All the albums that I've made in the past, we've always had an orchestra on. And it's been [uh] an element of the record-making which I've enjoyed so much. It's been so beautiful, it's been so wonderful to kinda go into the studio and you know, you've got the rhythm track down and you've got a basic vocal, but you'll go in the studio and you know, you put the orchestra on. And on a few occasions, maybe a handful of occasions, I've actually sung with the orchestra, which has been probably the greatest feeling in the whole wide world.
Better than a dream, stranger than my wild imagination. If this is a real sensation it's better than a dream. Higher than the moon, hazy like a beautiful illusion, crazy in the confusion, and better than a dream.
This time around, I really wanted to make an album where the basis was the orchestra, and really the perfect person that I knew to do that with was Mike Bow, [you know] my long time collaborator, my producer.
Mike is a beautiful arranger and it's (it is) very subtly and wonderfully done but it is the heart of the album and that's (that is) what makes this record different to the others.
And if we get up off our knees
Why then we'd see the forest for the trees
and we'd see the new sun rising
Over the hills and horizon
there's gold in them hills
there's gold in them hills
So don't lose faith
Give the world a chance to say
Well alot of people just put strings on
a record but what's different about
this is that the choosing of the songs
and the compiling of the songs
and the writing of the songs were done
in a way that you know the orchestra
was always kept in mind.
There was an awful lot of experimentation
going on in this album, alot of trying this
and trying that, in the end to get to something
that was quite calm and sort of beautiful and sophisticated.
Your like a secret symphony
that walls created just for me
some knowing mind
some guiding hand
must have designed
must have planted
When we set out to make this album
I really had no intention in writing
because I wanted to just make it
a singer's album, I just want to sing my heart out
um but as often with creative things
you know things dont always go as planned and
I did end up writing a of couple songs which I'm really proud of and um and one song that I wrote on my own. And it's amazing that you can you know set out to do one thing and it just sort of changes path.
There's a silence, the ending darkness feels
When you're singing with love
Remembering life, a good blessed life
I'm forgetting all my troubles
I'm forgetting all my troubles
[4:47]
Personally, I don't, sort of, think too much about singing. In my mind there's never any thoughts of getting the note right or, you know, how my voice sounds, or putting a certain timbre on it, or anything like that, it's just about, saying what the lyrics are saying, it's very straight forward. I think also because I wasn't so concerned about writing for this album, that kind of takes that pressure off a little bit, and so you don't have to worry about your own words and saying your own words in a certain way, you know, they're someone else's words and you can, kind of, you know, kind of go inside them and live in them and sort of, you know, it's almost like an empty piece of cloth or like an outfit that you can just, wander into and, and just dance around in so um instead of a dress that you've made yourself, you know, you get, someone like Ralph Lauren to make it and its, far more fabulous; fits really nicely.
Well this is [uh], a record by Françoise Hardy, and it has on it "All over the world" which is a song that we've actually covered.
All over the world
people must meet and part
there's someone like me
feeling the pain in their heart
some may meet again
under that same white star
if maybe some night
you come back from afar.
[6:50]
On the last record there was a case of, you know spending a month recording everything, just getting everything down, not even looking at it there and then, and then the next month, sifting through everything and really picking out the best bits and, the interesting bits, and the bits that go, and just kind of chopping them up and placing them in different parts of the song. So it was a big editing process. Um, on this record, it's slightly more organic, you know, we kind of, record it, and then we'll pretty much use it as is, apart from a few sort of edits and things like that.
The bit that I don't get
is how it changed so fast
how it changed from
we will always be together
to it will never last
the writing on the wall
I hadn't seen it yet
when you told me you were tired of it all
that's the bit that I don't get
[8:03]
Over a period of two, three months, uh we made the album, and we did about, four or five string sessions, you use this, uh, you know, software called Pro Tools which is pretty much what everyone uses these days, and uh it lets you, its its like, like an old tape machine it lets you cut and, paste it into a different section, into any section that you want, you could put it through different filters, you could do whatever you want with it, which is amazing what technology can do these days.
[8:35]
I absolutely loved filming the cover for this album, um, and often with these things, it ended up being completely, not what we planned to do. We actually had a big old, um, sort of empty, orchestra chairs and instruments lying around, and that was the idea that I was going to be in front of this sort of, empty orchestra stadium, and uh we took those pictures, and they came out well, but then there was this frame lying around in the studio and someone suggested you know what would it be like if I was sort of in the middle of that frame, and we tried it, and I had this dress on which I just really loved and I felt really comfortable in, and uh after you know taking the pictures you know in that siutuation everyone just came up to me and said thats got to be the album cover.
[9:28]
I think um, anytime you make a record its always a reflection of how you're feeling in your life and where you're at and uh and this is a tranquil and sort of smooth and calm album and that definitely reflects, you know where I'm at at the moment. There isn't a lot of angst in it and thats just kind of wonderful to be able to be feeling good and to be making music that makes you feel good too.
For life or a day, for real or pretend
if I had my way, this feeling would never end
you're like an angel playing with my heart strings
You're asking me not to leave you
and baby that makes me smile
let's get our house with a sea-view
forever or just for a little while
We'll drink some champagne, we'll look at the stars
and do it again cause baby the world is ours
you're like an angel playing with my heartstrings
Sometimes I think we're only,
on a day trip to Disneyland. [Fade out]
I need only the spoken part.... thank you