Blog
Background on Lyrics to Sat out the 15th
Written by Jimmy
Watched Thrilla in Manilla and found it pretty shocking. Its the story of one of the Frazier-Ali fights but then gives more of the backstory of the two fighters, particularly how Ali betrayed Frazier. I hadn’t realised that Frazier had supported Ali so much during the prison days. And had not realised how much the ‘banter’ before the fight hurt Frazier and his reputation/standing in the black community. So song is simply the contrast between Ali the Saint and Frazier shuffling around the gym. Various lines refer to Ali and Olympic flame, Ali and adidas ad and a lot of the phrases Ali used with Frazier.
the chorus refers to how close the fight was to going on the other way and trying to tell Joe that Ali would have ‘Sat out the 15th’. If he had just gotten up he would have won, but his corner thru in the towel first.
Musically, I only know one blues riff and played it in background on piano with wah wah guitar synth from Pro Tools. Andy then turned it into something but for almost six months this song had me on piano and Wah Wah guitar — the only time I ever appear with an instrument (I’m not even allowed near shakers). Louise was introduced to the Band for one of the first time on this song. We invited her to sing and she came over at 9AM. she only had 30 minutes before rehearsal and we shoved her in front of the microphone and the instructions were — ‘sing like the girl’ on Big Gig in the Sky from Dark Side of the Moon. Go!’ She almost killed us and did walk out a little confused.
Jimmy