The Songs - Across the Norwood Bridge
01/05/09
Across the Norwood Bridge (ATNB) is another song from the early to mid nineteen-eighties. With two young children around, I was spending lots of time at home - when I wasn’t working all hours. The song is a ‘story’ song to the extent that it harkens back to my real adolescence. My friend Ross McKellar, my brother Frank, sometimes some other friends and I would, as the song says, walk from our home neighbourhood in north St. Vital, across the Norwood Bridge, and into downtown. Once there we would spray ourselves with men’s cologne at Eaton’s (first Old Spice, then Jade East and then? Frank, what was the brand? Brut!), check out the record department there, move down Portage Avenue to Kresge’s or the Met (maybe stop for a Coke fellas?), continue to the Bay record department (I won’t say what we did there!), and finally end up at the Paddlwheel. Full of chips and gravy and impressions, we’d head home - back the way we came.
The song as I first played it was more about lyrics than melody. In fact, I have three or four more verses not used on the record. (N.B. The “Gord’ referred to in the first verse of the recorded version was originally ‘Ross’.) Anyway, I just bashed away on my acoustic, using a few simple chords and obvious changes. I originally had no particular style in mind, but the story-like lyrics and the straight-ahead music suggested Country. And there it sat for many years.
Fast forward to a few years ago, and I was showing a few original songs to a new friend of ours, Vanessa Kuzina (superb solo singer/song-writer and part of Oh My Darling - the best roots/everything band anywhere! www.myspace.com/ohmydarlingmusic). ATNB was her favourite, which surprised me because I had never taken it very seriously. However, that was the point. Properly done, it’s not serious - it’s lighthearted, simple, and sincere.
As part of the CD project with my son Paul, we were trying to figure out how to arrange it. Tony Buchner and I had tried it as rock-n-roll, in a higher key. I had tried it with Doug Anderson as country blues, but nothing quite fit what I could hear in my head. For years I had wondered what it would sound like with honky-tonk or barrel-house piano. When the CD project folded into the novel project, ATNB was almost a perfect fit. It had the right setting, the right time-frame, the right characters (just change one name), and the right attitude. Somebody/everybody came up with the idea of a ‘back-story’ for the song that would fold into right into he novel - and determine the arrangement/production. One of the characters in Except My Love for You is Jack Lovell, real good childhood friend of the protagonist, Gordon Strachan. In the book, Jack played guitar and wrote songs - the songs we’re talking about here. So....if Jack had had a garage band back in the day (late 60’s), that garage band might have played the song a certain way - loose, lighthearted, and loud.
Paul came up with a piano player, Nick Mullin. After a few takes, Nick came up with exactly the rollicking piano rolls and riffs we needed. Paul’s wife, Ashli Hodgert was drafted to add a goofy but good trombone counter-melody. Vanessa the K. graciously agreed to put some sweet but soulful harmonies behind my thin lead vocal. Paul played drums for the track, to get the ‘learner’ feel we wanted. Paul also did the boom-diddy-boom bass and the straight-up slide guitar. I was on ‘When do I start?’ rhythmn guitar, as usual. Paul, John, Luke Bergen, Jane Helbrecht, and Ashli put on the ‘just in control’ vocal chorus.
The resulting thirty odd tracks were a magnificent mess, which Paul wove into what I think is a very entertaining simulation of how Jack’s not quite fully rehearsed band would have performed the song - some time long ago in the friendly imagination.
P. S. The rest of the back-story:
1. See, Jack met this cute girl at band camp who played trombone. He told the boys he wanted her in the band. “There are no trombones in rock bands!” was there reply.’She’s really cute and it’s my band.’ was the answer.
2. If you’ve read the book, imagine Vanessa as Muriel the mystery girl. Is she in the band or not?
***Click ‘Apr 2009’ on the right hand margin - for more blogs on the songs and the story.
The song as I first played it was more about lyrics than melody. In fact, I have three or four more verses not used on the record. (N.B. The “Gord’ referred to in the first verse of the recorded version was originally ‘Ross’.) Anyway, I just bashed away on my acoustic, using a few simple chords and obvious changes. I originally had no particular style in mind, but the story-like lyrics and the straight-ahead music suggested Country. And there it sat for many years.
Fast forward to a few years ago, and I was showing a few original songs to a new friend of ours, Vanessa Kuzina (superb solo singer/song-writer and part of Oh My Darling - the best roots/everything band anywhere! www.myspace.com/ohmydarlingmusic). ATNB was her favourite, which surprised me because I had never taken it very seriously. However, that was the point. Properly done, it’s not serious - it’s lighthearted, simple, and sincere.
As part of the CD project with my son Paul, we were trying to figure out how to arrange it. Tony Buchner and I had tried it as rock-n-roll, in a higher key. I had tried it with Doug Anderson as country blues, but nothing quite fit what I could hear in my head. For years I had wondered what it would sound like with honky-tonk or barrel-house piano. When the CD project folded into the novel project, ATNB was almost a perfect fit. It had the right setting, the right time-frame, the right characters (just change one name), and the right attitude. Somebody/everybody came up with the idea of a ‘back-story’ for the song that would fold into right into he novel - and determine the arrangement/production. One of the characters in Except My Love for You is Jack Lovell, real good childhood friend of the protagonist, Gordon Strachan. In the book, Jack played guitar and wrote songs - the songs we’re talking about here. So....if Jack had had a garage band back in the day (late 60’s), that garage band might have played the song a certain way - loose, lighthearted, and loud.
Paul came up with a piano player, Nick Mullin. After a few takes, Nick came up with exactly the rollicking piano rolls and riffs we needed. Paul’s wife, Ashli Hodgert was drafted to add a goofy but good trombone counter-melody. Vanessa the K. graciously agreed to put some sweet but soulful harmonies behind my thin lead vocal. Paul played drums for the track, to get the ‘learner’ feel we wanted. Paul also did the boom-diddy-boom bass and the straight-up slide guitar. I was on ‘When do I start?’ rhythmn guitar, as usual. Paul, John, Luke Bergen, Jane Helbrecht, and Ashli put on the ‘just in control’ vocal chorus.
The resulting thirty odd tracks were a magnificent mess, which Paul wove into what I think is a very entertaining simulation of how Jack’s not quite fully rehearsed band would have performed the song - some time long ago in the friendly imagination.
P. S. The rest of the back-story:
1. See, Jack met this cute girl at band camp who played trombone. He told the boys he wanted her in the band. “There are no trombones in rock bands!” was there reply.’She’s really cute and it’s my band.’ was the answer.
2. If you’ve read the book, imagine Vanessa as Muriel the mystery girl. Is she in the band or not?
***Click ‘Apr 2009’ on the right hand margin - for more blogs on the songs and the story.
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