Red Velvet Car: song by song

Red Velvet Car
Red Velvet Car

RED VELVET CAR
SONG BY SONG WITH ANN AND NANCY WILSON

THERE YOU GO: We made the guitars and drums in the song sound like a quagmire because that?s what?s all around the young person in this song. It´s a song of warning about the dangers of this world, and so the instruments are all bleeding into one another and there´s a sense of intensity and things buzzing out of control. (ANN) The song and its purpose mutated. Craig Bartock and I started it as a cautionary tale, a warning to a young woman on a red carpet. But when Ann got a hold of it, the song became something else entirely and something really phenomenal.


WTF: It started like a jam, like that song by Cream ´SWLABR.´ Later when I wrote the words, they were really angry and they just blasted out of me, like I might have just as well said, ´What the ****?´ (ANN) Craig had that amazing guitar part, and then Ann came in with this scream of lyrics. I thought maybe the song was about someone else, but then the other day Ann mentioned it´s kind of the way you talk to yourself. Basically, it´s intense, and to me it´s about making mistakes and how hard it is to stay human. (NANCY) 

RED VELVET CAR: When I first said those words, I knew it right away that it was a phrase worth using in a song. Sue Ennis — our friend and our co-writer from way back — was in town and really needed a rescue from the Hollywood hotel where she was attending a seminar. I said, ´Are you kidding me? I´d come get you in a red velvet car. I wrote it down immediately. Ann took that title and ran it. (NANCY) Nancy is like Ringo in that sense. She´s always been great at coming up with cool turns of phrase that don´t really need to be explained because they communicate something powerfully. Musically, I´ve got to give it to Ben Mink, because I wanted the song to have that R&B sensuality to it, but also something fresh, and I think together, we got it.

QUEEN CITY: That song is a real retrospective. We wanted to write about our chronology really and this dear place we came from and that I still live in — Seattle. We tried to do it by jumping into different scenes, from childhood to the grunge scene. It´s about our home, and our lives. (ANN) Before we were the Emerald City, or the Jet City, we were Queen City. (NANCY)

HEY YOU: ´Hey You´ is about the arc of a love affair, and gratitude for what was there and maybe what is no longer there. This song took me about ten years to finish. Perhaps I was waiting for a kind of ending. But I could never get it right until I worked with Ben Mink. It reflects a sort of poetic overview of life that might hurt a lot, but it´s not bitter. When I first came up with those words, I thought could it be that simple? Yes, it could. (NANCY) The song starts very romantically and ends very philosophically, and it´s really quite heartbreaking. Nancy is such an amazing lyric writer when she is left to her own devices. She really pours her heart out so beautifully. I love it. It will probably get people guessing, and I think that´s how she wants it. (ANN)


WHEELS: I love that song — it was a bit of a dark horse that one. Ben had a beautiful groove for a score he was doing, and we had the bass line in our back pocket for about twenty years. (NANCY) ´Wheels´ came from a bass line we were working on many years ago, trying to write a song for the movie Midnight Run. We wanted to have songs that reflected all our travels ? and the idea of travel — like Joni Mitchell did so well with Hejira. Ben took that idea and really ran with it. (ANN)

SAFRONIA´S MARK: Safronia was a great, great, great grandmother of ours from the Civil War era. (ANN) The song became this gypsy folk urchin song and another Seattle story. It felt like it could be one of the first songs we wrote for Dreamboat Annie. Even at this distinguished age, there was so much enthusiasm, like the first time we had the chance to write songs. It felt completely honest, and had no shred of any specific time. (NANCY)

DEATH VALLEY: It´s one of those American pioneer images, but it´s a lyric that came straight out of a text from Ann ? and that word ´text´ is even in the song. It´s not a word you hear in a lot of rock songs, even now. I had the theme guitar part, and somehow it added up to make the song so visual. And it takes you inside the experience of when things get so bleak on the road, and you are just scraping to get there. (NANCY) It´s meant to show both in the music and lyrics the dreamlike desolation of a bad trip — that sense you can get of feeling marooned on the road. It´s a large metaphor for life really, and the strange places we all go.

SUNFLOWER: It´s funny because when I first heard ´Hey You´ there were a few lines I thought I heard myself in. I privately, secretly thought she´d written a song about me. Then I found out it was definitely about someone else. So I told Nancy, and she then wrote ´Sunflower´ to try and write a song about me as a birthday gift. She said, ´Here you go, here´s your present.´ And I still get tight in the throat when I hear this song. (ANN)

SAND: This song would not go away until it found its perfect home. We recorded ´Sand´ with the Lovemongers, and kept playing it in different rooms until it found its rightful place. Ben Mink heard us play it live and said, ´Wow, that´s such a great song, why don´t we do it?´ It´s a tough one to get through because it sums up the arc of a love affair, or the arc of a life or the end of a season. It´s a simple concept big enough to imprint heavily in your life — the idea that time runs out. (NANCY) Now ´Sand´ has finally claimed its power and its place. Some songs stay with you, and continue to live and that´s when you know you really have something.

Thanx to Davidmonger!

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27 thoughts on “Red Velvet Car: song by song

  1. The Amazing Answer Man just can’t resist answering a question, or questioning an answer. The song “Hey You” asks some questions, so Amazing Answer Man has some answers. What can I say, other than, I’m Amazing!!!

    1) Did I fumble with my keys? –Yes. In an emotional state of mind, I threw away my half of the key. (When you have only Hearts up your sleeve, can you, in playing Poker, bluff when you need the Ace of Clubs?)

    2) Did I win the wanderlust? –No. (Where would I go, when I’m already home? I’ll just wait by the door, until someone turns the lock open.)

    3) Am I tangled in the trees? –Maybe, but I’m certainly tangled in doubt. (By the way, the symphony is not gone. It just doesn’t know what to play.)

    4) Did it bring me to my knees? –Yes, but I get up the best I can. (Are your knees sore, too?)

    5) Have I had enough of you? –Never, but two worlds waiting waits forever. (But, what will you do with that “extra” day? And that’s the day that counts.)

    —The Amazing Answer Man has done it, again! He knows all and answers all! (And he’s very modest.)

  2. So, she wants to keep us guessing, eh?

    Without help, I think only a few connected people will ever really know what ‘Hey You’ is about. There are too many possibilities. For example, I am confused about the intent of the word “still”, in the phrase “You are still about tomorrow”. Does it mean:
    a. You are ‘quiet’ about tomorrow?; or
    b. You ‘continue to think’ about tomorrow?.

    And, what is “diamond dust”? Is it:
    a. The iridescent twinkle of fresh snowflakes in the winter?; or
    b. The glimmer of the infinitely scattered stars against the dark October sky?; or
    c. The glittering grains of sand in the glare of the blazing desert sun?; or
    d. The damp mist in the thin morning light?

    As a piece of music, the song is quite fine. But the images lack the passion of personal detail and personal intent. We are abandoned, by the author, to the wilderness of guesses and unsureness. And, there is a danger the intended subject of the song, will also be abandoned to puzzlement and confusion. The title ‘Hey You’ is appropriate, as it is afraid to give a name to the nameless. And, it puts off that scary task, “until forever and a day run out of time”. (So afraid of one, who’s so afraid of you.) –Hmm… this album does bring you back to the very beginning. The circle is complete. The carrousel keeps turning, and you’ll ride the painted horse, forever.

  3. She has bought what she’s been sold:
    A molded plastic heaven.
    Yet, still she hears a distant wind,
    At quarter to eleven.

    She knows this forest full of trees,
    Once tender green in May.
    Saddened by their lack of leaves,
    November’s dreary day.

    Feel the old, and feel the cold,
    Be crowned the Queen of Snow.
    Touch December’s shortest day,
    And finally you shall know.

    We all have made our choice of songs,
    And you have made your own.
    We cannot change, until we change,
    And find our way back home.

  4. To an old, old friend, who is emotionally connected to the songs of Heart:

    Hello Sunshine,

    I would like to revive our unique friendship, but I am not sure how to do that. Someone said you regretted that day. I never understood why you went away, but I could not forget and held onto the memories that mattered. You haunted me, and I chose to hang on. Your image has always been with me, since that day you left. That one day… It seems like yesterday, …but of a thousand years ago.
    Please come home.
    Then, where the lake meets the sand, we will hold each other, see the memories in our eyes, and dance the moonlight dance. We will dance ‘til dawn does come. There will be no fading in the sun.
    Please come back home. Don’t worry how you look, now. I will gladly see your age. Love escapes the lines of time, and place, …but not of dreams.
    Please just come back home.

    Ancient River

  5. “dance the moonlight dance”? There is a Goth-Metal song that is titled, Moonlight Dance. Here are the lyrics:

    Moonlight Dance

    It’s cool in the deep track of the forest
    Cool and quiet and the trees talk softly to me
    They speak of the dance tonight
    And the young girl from across the lake will be there
    Moonlight shines through the leaves
    Enlights the peacocks’ garden
    The glance of the temple of mother earth
    Fills me with administration
    Melodies are carried on the wind
    Graceful and charming and my heart longs to be there
    The feelings are burning with endless desire
    My lips are yearning for her kiss tonight
    “Bound forever the fire of passion
    Burns this cold romance
    Our spirits are unleashed
    We dance the moonlightdance”

  6. The magic runes are writ in gold:

    “Dark of dark,
    Night of night.
    Day of day,
    Light of light.”

    In the fullest moon
    Of the longest night,
    In the ring of stone
    We chant this rite.

    We seek to balance
    The dark and the light.
    Forever keep seperate
    The day from the night.

    Keep seperate these souls
    From each others’ sight,
    As the circle depends
    On the day and the night.

  7. THE RHYME OF DARK AND LIGHT

    Dark of dark, and light of light,
    Is said to never rhyme.
    One avoids the other,
    On the path of time.

    While in the greatest darkness,
    The faint of light shines bright.
    The dust of stars is glowing,
    In the sky of night.

    The burn of day is blinding.
    Noon heat distorts the air.
    Yet, with the height of sunlight,
    The shadow’s always there.

    One is of the other.
    It’s all a point of view.
    One unlike the other,
    The old becomes the new.

    I’ve tried hard to understand it,
    And find myself confused.
    I feel an endless rhyming,
    Of things that can’t be true.

    The loop of time keeps spinning.
    It goes from whence it came.
    Dark of light, and light of dark,
    It’s different, yet the same.

  8. The Amazing Answer Man’s message sparks my curiosity.Are you ready? Here we go…to the question “did I fumble with my keys?”. Yes. fumbled,broken and lost.Hope is the master key (musical key?).
    As for cards,would you not agree they first must be played to be evened up?
    Did I win the wanderlust? Win? No.It’s a gift. Wander? Maybe so but I have been given some direction for the long way home. Lust? What a loaded question.
    Am I tangled in the trees? Yes. the head wind is pretty strong too.(the symphony… well, it is alive but it could be the conductor is on what seems to be a very long break or maybe the volume is low.)
    Did it bring me to my knees? Oh yes!sometimes face down and other times ear down to the desert ground.
    Have I had enough of you? When I have made it through..we’ve only begun.

  9. Eleven months to answer the Amazing Answer Man? -It is interesting that you waited for the longest day of the year.

    It is now 3 years later that I read your reply. -Is it too late? Are we always too late?

    Will you outbid me? …or will you call my hand?

  10. A Failed Eclipse

    Left or right, left or right,
    See the shadow growing.
    Another season’s change has come.
    Hear the wind that’s blowing.

    Moon or sun, moon or sun,
    Leave sleep to choose the sky.
    Waking dreams of words unsung,
    The failure of goodbye.

  11. Echoes and Reflections

    Do I live in a reflection ?
    Do I live inside a mirror ?
    If I touch the silver surface,
    The still water fails to clear.

    So I sail upon this boundary,
    Woven wing slips through the air.
    This journey finds me lonely,
    But I know that you are there…

    …aware.

  12. The Wanderer

    Past life love,
    Past life gone.
    Another life written,
    Another life gone.

    So try, try again,
    Live life long.
    But you can’t save love,
    With a lonely written song.

    What now ?
    What then ?
    Just give up ?
    Just give in ?

    Love is not disposable,
    You can’t deny it’s grasp.
    Love endures forever,
    Love will always last.

    Now, you are out of options,
    One last thing to do,
    Or will you go the old worn way,
    And walk in old worn shoes ?

  13. And as we wind on down the road
    Our shadows taller than our souls,
    There walks a lady we all know…
    Yes,
    There are two paths you can go by,
    But in the long run,
    There is still time to change the road you’re on.

  14. 1Kings17

    Fierce Bliss

    To the best of my abilities I understand this chapter

    Right wing Left wing

  15. Isahiah33

    A lot of talk about the weather.

    Weather this? Weather that?

    Feast or Famine?

  16. Acts 7

    Yes, “Here I Go Again” and
    Yes, “Love Comes From The Most Unexpected Places”

  17. Genesis 41

    The Spirit of Truth

    “ I’ve been alive forever and I wrote the very first Song.
    I put the words and the melodies together.
    I am Music and I write the songs”. BM
    So on and so forth. (Days of Old)

    Looking for Clarity….. are You a Dream Interpreter?

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