses, then ends on one more chorus with the high guitar.
Incidentally, the lyrics on the inner sleeve miss most of the yeahs and other little interjections, but that’s typical and OK – you can’t capture everything. However, there seem to be a lot of typos and/or missed words; I’m going to put
down what I’m hearing/remembering – but I’m not going to point these out since it would interrupt the flow. Also, from time to time I will be re-arranging the lyric lines from the way they are on the album to the way they sound to my ears.
TONIGHT
Love and rejection. TONIGHT is musically centered around the melody of the verse. The melody is almost nursery rhyme like, but with a twist at the end. It plays off a major scale, but behind it are some complex almost Chopin-like chord changes. The bass holds things down with an ostinato line (that’s fancy music talk for saying that the bass stays around one note while the rest of the instruments do different chord changes). The song starts off in high gear. After 2 times through with different guitar textures, Rick comes in, sneering (but sneering melodically):
“I can’t believe no love’s come true”
“Can’t feel the flame and I blame you”
“She’s fancy free, she only sees”
“Her zodiac and her angel’s dust”
So things ain’t going too good between Rick and this girl (LOL). But then the chorus goes up almost and exalts:
“Tonight, Tonigh-igh-ight” {Boom-boom-b’-boom}
“Tonight, it’s a free fall flight”
“Tonigh-igh-ight”
So are they getting it on for one night? Is Rick escaping from her? Not clear. It’s one of those things which doesn’t make any logical sense, but works musically and emotionally. So back to the melody line. First guitar, then the vocal:
“Tweedle dee, Tweedle dum”
“Now Cinderella now here I come”
Cinderella is not being used in the flattering sense here.
“I’ve seen you dance, your hard up prance”
“Things are strange and I’m born again tonight”
“Say what?!”
Say what indeed. “Hard up prance” – not very flattering indeed. But then our lovely jubilant chorus again:
“Tonight, …”
Now comes the bridge, the music turns ominous, and we get to the heart of the matter:
“I can’t believe your soft words, they’re lies”
“A smile on your lips, your cold eyes they speak”
Rick also uses the “cold eyes” image in DON’T TALK BACK. Now the rhythm half-times to emphasize the message:
“Beware my sweet love when I cease to adore”
“I fell in your hands but not down to the floor”
And now it build up and up:
“And you don’t know, you don’t know,”
“You don’t know”
Then the guitar solo mostly mid register ending in a repeating descending major scale, back to the chorus:
“Tonight, …” {Twice}
Lifting higher and higher with organ and string swells. So the song ends positively.
DON’T TALK BACK
The angriest song on the album. The vocal kicks this one in with a yell/cry of anger – backed up by hard chords:
“Oh, you can’t feel it”
“Oh, you can’t hear”
Then eight note unison accents build in the verse:
“Cause all I get is your sweet double word play”
“Now I’m out and now I’m not in your way”
The melody is very simple, Mi-Fa-Mi-Re-Mi. The guitar is doing a stuttering quarter note arpeggio, the drums are accenting the off beats, the bass is sparse. So the vocal drives the rhythm. The first verse is only a partial verse compared to the rest. Then into the chorus and the center of the song – the power chords push the beat with the vocals in counterpoint:
“Don’t talk back” {4 times}
Into the second verse:
“I have to get you just where you want to be”
“I have to talk you down to listen to me”
Hmmm, is there a lack of communication in this relationship? Now the rhythm shifts into a straight rock groove, only this time the vocal becomes sparse -it’s as if the band and vocals switch places rhythmically:
“Jealousy got the best of me”
“I never knew how to referee”
“Shot down by your cold and thin eyes”
“Now I know how to speak my mind”
Well at least Rick got something out of the deal – he’s learned how to speak his mind. And back into chorus:\
“I say”
“Don’t talk back” {4 times}
Next another full verse with some funny lines:
“Won’t see me runnin’ with my tail between my legs”
“I haven’t left my balls a sitting on the shelf”
Macho boasting. This is really tame by today’s standards, but Jack had to fight with the record company to keep those lines. He eventually got them to give in by telling them that there was nothing sexual about balls, that it was just tennis balls or something like that! Then more funny stuff:
“Here comes whip woman taking her place”
“A refugee from the hall of pain”
“Pain boogie, her foot in my face”
“I pardon you’re past, what’s left to say”
C’mon Rick, can’t you just find a nice decent girl to bring home to Mom? (LOL) I think we tried getting a whip sound with a synth, but I don’t hear it on my system. There’s another chorus, and then into a bridge:
“Cause I don’t want to hear”
“Why can’t I get home?”
“I can’t get away”
Vocal full of pain, he’s trapped like an animal. Then the music breaks down to just the guitar power chords. “Shut up!” Guitar lines flit in and out. “Shut up!”, then back into the chorus:
“Don’t talk back” {Over and over}
“Don’tcha, don’tcha, don’tcha talk back”
“Don’t talk back”
And it ends abruptly.
10,000 BANDS
Rick’s take on music biz and his career, and the emotional core of the album. It opens up with a quiet vocal:
“Don’t wanna sings about dreams or…”
“Star struck plights”
Electric piano comes in, moody, sad chords”
“Rock and roll memories”
“And those burnt out nights”
“Swallowing splinters of life”
“And coughing up fear”
The bass comes in to anchor the bottom:
“Then I hear my strung out Stratocaster”
At the risk of being condescending here, the Fender Stratocaster is a guitar (I think Rick’s favorite). It’s a great lyric, “Strung out Stratocaster”. Strings on a guitar, strung out from overwork, strung out on drugs. And Rick comes in on his Strat with some high vibrato:
“Blues away, yeah”
And here comes the chorus with the full band:
“I played guitar in ten thousand bands”
“With nothing to show but bloodied hands”
“I played my leads, screaming high and loud”
“I’ve been fuzzed and phased and echoed”
“And synthesized”
“Ten thousand bands and me”
“Ten thousand bands and me”
When Rick sings “leads” he emphasizes the “e” to make his voice sound more guitar like. Again at the risk of saying the obvious, “fuzzed”, “phased”, “echoed”, “synthesized” all refer to various ways you can modify the sound of the electric guitar. It’s not clear to me whether Rick approves of this. He plays his leads, he’s proud of that, but the fuzzing and phasing is done to him (“I’ve been fuzzed…”). Anyway, some descending chords end the chorus and lead back into the second verse, quietly again:
“Just wanna sing a little sing song”
“And I’ll have some fun”
“But my fine fretted friends, in my band”
“They’re turning me on”
Cute, instead of fine feathered friend, fine fretted (like a guitar) friends.
“They say ‘stick to pop’ it’s gonna take me to the top”
“Ten with a bullet”
Clever the way he breaks up the phrase “top ten”, with the accent on “ten”. It makes it sound like a silly thing to do.
“Then I hear my strung out Stratocaster”
“Blues away, yeah”
And the chorus:
“I played guitar…”
Organ and strings swell in the background to build the emotion. Jeff does some great drum fills. Then the bridge comes in with very spacey, strange chords, almost atonal.
“My eyes to open”
“Too vulnerable”
“Too full of chemicals”
“And a lotta, lotta booze”
“With the three J’s gone”
“They’ve left an open book”
“If I could read between the lines”
“Then I could surely make the grade”
One of the few ‘obscure’ lines in here – “the three J’s gone”. Otherwise, I think he’s just saying that he just can’t do the things they’re asking for (stick to pop).
And now we come to one of the all time classic guitar solos. Rick had this worked out pretty much note for note. When we first rehearsed this I tried doing some block chords going up and down the octaves, but Rick didn’t go for that – “Stop doing that Liberace shit” – so I kept it simple. Listen to the urgency in his voice when he breaks back into singing part of the chorus in the middle of the solo:
“I played my leads”
“Screaming high, and loud”
“I played my leads”
“Screaming higher, and loud, loud, loud, loud!”
“Loud, loud, loud, loud!” That vocal is part of the solo, it’s a combined guitar/vocal solo … and … one of the all time high points of rock and roll.
UP TO YOU
A fun song. It opens up with another one of those stuttering false starts, then kicks in with the guitar playing the melody of the verse. The band is accenting the off beats. Then the band and first verse come in:
“You keep runnin around, pay (play?) the same old bills – to me”
“You keep writing it down, I don’t understand”
I don’t understand either. My guess is that Rick is not talking about a woman in this song, but rather someone in the music biz – that explains all the references to bills and receipts. The business aspects of the music biz made Rick crazy (as it does most musicians). The second half of the verse has more space between the lines:
“Do I have to know?”
“Do I have to show?”
“I ain’t got no receipts,”
“I don’t pay no bills”
And the chorus has another one of those neat descending lines. The guitar and bass are in unison, accenting the vocal. The keys are pounding simple chords in the middle upper register, and the drums tie things together and keep the simple groove going:
“Well now who’s it’s up to you, no me, no you.”
“Yes it’s up to you, no me, no you.”
Second verse, with echoes of the first:
“I keep runnin around, play the same old game”
“You keep chasing me down, wondering what’s the same,”
“the same, the same”
“I don’t really care.”
“How you wanna know”
“Do I gotta get down on my knees”
“and pray?”
A clever, mocking line. And back to the chorus, with some twists:
“There’s something up with you, no me, no you”
“There’s something up with you, no me, no you”
“Yeah I guess (suggest?) it’s up to you, no me, no you”
Now we got some fun, goofy pieces of business. Backwards sounding guitars, mumbo-jumbo, squeals, mutterings, yelling in the background “Say what?” “Hey!”. All on top of the driving beat. Then it breaks down to just a really distorted guitar, doing a bridge riff – power chords. Rick does this funny vocal line:
“So-so-so-so-so-so!”
The band comes in behind the guitar.
“Hang out! Hang in! I can’t win!”
and then the ‘Record Plantettes’ come in on top of the riff:
“You don’t know what to do”
“You don’t know where to go”
“You don’t know who to turn”
“Turn into”
Who are the ‘Record Plantettes’? (I hear you ask) To do this part, Jack had a mike suspended from the ceiling of the big room, then we brought in the entire staff of the Record Plant – the secretaries, the janitors, the guy at the front desk, the engineers in the other studios – basically anyone who was around that afternoon. We all gathered around the mike and sang this a bunch of times, so it sounds like hundreds of voices.
So the song goes back into the chorus and ends on the bottom chord of the descending line.
Side 2
BABY NOW I
This is the most ‘pop sounding’ song on the album and the only one where the keys are the central rhythm instrument. When I play it, my teenage kids start bouncing up and down. I’m playing your basic pounding piano chords and the left and right hands are locked together. When we first rehearsed this, I wanted to break up the left and right hands and have the left hand double up the bass, but Rick didn’t care for that, so I had to respect his judgment. Gary doubled up his bass line with a fuzz bass. (For the technically oriented out there, we had some problems when we first recorded it, all the low end was dropping out. Eventually, Jack figured out that the fuzz box was out of phase, so Lee flipped a switch on the board and everything sounded fine). Anyway, the music starts out with just keys and drums for 4 bars, then the song comes right in:
“Baby now I, baby now I know your name”
“Baby now I, baby now I’m not the same”
“And I can’t go calling you”
“By your ex old man’s big name”
I already mentioned what I think Rick is saying in “your ex-old man’s big name”. The bass and guitars follow in:
“Baby now I, baby now I know your name”
“Baby now you, maybe now you’re not to blame”
“And I don’t call you my own”
“Cause when the madness hits you’re gone”
Maybe “madness” reference to his ‘breakdown’ here? Not sure.
Now while this may be the most pop sounding song, it certainly is not commercial in any sense. For one things, there’s no real chorus – unless you consider the “Baby now I” to be a chorus. Instead the song next goes into a bridge section:
“No one I knew seemed to see at the time”
“That {and?} the wait was on”
“Big woman I knew at the time”
“So bizarre at the time it was”
“That the parties and opportunities”
“That I thought were small”
“Oh-oh-oh!”
I think that these are all references to trying to get his career going, hanging out, trying to meet people, impress people, whatnot. So “Big woman” does not refer to size but importance. Next the song goes back to more “Baby now I”s:
“Baby now I, baby now I know your name”
“Baby now I, baby now I’m not the same”
“And I won’t go calling you”
“No I won’t call you at all”
then into the bridge section:
“Now that I see who goes out on a limb”
“That’s a broken branch”
“I didn’t make time to be loving the things”
“That I thought were small”
“In the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep”
“Twit recesses of my mind”
“I didn’t know”
So in his climb for success, Rick gave up (or overlooked) things that were important. Next some more nifty phased guitar work – very funny stuff. Back into more “Baby now I’m”, wailings, guitars cry, all over the steady beat. Then the keys and guitars drop out leaving the drums and bass, Rick mutters, the drums fade and it segues into a back and forth whooshing effect and goes into:
STRAIGHT JACKET
Someone mentioned in a thread last year that this is basically autobiographical. Rick was briefly “put away” – I don’t remember the details, but I recall Rick talking about being in a padded cell with (yes) a straight jacket until he
calmed down. I think that the back and forth whooshing sound was supposed to evoke the cell door opening and closing – I think we did that on a synth. Some Chuck Berry/Keith Richards type guitar licks come in over the whoosh, then into hard rock style chords, which open up into the verse:
“Well people in the world agree”
“They say ‘Hey, you got a strange, vibration'”
“They see me riding high and rockin through the night”
“They try to tame, oh tame, my situation”
“My mind was in a rage, when I flew from the cage”
“It was a great, day, for aviation”
Ha! Yet another great funny line – “A great day for aviation”. By the way, one of the Rick’s trademarks – which I haven’t mentioned yet – is the way he starts his vocal lines in the middle of the measure. So for example, if I were to write these lines ‘metrically’, it might look like this:
“Well”
“people in the world agree, They say”
“‘Hey, you got a strange vi-“
“bration.” {music} “They”
“see me riding high and rockin through the night, They try to”
“tame, oh tame, my situ-
“ation.” {music} “My”
“mind was in a rage, when I flew from the cage, It’s such a”
“great, day, for avi-
“ation” {Music} “So they put me in a.. “
The musical accents fall on the first words of each of these lines, which is sort of in the middle of the way you would speak it. So this gives the singing a propulsive, rhythmic effect. Anyway, I digressed here from the song – so into the chorus:
“So they put me in a straight, oh straight, straight jacket”
“And they put me in a straight, yeah straight, straight jacket”
“They put me in a straight, yeah straight, straight jacket”
Guitar licks into the second verse:
“Well I’m sitting on top of the world”
“And I say, ‘It’s such a great, oh great, sensation”
Echoes of the first verse, only instead of “They say” it’s “I say”.
“I’m still riding high and I’m out of their cage”
“And they don’t know what to do, don’t know what to do”
“With my way”
Only two couplets in the second verse. Most artists would feel the need to balance things out and have the same number of lines in each verse, but Rick is free of such constraints.
“So they put me in a straight, no straight, straight jacket”
“They put me in a straight, straight, straight jacket”
“They put me in a straight, straight, straight jacket”
Then the music switches into a moody minor feel with a diminished chord, some piano arpeggios and guitar effects, then a low echoed guitar line builds up. Then it’s rock and roll time, power chords, a synth swell, then another chorus leading into a high guitar solo, then out on more power chords.
DON’T WAKE ME UP
A majestic medium tempo rock ballad. The song starts with the chorus. The piano opens up with stately chords for 2 bars supported by the ride cymbal, a moaning guitar line sneaks in, then the band comes in and Rick sings the chorus with a tight harmony.
“Don’t wake me up, baby now”
“Don’t you wake me up”
“Don’t wake me up, baby now”
“Whoa-oh-oh-whoa” {Twice}
Then into the first verse:
“There I was, twice the speed of sound”
“So high, never touching ground”
“And you turning back the clock”
“You see that you, you’re in for a shock”
“Well it’s a surprise, a surprise”
“What a surprise”
If we think of the second side as a narrative, then Rick’s out of the hospital, but the woman with him doesn’t realize what he’s been through, she’s trying to turn back the clock. So then back to the chorus and then into the second verse:
“Say you, standing in the sandbox”
“Please, collar the jive”
“Oh you, finger artist gangster”
“You have to love”
“Love who loves you”
I’m not sure what’s going on here. My read is that the first two lines are to the woman (“Standing in the sandbox” – she’s clinging to the past), but then he starts talking to himself (Rick is the ‘finger artist gangster’) and he needs to
return love. So next we have the bridge:
“Father Time, he’s a make-up man”
“It’s getting late for your telephoto face”
“When I scream, ‘Get out of bed!'”
“Well you tossed and turned and said”
“To me, to me, here’s what you said”
Again I’m not clear what Rick is saying here, but my sense is that he’s talking about how he’s changed, but the woman is clinging to the past. So “Don’t wake me up” could be the woman speaking and saying “Don’t wake me up to what’s happening now, to how things have changed.”
So another chorus. Then there’s a nifty guitar solo (I’ve talked about that already), then the bridge repeats (unusual, but interesting). Then the chorus sung twice again – and one more chorus instrumentally with high guitars.
FOOL NO MORE
Another fun song. I love the way the vocal does the yodeling sort of thing in the chorus: “I-ee-aaaeee-eee-oooh”. The topic could be betrayal, by Rick, of an unsuspecting lover; but the chorus goes against that. If Rick is doing the
betraying, then why has he been a fool. Maybe he’s been a fool to stay with her, but I don’t hear it that way. So to me this song is more an emotion than an explanation.
We start with the guitar line from the chorus, then the chorus kicks in
“I”
“Won’t be a fool, no more”
“I”
“Won’t be a fool, no more”
While Rick does some tight harmony work on a few of the songs, this is the only song on the album with 2 really distinct voices doing harmony. Then into the verse, with a tom-tom beat, low guitars playing parallel fifths with the bass.
“Oh baby got high”
“Then baby got down”
“Innocence”
“Unaware of my sound”
“Unopposed at the door”
Nifty vocal effects, the way Rick “shakes” the words. If I remember correctly, that’s me doubling up the vocals an octave lower in the verse on a vocorder. The vocorder is a studio gadget used to alter your voice – in this case we used it to create a really low distorted growling effect. I had to sing in a completely different key which was tricky but fun. I also pretty sure I played tambourine on this song.
“Stick my foot”
“In my mouth”
“Aimlessly”
“Short of novocain”
“I cause the pain”
{chorus}
“Now I push”
“My fingerprints”
“In your back”
“See what’s up, what’s come down”
“When it’s in, it goes out”
“Influence”
“Drops from the moon”
“Just in time”
“Steady rate of climb”
“Solid state of mind”
{chorus}
This is followed by a whole instrumental cadenza. The rhythm falls down, Gary does an octave pattern on the bass, Tico’s playing off the floor toms, I’m playing pounding quarter note chords on the piano, and Rick is doing a mid range guitar thing, bending notes. Then the band shifts gears and double times. There are simultaneous descending and ascending parts. The bass and guitar go down, while another guitar line and the keys go up so the music is going in two different directions at once. The synth is doing organ/strings and female vocal chorus effects, higher and higher and higher. Finally it peaks and guitar brings it home with the same line used to start off the song.
TENDER LOVING ABUSE
The title track and only ballad on the album. Also the most confessional. It has echoes of the old Stax recordings from the 60’s, but with rock textures. It opens up with solo guitar, doing sort of a finger picking chord line, with slide guitar overlays. Then the vocal comes in on top, yearning:
“I might have treated you different”
“But I didn’t know how”
Some keys start filtering into the background.
“The years that came between us”
“I didn’t know why”
Then the rhythm section comes in, very simply:
“But I know”
“That I”
“Was fooling”
“Myself”
The chord changes and melody in these lines echo the “Do I have to know, do I have to show” from UP TO YOU. Then the chorus:
{Chorus}
“It’s tender loving abuse”
“Tender loving abuse”
“Tender loving abuse”
“Tender loving abuse”
Weariness in the voice. I put in a simple piano line, sort of a gospel thing, to tie it together. And, coming out of the chorus, I stole an Al Kooper organ lick from Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman” – Jack said it was OK. Second verse, more images of falling apart:
“Playing much too hard”
“I couldn’t slow down”
“Couldn’t talk out loud”
“So drowned out in silence”
“How touching”
“It is”
“When we”
“Break down”
Back to the chorus. Then into the bridge where the rhythm section is very sparse, the ride cymbal predominates. Rick goes into full confessional mode. This is like the section in the soul songs where the singer gets down on his
knees, pleads for forgiveness: “Please woman, take me back.” Only, with Rick’s twist, they come back knowing they’re going to hurt each other more.
“How sweet it is to be hurt by you”
“What is it you see”
“To – keep, keep, keep coming back”
“For more, more…”
Pain in his voice, then
“Tender loving abuse” {over and over}
One more organ lick, the chords resolve and we’re done. But then a distorted guitar cries out one more atonal chord, which gradually descends and dissolves into fade in the distance.
Now I’ve already written that there are very few ‘standard’ story lines in the songs. But if you want, you can read sort of an autobiographical story in the progression of songs on the second side:
BABY NOW I: Young, callow youth trying to make it big in show biz, but on the verge of a breakdown.
STRAIGHT JACKET: Breakdown
DON’T WAKE ME UP: Post breakdown, girlfriend still thinks of him as he was before
I WON’T BE A FOOL: Breakup of relationship
TENDER LOVING ABUSE: Regret over breakup
Well, maybe I’m reading more into this than is there. And, like I said, if you see things differently than me, your interpretation is just as valid as mine.
================================================
“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture”
There’s a controversy over who first said this, but there’s a lot of truth to it. Doing this was a lot harder than I originally thought; it’s taken me the better part of a month to piece this together, but I’m glad I took the time.
Each of the 10 songs is a like a little mini-concerto, and it’s been fun taking them apart and figuring out what makes each one tick. Rick molds standard song conventions as he sees fit. Songs may start off with the chorus, verses may chopped in half, additional instrumental sections are added at the end of songs, and so on. I don’t believe that any of this is self conscious. I don’t think that Rick said to himself, “Hmmm, how can I break conventions here?”. He just followed his inner muse and let the music go where it needed to go.
Next time, I should be able to wrap things up.
PART 8
So, so, so, so. . . .
I left off the chronology in the middle of berating myself and doing keyboard overdubs. There’s not too much more to tell. We finished the keys, I think, in the second week of September. I then took off and spent some time with my sister. I went back to the studio a week or so later and Jack was in the middle of doing percussion overdubs. The studio was filled with percussion instruments – conga drums, bongos, shakers, rattles, etc. There may have even been some tympani drums in there. Jack was working on a tambourine part for (and again my memory is hazy here) FOOL NO MORE. He was having trouble, so I volunteered. At first it was tough, because it was hard to make out the beat in headphones; so I had the headphone mix changed to be mostly snare drum with a little vocal and instrument. That made it easy. I hung around a little, but it was depressing for me not to be doing anything. So I booked my flight home. I came back one last time to the studio the night before I left – Jack & Lee had started working on the final mixes. I couldn’t get into it, so I said my good byes to everyone and took off.
Now when I was out gigging, I would typically come home from playing and get depressed. Playing was always an incredible high for me – even without drugs – and finishing a gig was just coming down. So I was pretty sure that when I came back from California I’d be totally bummed out, cuz I had just finished the most incredible gig in my life. And… I was right. I went into the deepest depression I’d ever experienced in my life. I basically got stoned and stared at the walls of my apartment for a month or so. I knew I had to pull myself out of it, so I threw myself into a home recording project. I had learned a tremendous amount of stuff from being around Jack, Rick, and Lee, so I did some 4-track demo tapes. There was a world of difference from anything I’d ever done before – I had actually learned how to put together a sound.
I also went to see Tico and Gary play – they had formed a club band and were playing down in Scotch Plains. It was fun, Gary was singing Runaway by Dion and Tico was pounding away – they sounded pretty good. At the end of the show, Gary & I were talking, and Tico was packing up. All of a sudden, from offstage, a very attractive young woman started calling out, “Tico! Tico!” Gary & I looked at each other, how does this guy do it? It would have been fun to play with them, but I couldn’t see myself going back to the club scene anymore, lugging all that equipment around, playing cover tunes for drunken kids. So I supported myself by doing part time day work and played in bands doing original music – much of which I wrote or co-wrote.
I spoke with Rick every once and a while. I remember talking to him once while we were simultaneously watching Bob Dylan on Saturday Night Live – from other sides of the continent – and we were critiquing his performance as he was playing (he was really good). The album was finished but nothing much was happening. I sensed that things were not going according to plan but I didn’t press Rick for details. Whatever was going to happen would happen and it was out of my control. Eventually the album was released early in 1980 on Polydor, which was not the original label. How this happened I don’t know. I suspect Jack used his influence to get a favor, but that’s only a hypothesis on my part. We got a brief review in Billboard. I went out to www.billboard.com and found it. Here it is:
Reviews & Previews -Album Reviews: Generic
August 30, 1980,
Tender Loving Abuse
This digitally recorded LP bears the guitar-oriented stamp of one-time Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas. Emphasis should switch to tight melodies for more cohesion, and guitarist/writer DuFay could strengthen his vocals a bit. Quality musicianship is supplied by Eric Holland, keyboards; bassist Gary Seitz; and Tico on drums, among others. Best cuts: “Up To You,” “Baby Now.”
I didn’t even get a copy of the album, although the royalties (ha-ha!) started rolling in. I think I got a check for $7 one month and another for $4. If I had been thinking clearly I would have saved them.
Rick moved to New York in 1980 and was staying at Jack’s place in NYC – this was when Jack was recording Double Fantasy. We still spoke occasionally. Rick told me that John would call up in the early afternoon and say to Rick (and this is not an exact quote but an approximation) “Tell Jack to get his lazy ass out of bed and come down to the studio”.
But it was clear that nothing was going to happen with TLA, and we were drifting apart.
And then there was the terrible day in December. I heard the announcement on TV. It was a bad dream, it just couldn’t be real; but the TV cameras were at the hospital and there was Jack & his wife going into the hospital. I spoke to Jack’s wife briefly a few days later, but that was my last contact with either Rick or Jack (until recently).
So I did some more recording projects, but nothing went anywhere. Eventually I decided that the music biz just wasn’t going to do it for me, so I went back to college, got a Master’s degree, got a decent career going, met a wonderful woman, got married, settled down, had kids (boy/girl twins – they’re now teenagers), yadda-yadda-yadda. Life is decent, and at my wife’s encouragement I’m actually getting out and playing a little these days.
Years later after I had stopped playing, I was in a record shop in the Village with a buddy. I was idly going through the discount rack, when all of a sudden there was Rick’s face staring out at my. Holy shit! Look at this! That’s the album I did! So that’s how I got my copy of TLA – “Factory Sealed for Your Protection” no less!
Well that’s pretty much my story of the recording of TLA. Memory is a funny and selective thing. There are large portions of my life that I can only remember in broad outlines, but the summer of 1979 is still sharp. I could fill up pages with all sorts of boring/silly details — but I’ve taken up enough space.
Thanks to Terry AKA TED for keeping me on track and encouraging me when my spirits flagged. Someday you’ll have to tell me what the TED stands for. If any of you have questions, don’t be shy; if you want to go “off group” you can contact me at my yahoo email. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and keep the flame going.
THE END
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A Few Very Brief Postscripts:
Sometime in the mid 2000’s (I think around 2008 or so) Rick’s name started popping up all over the internet. It turns out that he is the father of movie/TV actress Minka Kelly. While I’m not 100% on this, after looking at some pics and consulting 30 year old memories, I’m reasonably sure that Minka’s mon is the woman I rather despairingly referred to by her prominent body parts back in Part 4.
A few months back, Jeff Seitz was visiting in NJ and I re-connected with both Jeff and Gary. Jeff organized a jam session at a local club and we were able to play together on a few tunes. Jeff and Gary sounded great together – it was very special for me.
Montclair, NJ May/2013
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May 18, Saturday, 8-9:30 PM – Lunatic Fringe, Glen Ridge Community Center @ The Glen Ridge Train Station, 228 Ridgewood Avenue (corner of Bloomfield Avenue), Glen Ridge, NJ Reservations: (973) 429-1527
Now that Sean Day has somehow eluded customs and is back in the good old US of A, Lunatic Fringe is back up to it’s full funny complement of cantankerous yet comedic caterwauling clowns. I think I better keep my day job with this writing.
http://www.lunaticfringeimprov.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53938723078&ref=ts
May 24, Friday, 9:00 PM-1:00ish – Better Off Dead at The Great Notch Inn, Route 46, Little Falls (973) 256-7742
Did you know that May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month? I am honored to have bought you this important news. In other important news, the scheduling gods have decreed that Better of Dead will play on a Friday instead of Saturday this month. It’s a date.
http://www.betteroffdead.com/home.htm/
http://www.agreatertown.com/little_falls_nj/great_notch_inn_new_jerseys_rockin_roadhouse_00089580
May 31, Friday, 7:00-9:00 PM – The Stumble, Ruthie’s BBQ, 64 1/2 Chestnut Ave, Montclair (973) 509-1134As long as the weather cooperates, we will be playing out on the veranda. We may have to turn our amps up a little to compete with the 17 year locusts who will likely be out in full force. If the weather is not cooperating, we will still play inside squeezed into the corner. You may see this billed on Ruthie’s web site as Arne Englund, but it will be the full group featuring the all star rhythm of Phil Butler on bass and Matt Patuto on drums. Arne knows pretty much every blues song ever written (at least it seems that way to me). Is there a 17 Year Locust Blues song? I don’t know, but if there is, Arne will know it. As always, Ruthie’s is BYO.
http://www.ruthiesbbq.com/