Elizabeth June
This is Betty's song...my friend Betty, whose ghost haunts Palm Springs, or at least haunts me in Palm Springs. She died here, lonely. I was too afraid to see her old to go looking for her. But I bet she was beautiful up to and through the end.
Recorded by the great and powerful Ethan Allen, of the late Kingsway studio in New Orleans and the first two 50FootWave records. Ethan worked on Throwing Muses' Limbo, as well as Sky Motel and the Echo single.
Ethan's Royal Triton in LA is a studio full of lovely old mikes, an iso booth jammed with old National Geographics and undelivered Christmas presents, and a control room decorated with tiny gears, bad lamps, broken tools and Ethan's gentle smile.
No drums, no bass per se, though we achieved bass frequencies by dropping one of the acoustics an octave. The track sounds sweet, yet bizarre. Somehow, a B flat crept in, though there's no such note in the chords I was playing. Maybe it's Betty, singing along. Betty sure liked to sing.
The lyrics hurt my feelings 'cause I miss Betty and I missed her end, but I like to think of her sweet, yet bizarre self having only palm trees to answer to, after a life fraught with tension. Bullied by the entertainment industry, she was riddled with insecurity...a great brain, not given a minute to think.
The song says she found some peace.
Recorded by the great and powerful Ethan Allen, of the late Kingsway studio in New Orleans and the first two 50FootWave records. Ethan worked on Throwing Muses' Limbo, as well as Sky Motel and the Echo single.
Ethan's Royal Triton in LA is a studio full of lovely old mikes, an iso booth jammed with old National Geographics and undelivered Christmas presents, and a control room decorated with tiny gears, bad lamps, broken tools and Ethan's gentle smile.
No drums, no bass per se, though we achieved bass frequencies by dropping one of the acoustics an octave. The track sounds sweet, yet bizarre. Somehow, a B flat crept in, though there's no such note in the chords I was playing. Maybe it's Betty, singing along. Betty sure liked to sing.
The lyrics hurt my feelings 'cause I miss Betty and I missed her end, but I like to think of her sweet, yet bizarre self having only palm trees to answer to, after a life fraught with tension. Bullied by the entertainment industry, she was riddled with insecurity...a great brain, not given a minute to think.
The song says she found some peace.
posted by Kristin at 2:48 PM
15 Comments:
A simply lovely track. This one reminds me of some of Bill Nelson's solo work, after his large label days ended, a four track, guitar ambience, and a sense of haunting sounds.
Haunted by fame, haunted by wealth. We're all haunted by living. Perhaps the best way to deal with a haunting is through compassion--and a keen ear for the sounds reverberating, all around.
If B will post the sheet music for this one, I'll create a MIDI for it.
Got the photos in the mail. Wooo hoo! and Thank you.
Lovely pictures. I like representations of the seasons. :)
This song changed my perspective on the view when I had reading The Letter originally.
Music rocks
Here's my best shot at the lyrics, with ... when I gave up:
The ground's on fire
The ground's on fire
and so are you
god left you here to
you could call for rain
you could call for rain
you'll ... all those trees
some fall
some know me
... hand you me
I am sorry
when you were right
it was okay
to be scared
Thanks you guys! If I can get the sheet music down while I'm here in Edinburgh, I will -- I really appreciate the MIDI offer.
Glad you like the photos...
Lucas, I think the lyric sheet is here -- it should help.
Kristin, if you do a braindump of stuff related to the composition I promise to convert it to a clean lead sheet and MIDI file. The chords are a little too subtle to easily figure out, aside from that I would have knocked this out already.
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Thanks so much Lucas. Sorry for the delay -- I'm in Scotland and not online all the time.
First of all, you should know that very often, I record a step down, so the tuning is D-G-C-F-A-D.
There are 2 chords in the song -- they're basically F major 7 & G. With a floating E throughout.
It could be one of the simplest songs I've ever written...but it's also one of the strangest. If there's anything else I can tell you, please ask.
It's so cool of you to do this.
Love,
K
@Lucas--
That's great that you're doing a MIDI and lead sheet, as you'll do a better job than I would have! I hope to take your MIDI and see if I can't have a little fun with it, or else program the lead sheet into my little sawcutter synth and see if I can't find the ambient core in this haunting song.
Lucas...I think I may have screwed you up by telling you the song is in F maj 7...when the track is dropped a key.
The fingering didn't sound right in any other key (I play it on the 8th and 10th frets)...but the track IS down a whole step.
K
@ Lucas, Gurdonark,
A MIDI? like original NES music sounding?
Kristin Hersh as old school music, now that would be neat to hear.
peteZ
I heard the chords as Eb maj 7 and F6, which work pretty well if you just strum along.
Transcription and other comments here:
http://soupgreens.com/2008/08/17/transcription-of-elizabeth-june-by-kristen-hersh/
I have the melody and arrangement in good shape, but I definitely didn't nail the picking patterns.
paul and peter ziomek, the MIDI is for remixers. They can pick the patch to use, including 8-bit patches but also any kind of whacked thing that feel like doing. So it's really just a useful input for doing derived works based on this one.
Petez...with MIDI it's easy to do something not that far from the old NES vidgame sounds, but with MIDI you can also do a lot of "new school" synth and sampler work that visits other galaxies nearly as cool as the NES nebula :).
MIDI seams flexible. Can't wait to hear the MIDI's guys.
Im totally down with video game music. (loved the SNES Castlevania 4 music)
Can I request a NES or SNES Sounding version ..........
Do you guys know if there are KH midis out there already? just curious.
peteZ
This is gorgeous, one of my favorites so far.
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