Article: 288748 of talk.bizarre
From: Ronan Waide <waider@waider.ie>
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: downpour and outpour
Date: 03 Dec 1996 00:37:31 +0000
Organization: EUnet Ireland customer
Lines: 67
Message-ID: <m2g21obgz8.fsf@waider.ie>

'and the rain keeps falling...'

John wrote that song, oh, God knows when. I found it one day in April
'95 while I was poking through his tapes, looking for stuff he'd
recorded - picking an unmarked 90-minute cassette at random, slapping
it in the tape deck and letting it run its length. There was a lot of
stuff there.

'...it lingers on like you...'

John's a born musician. He's one of these people who writes songs the
way most people sleep - it's something unconcious, almost, something
that costs him no visible effort. I've been in a band with him, and
I've jammed with him, and improv was always our best set. 

'...the rain keeps falling...'

John's a keyboard player at heart; back in school when I was listening
to Guns'N'Roses and their ilk, John was listening to Sakamoto,
Sylvian, oh, I dunno, Japan, stuff like that. Bands or artists I'd
never heard of, most of the time. This made for some amusing jamming
sessions and band arguments. Frequently.

'...down.'

Anyway, as I said, John's a keyboard player. To this end, he got
himself a Korg M-1 Music Workstation[tm] while he was in college. This
is one of these hybrid synth/pre-programmed keyboard/sequencer type
systems that are the driving force behind bands like Utah
Saints[1]. The sequencer section is an 8-track gadget with punch-in,
punch-out, bounce, all that sort of stuff. I put together a cover of a
Shamen song with one in 1993, and I'm by no means a keyboard
player. This thing could essentially make a record for you, modula
some professional recording and mixing.

'it was so easy...'

So. There I was, listening to all this amazing stuff that John put
together with his keyboard and slapped onto a few simple little
two-track cassettes that noone ever listened to. And this really
haunting yet simultaneously catchy song comes on.

'...making love with you...'

It was one of those pieces that, if he'd actually gone to the trouble
of getting it recorded and released, would have gone straight into
numero uno and stayed there. It lodged in your brain. I only listened
to it two, maybe three times before I moved out and lost track of
John[2], but it still comes back to me whenever I'm out in the
rain. Just the chorussy bits, mind, I didn't get enough of the verses
to learn them.

'...but now the rain keeps falling...'

It's raining outside.

'...down.'

Waider.
[1] At least, that's what they used when they supported U2 on the
    ZooTV tour.
[2] Last seen working in a bookshop in Milton Keynes, one of the lower
    circles of Hell.
-- 
waider@waider.ie / Yes, it is very personal of me.

Sometimes a metaphor is just a metaphor.