I'm not in love...

 
I gave up all this malarkey once, y'know. I thought, "Well, that's it. I've had a good run, I've made people laugh, I've made them cry, I've stood on stage in Blues Brothers shades and a flouncy scarf, I've won a trophy - maybe it's time to move over just in time for some kid from Framlingham to take over and take on the world. But before I go..." 

All of this is true.

Before I went, I thought I should record some songs for posterity. Just pretty basic things - I gave Gibbon a CD of Clive Gregson's Strange Persuasions and told him that I wanted it to sound like that. He had a portastudio and a drum machine and a bass so it seemed like a pretty simple plan. Of course it didn't turn out anything like that. 

We did a few things late at night and quietly. We booked a live room for a day. My friend Ross could sing and was willing to get the train up from London for an afternoon. Wendell couldn't really shred but he had a twelve-string Rickenbacker and so I got him to play a solo (the last time I'd done that I'd asked him to try and make it sound like "...a musical box running out of wind on a playground situated in the midst of a post-nuclear wasteland", so I knew he'd be up for something as simple as "I want you to tell me how much you love this person with as few notes as possible").

We later re-recorded this song properly for SftBH III - without drums but with proper keyboards, a fiddle player and a pedal steel. TT (who did some truly lovely work on string parts and piano) always giggled at "This could be the pesticide" and "cokehead" in the lyrics. For the record, it's "Best aside" and "Coquette", but, y'know, whatever works for you is fine by me. While I was clearing some stuff up in the kitchen earlier today Mrs Skirky's iPod happened to be on her favourites list and it came on. 

Here it is. https://soundcloud.com/doyoudoanywings/in-my-arms