Just a couple of fragments (thanks Matt) while we nail the brads into a brand new wing of the WB WebWorld Dynasty. Watch for your next Newsletter for the ribbon cutting
Fragment #1: Love You Ax, all Axed up.
A few toll-booths back I mentioned a song called Love You Ax, written round about 1996-7, that I’ve so far decided not to release. This is based in large part on Walter’s stated dislike of the song — a member of his “shoot this one every day at dawn” collection. He particularly disliked his singing on it. He was also dissatisfied with the lyrics as they were and said they left a “bad taste” in his mouth (!).
In any case he was never able (or didn’t try) to get an improved version to his liking…and although this wasn’t one he explicitly asked me in his final weeks not to release, I’ve extrapolated from the known facts and decided — at least for now — that it not be publicly posted.
Which is a bit of a shame — because it’s basically a sound, interesting song with good bones, and had a cool instrumental center section and outro that we both liked.
In this clip we've stitched those instrumental sections together. It starts with the center section (which of course begins with a gorgeous modulation out of the chorus). The outro section starts at 0:39-40. The link should open a clip player in a new tab or window.
Fragment # 2: Oceans and Thimbles
The pipeline. You know what that is — it’s the very conceit behind WBMedia itself. Like most writers in any medium, he always had stuff in his pipeline that he flushed into later tunes and recorded songs. Matt and I have been gobsmacked at the lines, melodies, and ideas in his earlier audio and notes that were reincarnated — sometimes a generation later— into something striking that we all recognize now.
This guy never let a good idea die. And it’s just so fucking fucked that so many of those ideas, now languishing unrealized and unheard, outlived him in the bitter end
Anyhoo… what say you to this snippet of a “work tape” — just a beat and a low-volume bass —
from the mid-90s? The link should open a clip player in a new tab or window.
They give you thimbles full of daylight
They give you oceans full of midnight
Yeah yeah yea aaa / vunn vunn / you can never be that way
I crossed the waters/oceans in a tugboat
Wore bloody feathers on my gold coat
You can say I’m not the man/ you say you know
Yet here I am / what do you know
As for more substantive meals from The Vaults, we’re working on an amusing tripartite sequence of an old favorite, and a deep-dive into yet another. Soon come, we hope.
Carry On…
miss you like oxygen, Walter. Love you like god.
First thing I notice are the first 2 lines of the "oceans & thimbles" clip are almost verbatim used in Bob Is Not Your Uncle Anymore on CM. Very cool to see\hear this earlier writing process. Miss you W. KEEP THEM COMING, and thank you Matt & D-Mod!
Love You Ax: Walter's got some keyboard chops. Nice!
Good stuff!
Yup...batter UP!
Great to hear these unfinished works. It’s interesting to me that they both come from roughly the same time, because Ax has a 11ToW feel to me, while Oceans sounds like it could have been something intended for C$. Maybe we just chalk it up to, it’s all Walter and that’s what matters! Thanks for these and keep it coming please!
A ribbon cutting?? I can only hope giant oversized scissors are involved.
Love You Ax: Oh my god that ending is way too cool!! The instrumental bridge section manages to hold up really well even without the context of what comes before it, I'm surprised he wasn't able to work that into something else.
Oceans and Thimbles: This is a nice treat. I've often wondered what his notebooks and tapes of ideas and fragments was like. A great look into the creative process of someone infinitely more creative than I could ever dream of being.