{"id":2163,"date":"2010-07-27T06:47:37","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T05:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2010-07-27T19:31:58","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T18:31:58","slug":"red-velvet-car-song-by-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?p=2163","title":{"rendered":"Red Velvet Car: song by song"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Red
Red Velvet Car<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u00b4s a song of warning about the dangers of this world, and so the instruments are all bleeding into one another and there\u00b4s 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 \u00b4SWLABR.\u00b4 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, \u00b4What the ****?\u00b4 (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\u00b4s kind of the way you talk to yourself. Basically, it\u00b4s intense, and to me it\u00b4s about making mistakes and how hard it is to stay human. (NANCY)\u00a0

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, \u00b4Are you kidding me? I\u00b4d 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\u00b4s always been great at coming up with cool turns of phrase that don\u00b4t really need to be explained because they communicate something powerfully. Musically, I\u00b4ve 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\u00b4s about our home, and our lives. (ANN) Before we were the Emerald City, or the Jet City, we were Queen City. (NANCY)

HEY YOU: \u00b4Hey You\u00b4 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\u00b4s 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\u00b4s 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\u00b4s 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) \u00b4Wheels\u00b4 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\u00b4S 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\u00b4s one of those American pioneer images, but it\u00b4s a lyric that came straight out of a text from Ann ? and that word \u00b4text\u00b4 is even in the song. It\u00b4s 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\u00b4s 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\u00b4s a large metaphor for life really, and the strange places we all go.

SUNFLOWER: It\u00b4s funny because when I first heard \u00b4Hey You\u00b4 there were a few lines I thought I heard myself in. I privately, secretly thought she\u00b4d written a song about me. Then I found out it was definitely about someone else. So I told Nancy, and she then wrote \u00b4Sunflower\u00b4 to try and write a song about me as a birthday gift. She said, \u00b4Here you go, here\u00b4s your present.\u00b4 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 \u00b4Sand\u00b4 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, \u00b4Wow, that\u00b4s such a great song, why don\u00b4t we do it?\u00b4 It\u00b4s 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\u00b4s a simple concept big enough to imprint heavily in your life — the idea that time runs out. (NANCY) Now \u00b4Sand\u00b4 has finally claimed its power and its place. Some songs stay with you, and continue to live and that\u00b4s when you know you really have something.<\/p>\n

Thanx to Davidmonger!<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RED VELVET CARSONG BY SONG WITH ANN AND NANCY WILSONTHERE YOU GO: We made the guitars and drums in the song sound like a quagmire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-2163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heartlinker","tag-red-velvet-car"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2407,"url":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?p=2407","url_meta":{"origin":2163,"position":0},"title":"Red Velvet Car released today in UK and Europe!","author":"TDHS","date":"August 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Heartlinker Red Velvet Car Review Yes, me too. I have been listening to the tracks for a little while now, so I think I'm ready for a review of my own. Let's start by saying this album is indeed among the best of Heart. For that it has to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "HEARTLINKER"","block_context":{"text":"HEARTLINKER","link":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"Red Velvet Car","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heartlinker.nl\/images\/weblog\/rvccoverjune17.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1479,"url":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?p=1479","url_meta":{"origin":2163,"position":1},"title":"RED VELVET CAR is new album title!","author":"TDHS","date":"March 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Heart management has confirmed it to be the title! Meanwhile, Heart just completed work on an upcoming album. Red Velvet Car was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Vancouver's Ben Mink. Wilson says most of the disc's 10 tunes are \"really hard rock or uptempo.\" More from this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "HEARTLINKER"","block_context":{"text":"HEARTLINKER","link":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"RED VELVET","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heartlinker.eu\/images\/weblog\/redrocks4.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2103,"url":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?p=2103","url_meta":{"origin":2163,"position":2},"title":"2nd review for Red Velvet Car","author":"TDHS","date":"July 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Backstage Axxess: Heart will be releasing their 13th studio effort \u2018Red Velvet Car\u2019 on Sony Legacy Records on August 31, 2010 in North America (August 30 in Europe.)\u00a0 Included on the European release are two extra tracks called \u201cBootful of Beer\u201d and \u201cCloser to the Sun.\u201d The band still consists\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "HEARTLINKER"","block_context":{"text":"HEARTLINKER","link":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"Red Velvet Car","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heartlinker.nl\/images\/weblog\/rvccoverjune17.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":586,"url":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?p=586","url_meta":{"origin":2163,"position":3},"title":"So what\u00b4s new today in the studio?","author":"TDHS","date":"January 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Management on the official BBS: \"Ann laid down some scratch tracks yesterday. Debbie added pump organ to the first song. Craig added some electric guitar over the top of the acoustic tracks. Today they are starting on a new song.\" \"Queen City Is the tentative title of the song they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "HEARTLINKER"","block_context":{"text":"HEARTLINKER","link":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ann F. Wilson","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heartlinker.eu\/images\/weblog\/annallaccess.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2040,"url":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?p=2040","url_meta":{"origin":2163,"position":4},"title":"Red Velvet Car Bio by David Wild","author":"TDHS","date":"July 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"HEART -\u00a0RED VELVET CAR BIO (by David Wild) as posted on Heart\u00b4s MySpace Red Velvet Car -- the most personal and powerful work yet from Ann and Nancy Wilson -- takes generations of Heart fans on what truly feels like the musical ride of a lifetime. Powerfully produced by Ben\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "HEARTLINKER"","block_context":{"text":"HEARTLINKER","link":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"Red Velvet Car","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heartlinker.nl\/images\/weblog\/rvccoverjune17.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1886,"url":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?p=1886","url_meta":{"origin":2163,"position":5},"title":"UK RELEASE OF RED VELVET CAR ON EAGLE RECORDS!","author":"TDHS","date":"May 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Eagle Records are delighted to announce the release of \u201cRed Velvet Car\u201d, the first new studio album in six years from the groundbreaking Seattle-based band Heart.\u00a0 The record is released on 30 August 2010 [Cat. No. EAGCD424]. For this album, the first ladies of arena rock added an acoustic slant\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "HEARTLINKER"","block_context":{"text":"HEARTLINKER","link":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"Eagle Records","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.heartlinker.nl\/images\/weblog\/eagle.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2177,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions\/2177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartlinker.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}