"It was Jhonn's idea to do "Going Up," and to get Ian's friend Francois, whose voice he loved but I hadn't heard till he came to our studio one day, to sing the words. He did a beautiful job recording three or four takes at most.
Jhonn who spent most of those months in his last year drunk in bed, sobered up specially that morning to 'direct' Francois' recording and although he said he loved Francois' performance, he seemed strangely non-plussed, put out, by what he heard, and even before Francois was gone, retreated into his room and the comfort of vodka...
Apart from the short looped sample of the TV theme at the beginning, the melody was written by me from scratch in summer 2004. At first Jhonn was uncertain about the "pygmy style" funeral chants but grew to like them over the relatively few times we played the song together...
Of course the original theme-tune did not contain any of the more complex overtones or interpretation given to it in the Coil version. Jhonn and I had joked about "Going Upstairs" as a funny euphemism for dying, for years.
Hearing the list of departments as though described by a lift operator in the vocal, now always makes me think of Jhonn's love of acquisition. When he died we had rooms full of carrier bags of stuff he had bought but never unpacked (fortunately mostly from charity shops and car boot sales, not Prada). But this acquisition in some way here reversed, as though as he "goes UP" he is LETTING GO of his need for these material objects, the last of which to go is simply "teas"..."
"It was Jhonn's idea to do "Going Up," and to get Ian's friend Francois, whose voice he loved but I hadn't heard till he came to our studio one day, to sing the words. He did a beautiful job recording three or four takes at most.
Jhonn who spent most of those months in his last year drunk in bed, sobered up specially that morning to 'direct' Francois' recording and although he said he loved Francois' performance, he seemed strangely non-plussed, put out, by what he heard, and even before Francois was gone, retreated into his room and the comfort of vodka...
Apart from the short looped sample of the TV theme at the beginning, the melody was written by me from scratch in summer 2004. At first Jhonn was uncertain about the "pygmy style" funeral chants but grew to like them over the relatively few times we played the song together...
Of course the original theme-tune did not contain any of the more complex overtones or interpretation given to it in the Coil version. Jhonn and I had joked about "Going Upstairs" as a funny euphemism for dying, for years.
Hearing the list of departments as though described by a lift operator in the vocal, now always makes me think of Jhonn's love of acquisition. When he died we had rooms full of carrier bags of stuff he had bought but never unpacked (fortunately mostly from charity shops and car boot sales, not Prada). But this acquisition in some way here reversed, as though as he "goes UP" he is LETTING GO of his need for these material objects, the last of which to go is simply "teas"..."
@autoerratica very nice to hear the context of this attenuating piece of music and song. ????
@autoerratica very nice to hear the context of this attenuating piece of music and song. ????
@autoerratica very nice to hear the context of this attenuating piece of music and song. ????
@autoerratica very nice to hear the context of this attenuating piece of music and song. ????
@autoerratica very nice to hear the context of this attenuating piece of music and song. ????
@autoerratica very nice to hear the context of this attenuating piece of music and song. ????