Abubilla Music

Background to Songs: Chamberlain in Munich

Written by Jimmy

This is one of those ‘easy ones’ that just fall into place very fast. Six things you might want to know.

1. When I wrote lyrics for Immovable Thing, I wanted to also write the other ‘book end’, i.e., go from the awful pain of loss to the difficulty of reconciliation.   Chamberlain in Munich is a very simple and naive song about reconciliation, taking it a step at a time and at each step wondering whether you’re doing the right thing.  So the character is simply describing one good day, knowing she’ll have to save the memory because there will be a lot of bad days ahead.   The middle 8 then is the ‘confession’:  half the time she is ready to dump this guy, refusing to put up with any more and half the time, she’s simply desparate to appease…to take peace at any price.  She’s Chamberlain in Munich.  Not very subtle.  We talked about cutting out the middle 8 and just leaving the title, but we like the Darth Vadar bit.  You don’t often get to vaporise your lover with your light saber on high.
2. The second reason we wrote this song was to make sure we had another one for Lou’s vocals.  We are putting together the final album and realised to our absolute horror that she was lead on only 1 song.  Half of this was driven by the fact that I had assumed she’d want to put two more of her ‘arrive perfect’ songs on the CD so I just kept the spaces open.  But she got distracted by becoming a famous actress and all.  Half was driven by the fact that she was on backing vocals for everything and in studio and we just assumed she must be lead on something else — then we added it up and realised our ‘fan’ (whoever she or he is) would crucify us if we started the CD with her spectacular vocals on Immovable Thing and then they spent the rest of the CD hearing her on Bvox but that VOICE never returns to lead.  So we had to get something written fast for her.
3. Some songs just happen fast and are pretty much done on first take.  And most happen when Andy and I get together early before band arrives and get structure down.   I had a basic blues tune for verses and some structure on the chorus.  Andy comes and immediately puts down the acoustic slide guitar.    Immediately.  Like as I’m fumbling with tune, he just starts on the guitar and presto magic, we’ve got a country feel.   We then just sang it over and over while he’s going thru his slide guitar until we have the tune.  And to be clear, 90% of time I’m following his lead on the tune bit.   But by time band starts coming in at 1100 we had this pretty much nailed.  So there’s something about Andy and his guitar in the morning that produces magic — same happened on Roadside Comedy, Sandy, One in a Trillion…
4. The next bit of magic happens when Rob starts playing bass over the basic structure.   This again happens very fast when we’ve nailed the structure.  We have finally figured it out …. Rob is not a bassist, he’s our rhythm guitarist stuck with a bass.    But there is nothing more magical then mixing songs when Rob is in the zone — lovely little bass melodies appear in all the empty spaces.  We also bring up the bass as far as we can in our songs to let folks here what this guy is doing.    Listen to 1.39-1.42 or 1.55-1.59 as examples of Rob dancing across the strings.  And he’s often doing this finger dancing while lying down prone on couch (London) or bed (Spain).
5. We put this one down as a band, with everyone playing at once.  Feels much looser than some of our other stuff and we feel it shows a band really coming together.  We also feel this is another book end — if Immovable Thing is the silences of an acoustic guitar and cello on their own with Lou, this is a whole band playing loosely around Lou.    We all felt that with this and One in a Trillion, we’ve begun to discover the SMCC Voice — this is all the more special as that voice now has 10-12 band members…
6. Finally the vocals.   One of my favourite SMCC combos is Lou’s lead with Andy backing.  But we’ve done it very infrequently.   Lou found the voice she wanted first take.  And it forever cracks me up when she ‘goes American.’  And in this case Dolly-American.  You have to understand that between takes she’s laughin’ and jokin’ in her posh little theatrical accent and then she does another take of ‘Oh, the Baddles in my mind.’    If we had any doubts we were going country on this one, Lou sealed its direction with first vocal take.  And so then Andy piled on with some Bvox that rest somewhere on a back road in Tennessee.

Ed’s reflection on the song say it all.   ‘I hate country.  I hate the music. I hate the lyrics.  I hate everything about it.  But I like this one.    Don’t know why.  Did I tell you I hate country?’   High praise indeed.  Enjoy

Jimmy