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Notes on the songs
1. Summer
Bill: ...A string of images that are left after a northeastern
U.S. summer ends. This is a timeless concern of mine that has not abated
ten years out of school and does not lessen as I get older; the end
of summer as an example of uncontrollable loss; the end of childhood,
the feeling one is left with is melancholia but not depression; it is
the inevitability and acceptance of such loss. We were playing it last
year literally in the shadows of a darkened Fenway Park - which, itself,
standing since 1912, is due to be replaced soon - the day or so after
the baseball season ended.
Chris: 'Summer' is a sensory reminder of the anxious last few
days of the rest of your life - all Jumping Jack Flash and San Francisco
Giants.
2. Sodajerk
Bill: An image from 1930's - 50's America ... sort of Norman
Rockwell-ian starting point to a seemingly upbeat pop song. I have always
wanted to write memorable guitar riffs like my hero Keith Richards.
Well, this became one, and inevitably, has become commodified in TV
advertisements. I let it go and still like to hop up and down to it.
It's funny to think that a song that alludes to jerking off is eing
used to sell cars and shoes. Oh well, it's a living. Chris: Sexual
repression mixed with ice-cream is a classic catholic schoolgirl combination
- Boston; all strait-laced, keep your shirt on at the beach, is full
of ice-cream shops.
3. Taillights
Fade
Chris: Out of the blue bands like Aerosmith have always been
as much of an influence as bands like Dinosaur to the BT. It took until
our third album for other people to notice.
Bill: I used to share a small railroad flat with my girlfriend...it
was so small that when I would want to play guitar - as she was asleep
- I'd have to retreat to the last room in the apartment train; a horrendously-lit
pink and black-tiled bathroom. I would sit and play and...this is one
that came from one of those sittings...
Tom: With this song (and Larry) we were beginning to find our
inspiration as songwriters and a sound of our own as a band.
4. Mineral
Bill: My favorite Buffalo Tom song probably. Another very personal
one. I actually felt like people would recognize themselves in songs
like this and confront me on it. Still nothing. Maybe they don't listen.
Chris: Lots of times when we play Mineral the audience will sing all
the words, which is encouraging and sort of surprising when you think
about it. I think a lot of our fans think that Let Me Come Over was
a career high point. We recorded those songs in a old church out in
the forest.
Tom: Like a fine wine, this song only gets better with age. This
recording is good, but it has even more soul, if you will, when we play
it live. This one song somehow seems to capture all the elements that
are Buffalo Tom. We had truly found our voice.
5. Kitchen
Door
Chris: After I finished the harmonica "solo" for this song I
returned to the studio control room and found our producer Jon Agnello
on the floor laughing himself to tears. I thought the solo was sort
of abstract and punk rock. Later Jon said he left the solo in the mix
so he wouldn't hurt my feelings
Bill: A lot of our songs are hangovers from childhood. People should
realize how aware children are of details around theme and the impact
of things large and small on their lives and future. The short term
memory fades but these images stay forever. My grandmother does not
really know where she is right now, but she'll tell you details about
sleeping in Central Park in the summertime when she was ten.
Tom: Honest to goodness feel good music. This song puts a smile
on my face every time I hear it. Chris thinks Brooks Robbinson still
plays for the Baltimore Orioles!
6. Enemy
Bill: I will not divulge who the enemy is, though there was an
interesting theory by someone who thought it was my guitar.
Chris: J Mascis produced Birdbrain and our first album. He lent
a real metal edge to the guitars and dynamics to songs like Enemy. We
played almost all the songs live to tape with very few overdubs. Dinosaur's
You're Living All Over Me was a giant influence on the band -
and is still a huge favorite of ours.
Tom: This song has a wonderful amount of space, leaving room
for some rather inspired noodling with very powerfully dynamic choruses.
This one makes me oddly nostalgic for the early days of Buffalo Tom.
7. Sunflower
Suit
Bill: This is where we defined ourselves on our first record.
It is very difficult to sing and we used to butcher it live. It became
Motorhead-esque. It was sort of psychedelic punk. The lyrical idea came
from a joke response to the question; "In the film 'The Birds' how did
they train the birds to attack the actors?" and perhaps subconsciously
from Allen Ginsberg's "Sunflower Sutra".
Chris: I once got a nosebleed from playing this song in front
of 22,000 beered-up Belgians - which caused a good reaction in the front
rows.
Tom: Hundreds of mad Dutchmen on our first tour screaming: "I'm
in love with my Sunflower Soup!" night after night.
8. Treehouse
Bill: One day, after we had been rehearsing this for a little
while, I was walking in Davis Square in Somerville and I heard exactly
how I wanted this song to be: sort of a version of 'Can't Alway's Get
What You Want' as done by The Who on "Live At Leeds". So I petitioned
for female backup singers and it was the first time I felt like we were
reaping the benefits of having a bigger recording budget; in Hollywood
having the famous Waters Sisters singing on our record and having them
follow our directions. I also felt a substantial amount of trust from
Tom and Chris to indulge this idea in an indie-rock band.
Chris: We did a great video for Treehouse that was based an old
English horror film called 'The Wicker Man'. In the video the band perform
under the red silk skirts of a colossal, but gentle, wicker man monster.
A group of small children following us turn hostile and throw us into
a bonfire and we burn to death. Not a completely inaccurate description
of our career in some ways.
9. Larry
Bill:
This song defines "Let Me Come Over" for me now as it did when we were
recording it.Ê It was the first time I tried a capo on an electric guitar
and it really opened up some possibilities for me. The simple, but weighted
lyrics soaring over the tension-building progression signify the band
coming into its own. It sounds like Van Morrison over Husker Du to me.
Sometimes a couple of our influences crash like that.
Chris: This song's lyrics reminded me of the New England poet
Anne Sexton; confessional with heart firmly planted on the sleeve.
Tom: Listening to this version now I have to admit that it feels
a little rushed and unsettled. You do have to consider that this was
back in the days when we recorded an entire albums worth of material
in just three or four days! I think we play this song much better now
in our live set. Perhaps now we have the proper subtlety required for
such a delicate yet majestic opus.
10. Postcard
Bill: There is something about close spaces like basements and
attics and closets that continues to inspire me. The images of this
song feel as claustrophobic as my old apartment. I think of Albany as
a dusty old place and what people there do now without Johnny Carson
on the TV. It is not "where do you go?" like Paul Simon posed to Joe
Dimaggio, but "why?".
Chris: On Smitten we're trying to stretch out musically, but
you can really hear our childhood album collection on this song; I think
mid-seventies Stones' albums like Black and Blue and Goat's Head Soup
sculpt a lot of the BT rhythms, words and harmonies. We also expanded
our line-up to include a great keyboadist, Phil Aiken - just like our
heroes.
11. Tangerine
Bill: The year round sun tempts, but I think I would get depressed
anywhere eventually. At least in New England, I can blame it on the
weather.
Tom: Straight ahead, wholesome, pull no punches rock and roll
music, all in just two and a half minutes! For a good time, check out
the B-side acoustic country rock version.
12. Rachael
Chris: It turns out, men really are pigs. Women in the end-run
are probably smarter, more sensitive and will eventually leave this
world less compromised...but in today's world they often seem to get
trampled on, starting at the early age of twelve or thirteen (just like
Rachael).
Tom: From the very first time I heard the acoustic demo of this
song I knew that we couldn't screw it up no matter what we did with
it or to it.
Bill: Sometimes three chords and a good line are all you need.
13. I'm
Allowed
Bill: I was at a party in Aukland where I really felt out of
place. I feel that at most parties, but this one was on the other side
of the globe. Such a thing can lend an air of catastrophe to life on
the wrong day.
Chris: I think this song really sums up the band during the Big
Red Letter Day era. I think we let down a lot of our original indie-rock
fans and even our record label with the production-style of this album
but I think the Robb Bros. really captured what Billy, Tom and I were
going for in those days - this was the real us, not a pose; all acoustic
guitars, big chorus' and fancy harmonies. It's one of my favorite BT
albums.
Tom: It is always fun to hear the live audience try to drown
Bill out singing the opening verse. This one really seems to connect
with a lot of people.
14. Birdbrain
Bill: ...A memory of hiding alone in bushes against a house to
escape from other kids.
Chris: Our band seems full of boys vs. men images and sounds,
not giving up the eight year-old inside of us until we have to. At least
that's how my mom always tagged us.
Tom: You can almost here us in the process of trying to figure
out who we were and what direction we would take as a group. The best
opening guitar riff in the Buffalo Tom catalog. Nice little duelling
guitar solos by Chris and J Mascis at the end, too.
15. Velvet
Roof
Bill: A lyric inspired by my time spent living in NY. I really
wanted this to be a funky dance song. I still await the hip DJ of the
moment mix.
Chris: We shot a video for this song where Bill and I were co-pilots
flying a jet airplane with Tom in the back lounge in silk pajamas drinking
a martini. Hmm, not too far from the truth. Tom: This song has
been aptly described to me as an unstoppable freight train. I can remember
Paul Kolderie, Bill and I grabbing whatever bits of percussion laying
around Fort Apache and shaking them from the beginning to the end, trying
to keep our arms going with all our might.
16. Going
Underground
Bill: I remember buying my first Jam record in a mall in suburban
Massachusetts when I was 17. Not many kids knew who they were in America
at that time. It felt like a discovery. And the Shelly quote on the
back made me run out and investigate his poetry, much like finding the
Stone's influences made me run out and buy old blues records when I
was 13. I always thought this song was more about getting away from
everyday hassles by going underground to the London Underground, or
the 'Tube,' much like Carole King wrote about - though going in the
opposite direction - in 'Up on the Roof'. I really did not know all
the eighties lyrics about 'nuclear textbooks for atomic crimes' before
we recorded it. It was very tempting for the BT, a Jam-like band in
a few respects, to do a faithful version, as we first did indeed do.
But it came out as merely adequate. This was a more challenging deconstruction
of the song and an emphasis on the melancholic melody over the angst
of the original.
Chris: The producer of this track, Wally Gagel, deserves a giant
amount of credit for kicking our asses into trying some different sounds,
but also for remembering what we're good at.
Tom: I was amazed at what melodies could be pulled from this
very English punk rock classic. I had a lot of fun building this drum
track piece by piece. A very refreshing sound for us.
17. Late
At Night
Chris: This song sings about ghosts probably both real and imagined
that have snuck into my room late at night and early in the morning
to waken my girlfriend from her dreams. I think the music was unconsciously
borrowed from a Bob Dylan Jesus-loving song called 'I Believe in You'.
Tom: Perhaps the quintessential Chris Colbourn composition. The
beautiful ache in his voice gets the girls every time. One of my favorite
guitar solos from Bill as well.
18. Wiser
Bill: Wiser has proven to be a favorite of longtime friends and
fans. It is a deeply personal song that takes a peek into a few different
periods in my life. It is one of the songs we had most tinkered with
as a band. I had not even written the chorus progression until the eve
of the recording session, as I walked down the streets in Boston one
night during the pre-production.
Chris: This song reminds me of where we originally met each other
and formed our band; the rotting leaves and rain soaked streets of Northampton,
Massachusetts, drinking coffee, listening to Archie Shepp and reading
books by James Baldwin and Walker Percy at the University of Massachusetts.
Tom: this one almost killed us! Easily, the most tinkered with
song in Buffalo Tom history, but I think it was worth it in the end.
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