Here's a link to stream the song: Lovers Left Behind
Of all the songs on this album, "Lovers Left Behind" went through the most stylistic changes during its evolution. For a long time I was sure it would be a very acoustic song - just acoustic guitar and ukulele with vocals. At some point during the recording sessions, I experimented in a new direction: I added electric guitar, drums, bass, banjo, and was writing horn parts. It went from an acoustic first verse to a pretty rocking, kind of worldbeat groove. I still like it - and it's what I'd want to do if I were to play the song with Baaba Seth. But it was going to add a huge amount of time to the recording process, and I was really trying to get all the recording done by March 1st. So I scaled it back a bit. I might still go for the full-on version for another project, but bringing it back down a few levels was the appropriate choice for the context of Division Street.
The track starts off with a ukulele taking center stage; throughout the first verse and chorus, the instrumentation is spare - just the uke and a picked guitar. The lines that stand out here for me are:
We meet our lovers in dreams
That sound like symphonies
That make us tremble in our sleep
Make us fall to our knees
I like the imagery. There are other, more oblique references to dreams in the song. Particularly the first and last chorus. In the lines
Oh the tired way we fly
Our feet are barely off the ground
I'm thinking of those dreams where we are engaged in an activity, but our efforts have very little result. We are running, but though we put forth our entire effort, we are moving very slowly; we can fly, but we flap and flap yet still hover a few scant inches above the earth.
Again, in the second verse, we see a different form of dream - a daydream or a shared vision:
We were bride and groom
We were old, and we were wise
Indeed, the repeating line at the end of the chorus refers to dreaming, or at least pondering:
All the lovers left behind
Are coming down, down, down
Perhaps coming into our thoughts as we sit and ponder our lives, perhaps coming into our dreams, glimpses of our childhood, our distant past. Coming down from wherever those vivid memories reside. The "lovers" left behind could be childhood friends; they could be symbolic for a certain idyllic memory of childhood; they could be our loves past; they could be our current and enduring love - the partner whom we too often take for granted - but who still makes us float into the air. The one who, whether the flying is hard or easy, is still making you fly, one way or the other.
The first and last chorus use the imagery of flying, but of flight that is tiring and difficult. In the second chorus, I wanted to use the same imagery but with a from a different angle:
Oh the sight of you again
My feet don't even touch the ground
Sometimes we open our eyes and sense the world anew.
At the end of the song I couldn't help tacking on a little hint of the more full-blown version. Overall, I was happy with this song's trajectory, the way it builds and moves through the piece. The bridge leads back to the final chorus pretty successfully, both melodically and in the changes. There's a little bit of fret-buzz on the ukulele throughout the song, which bothered me briefly during mixing, but I now I like it. Go figure.
Of all the songs on this album, "Lovers Left Behind" went through the most stylistic changes during its evolution. For a long time I was sure it would be a very acoustic song - just acoustic guitar and ukulele with vocals. At some point during the recording sessions, I experimented in a new direction: I added electric guitar, drums, bass, banjo, and was writing horn parts. It went from an acoustic first verse to a pretty rocking, kind of worldbeat groove. I still like it - and it's what I'd want to do if I were to play the song with Baaba Seth. But it was going to add a huge amount of time to the recording process, and I was really trying to get all the recording done by March 1st. So I scaled it back a bit. I might still go for the full-on version for another project, but bringing it back down a few levels was the appropriate choice for the context of Division Street.
The track starts off with a ukulele taking center stage; throughout the first verse and chorus, the instrumentation is spare - just the uke and a picked guitar. The lines that stand out here for me are:
We meet our lovers in dreams
That sound like symphonies
That make us tremble in our sleep
Make us fall to our knees
I like the imagery. There are other, more oblique references to dreams in the song. Particularly the first and last chorus. In the lines
Oh the tired way we fly
Our feet are barely off the ground
I'm thinking of those dreams where we are engaged in an activity, but our efforts have very little result. We are running, but though we put forth our entire effort, we are moving very slowly; we can fly, but we flap and flap yet still hover a few scant inches above the earth.
Again, in the second verse, we see a different form of dream - a daydream or a shared vision:
We were bride and groom
We were old, and we were wise
Indeed, the repeating line at the end of the chorus refers to dreaming, or at least pondering:
All the lovers left behind
Are coming down, down, down
Perhaps coming into our thoughts as we sit and ponder our lives, perhaps coming into our dreams, glimpses of our childhood, our distant past. Coming down from wherever those vivid memories reside. The "lovers" left behind could be childhood friends; they could be symbolic for a certain idyllic memory of childhood; they could be our loves past; they could be our current and enduring love - the partner whom we too often take for granted - but who still makes us float into the air. The one who, whether the flying is hard or easy, is still making you fly, one way or the other.
The first and last chorus use the imagery of flying, but of flight that is tiring and difficult. In the second chorus, I wanted to use the same imagery but with a from a different angle:
Oh the sight of you again
My feet don't even touch the ground
Sometimes we open our eyes and sense the world anew.
At the end of the song I couldn't help tacking on a little hint of the more full-blown version. Overall, I was happy with this song's trajectory, the way it builds and moves through the piece. The bridge leads back to the final chorus pretty successfully, both melodically and in the changes. There's a little bit of fret-buzz on the ukulele throughout the song, which bothered me briefly during mixing, but I now I like it. Go figure.
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